Everyone has some physical issue that they live with. When we are younger we just breeze right through it, but as we get older it begins to become a real road block in our lives. Some of the physical issues come on for the first time as we get older. Except for back pain, I was wonderfully healthy until I hit 48. Now, although my back pain has gradually gotten worse, I rarely think of it because of the many new health problems I face. Getting older is not a piece of cake.

          There is an issue I have had my entire life, although I wasn’t aware of it until I was in my mid-twenties. Always, after church, I had a brutal headache. When Marsha and I went for a drive, I would have a headache. If we went to a high school football game, I came home with a headache. Marsha became concerned and made me go to the doctor. He sent me to an audiologist and she checked my hearing. It turned out that whenever there is a musical note played, I hear it in one key in my right ear and in another key in my left. The resulting clash of noise always gave me a headache. The music in church, the music Marsha would play on the radio, the marching band music at a football game, all give me headaches. I had always disliked music. It never made much sense to me and I couldn’t, for the life of me, see what it was everyone found so wonderful about music. Over the years my brain had isolated the correct note that was playing, I suppose by locking into whatever other people were singing, and I learned to follow in singing what my right was telling me, but I still had the headache. Of course, I married someone who loves music. Pray for Marsha.

          As in all things, though, there is a blessing. For me, I have always been very locked into the lyrics of a song. If I concentrate on the words, the music doesn’t seem to bother me as much, at least not at that moment. I enjoy traditional music because there was a great emotional feeling that went into the words. The theology of the old songs is sometimes skewed (There is no fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins. That song terrified me as a child. I didn’t want to be plunged beneath that flood of blood, even if it meant losing all my guilty stain.) but the intensity of feeling is there. I enjoy contemporary music because it very often uses actual Scripture in the lyrics and tends to be true to the Scripture. The music, though, makes me miserable.

          The little country church we went to for a few years when I was in elementary school would have a Gospel sing one Sunday night a month. I always dreaded it without knowing why. But that is where I really learned the old songs. The words fascinated me. On the way home in the family car the conversation was about Sister Tilley’s horrible piano playing or how bad Brother John sounded or how good Dickie and Dottie sounded, both with their singing and guitar playing. But, I kept running the words through my mind. All the music, including Dickie and Dottie, was bad to me.

          This past Sunday our church had the 4 the Light Quartet play at our outdoor service. I am sure they were very good. Everyone seemed to really enjoy it. My interest, though, was the words to the songs. And I wasn’t disappointed.

          Their second song was “Just a Little Talk with Jesus,” which everyone loves for its quick beat and its bass part. All of it is great, but the first verse and chorus is this:

I once was lost in sin but Jesus took me in
And then a little light from heaven filled my soul
It bathed my heart in love and it wrote my name above
And just a little talk with my Jesus made me whole

Now let us have a little talk with Jesus, let us  tell him all about our troubles
He will hear our fainted cry and He will answer by and by
Now when you feel a little prayer wheel turning then you’ll know a little fire is burning
You will find a little talk with Jesus makes it right.

          What could be better than that? For me, the words are just awesome!

          They sang another song from those old Sunday night sings, “I Saw the Light,” and they explained the origins of the song, which is something I love.

I wandered so aimless life filed with sin
I wouldn't let my dear Savior in
Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night
Praise the Lord I saw the light

I saw the light, I saw the light
No more darkness, no more night
Now I'm so happy no sorrow in sight
Praise the Lord I saw the light

          Can’t you just see a wondering, lost soul? Not even realizing he was lost until the Light of Jesus shone down upon him. Praise the Lord, he saw the light!

          Then they sang a song that I have always kept the words to in my heart. This World is not My Home:

This world is not my home I'm just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore
Oh Lord you know I have no friend like you
If heaven's not my home then Lord what will I do
The angels beckon me from heaven's open door
And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.

I guess that what it  is that draws me to this song is the sure knowledge that all the struggle, all the disappointments, all the pain of this world is just a passing thing. The older I get, the more blessed heaven seems and the more disagreeable this world is for me.

They sang 18 songs altogether, including my favorite song of all. Victory in Jesus:

I heard an old, old story,
How a Savior came from glory,
How He gave His life on Calvary
To save a wretch like me;
I heard about His groaning,
Of His precious blood's atoning,
Then I repented of my sins
And won the victory.

O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood.

Yes, it ends with being plunged beneath the blood, but even as a kid the words always lifted me up. It is one of the few songs that brings me to tears. Everything He went through, He went through for me. Now I, and all who believe, have the victory!

Listen to the words of the songs you sing. Let the words stir you, rather than the music. Words are where the lasting power resides. Enjoy!

          Last weekend Marsha and I needed to go to Kokomo. We had time constraints, so it needed to be pretty quick in and out, but we also needed to eat. There are some pretty good restaurants in Kokomo, but we were limited on time, so it pretty much had to be a fast food place. However, fast food is not usually good food and is rarely healthy. You might see my car at the McDonalds drive-thru first thing in the morning, but that is a coffee run. Other than that, we don’t do fast food much.

          On Saturday, though, it really couldn’t be helped.

          We talked about it on the way. Neither of us could come up with anything. But then a place came to mind. I’ll refrain from naming the place for fear of litigation, but they serve little hamburgers on little buns with little boxes of fries. The building is white and sometimes it looks like a castle. But I cannot use the name. We had passed this place many times in Kokomo and it always got us talking about our experiences in Tennessee with this same place (it is a chain) when we were first married. Like most married college kids in the mid-1970s, we tended to be pretty broke. The prices back in the day at this place were really cheap. This was back when McDonalds advertised their basic ‘meal’ for under a dollar, so the white building in the rough shape of a castle had to be cheap to compete. Like fifteen cents for one of those tiny hamburgers. You could buy a bag of ten for $1.40. We ate there on sort of a regular basis.

          And the stories we have! Some of the people we remember seeing, some of the people who worked there, running into people, we talked about it all the rest of the way to Kokomo.

          My favorite story of the white building in the rough shape of a castle concerned the auto parts store where I worked while in college. McCoy, Inc. Cleveland, Tennessee. I was the only non-family member who worked for McCoy, Inc. Consequently, I got all the drudge jobs. Didn’t matter, though. I needed the pay check and working on cars or with people who were working on cars appealed to me. Every day was a late day, but Saturdays were long and hard. Cleveland, Tennessee had a popular stock car race track called Cleveland Speedway. This was before NASCAR was the force it is now and the only place you could watch racing was at a stock car track. And Southerners love their racing. The track in Cleveland ran races on Friday and Saturday night. On Saturday morning, I arrived for work at 6 AM to open the store. There would always be a line stretching for two blocks. These were fellas who had raced the night before and now needed to fix their cars so they could run that night. Broken tie rod ends, fractured drag links, busted rear ends, wheel bearings, blown engines and always new brake shoes. What made it harder was that these guys would have a Chevy engine mounted into a Ford body with a Plymouth suspension. You had to make things fit where they were never intended to fit. This was something I was actually very good at. The most common replacement items on Saturday mornings were engine mounts. Engines under high torque and straining against mounts that were not designed for those engines resulted in broken motor mounts.  Because I was always there early on Saturday I became known as the motor mounts go to guy.

          Anyway, this one morning the owner of the local tractor supply dealership came in. 6’7”, 300 pounds, rough talking, demanding, nothing you ever did was good enough. He wouldn’t come in until 9 when he knew the owner of the store, Mr. McCoy, was in. But the big man wouldn’t let the owner wait on him. He wanted me. He loved to berate me, call me names and in general try to tear me down. I’d smile, tell him Jesus loved him and try to satisfy whatever his need was for that night’s race. Inwardly, I just didn’t like him.

          On this morning, we were trying to match up motor mounts for him. He had come back into the aisle with me. I was squatted down going through the mounts while he told me what a worthless slug I was. Behind us, against the wall, was a floor to ceiling rack of batteries. Batteries for cars, trucks, tractors, semis, boats, you name it. Beyond the wall was the parking lot. All of a sudden there was a loud bang behind us. The owner’s daughter-in-law had pulled up to the building and then hit the gas instead of the brakes. She bounced over the curb and into the wall. I didn’t know what happened, but something in my mind click and said “DANGER!” I came out of that squat at full speed, knowing those batteries would be coming down. The tractor supply owner was right there, so my shoulder buried into his gut and his body folded over mine and we shot down the aisle. We got about halfway down when, out of balance with his body, I lost my footing and went down on the polished floor. I was on top of the big man and we slid to the wall, ending up under the exhaust pipes. I was higher than him, so I hit the pipes, knocking a lot of them down on us. Meanwhile, behind us there were dozens of batteries hitting the floor and bursting. Battery acid began to eat at the floor and the fumes filled the air. I rolled off the guy and sat up, looking behind me and knowing that I was going to have to clean that mess up. Meanwhile, the big man jumped to his feet and yanked me up to my feet. His face was beet red, he had lost his cap and his hair was sticking out all over the place. ‘Oh boy,’ I figured. ‘Now I’m dead meat.’ “BOY!” he screamed in a falsetto voice. “YOU SAVED MY LIFE! YOU SAVED MY LIFE!” Then he hugged me like a long lost brother. He pushed me away but held onto my shoulders, tears in his eyes. “YOU SAVED MY LIFE!” I tried to tell him that he was just in my way, but he wouldn’t hear it. All he knew was that he was alive. Then he hugged me again. He left after a while. Everyone did except me. I did have to clean the mess up. Every bit of clothing I had on, including my shoes, were ruined by the acid, but the boss replaced everything. Breathing in the fumes was hard, but that wall was down, so I had air.

          Now, you might ask, how does that figure into the white building that was roughly built like a castle? We had one of those in town. From that time on, every Saturday at noon, the tractor supply owner would walk into McCoy’s and call me out. “PREACHER BOY, COME OUT HERE!” I’d stop whatever I was doing and go up front. “FELLAS,” he would shout, “I USED TO GIVE THIS BOY A HARD TIME! REALLY HARD! AND HE’D JUST SMILE AND TELL ME JESUS LOVED ME! MADE ME MAD! BUT I TELL YOU, JESUS DOES LOVE ME! WHEN I WAS GONNA BE KILLED, JESUS PUT THIS FELLA RIGHT THERE FOR ME! HE THREW ME OVER HIS SHOULDER AND GOT ME OUT OF HARM’S WAY, THEN, PRAISE GOD, HE SHIELDED ME WITH HIS OWN BODY AND KEPT ME FROM MORE HARM! YES SIR, I BEEN IN CHURCH EVER SINCE! THIS HERE BOY SAVED ME, THEN JESUS SAVED ME AND NOW I AM SAVED TWICE OVER!” Honestly, I tried to explain, but he was determined to tell the story his way. And, every Saturday, when he showed up he had a bag of a dozen of those little hamburgers for me. After he would leave I’d split them with the boss’s son. After all, his wife was the one who crashed the wall.

          We were laughing about that as we walked into the white building the other day. Marsha said, “You know, I don’t think we have been in one of these places since those days. Wow. 41 years!” Yes, 41 years since we had enjoyed one of those wonderful little burgers.

          We got our food and sat down. It was more expensive, but it has been 41 years. We both bit into our little wonderful burgers at the same time. They were……….awful. We both looked up and made faces. Marsha choked her bite down and said, “So that’s why we haven’t been here in 41 years!” The buns are steamed in what tastes like steamy grease. The burgers are like a spreadable paste. The fries weren’t awful, but they tasted like the buns. The pop was good, but it came out of a preloaded tank. Neither of us finished our meal.

          It got me thinking about memory. Our good memories have many elements. We have good memories of our church because of weddings or baby dedications or whatever, and we forget the things we didn’t like. We don’t think of the rotted step that broke or when the furnace went down on that cold day. We tend to push the memory of conflict and hardship to the back of our minds. More pleasant to remember the stuff that made us smile until the day comes that the memory is better than the reality. Always nice to take the trip into the past, especially when the past has been sanitized. But, we can’t live there. We live in the present and in this present, we have things that need to get done. Which means there is work to do and we need to get to it.

Blessings.

          I was recently talking with another pastor and our conversation had to do with death. He was referring to a recent incident for him and he remarked that he had been present at the time the lady had passed. He was expressing the feeling he had at the moment. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been present now for three deaths.” He was talking about how affected he had been at the passing of the lady, so I let that statement go. But I thought to myself, ‘only three times?’ Granted, my ministry has been much longer than his, but being present only three times seems like a small amount for someone who truly takes being a pastor seriously. And this pastor does take it seriously. When we pastored in the same town I would often run into him at a hospital or nursing home. It is just how his ministry has developed, I suppose, that has caused him to only witness three deaths.

          A few days later I watched an interview on the internet where a supposed expert was talking about what happens at death. He was talking about the body and what happens to it starting at the moment of death. The interviewer asked about the soul. “I used to believe in a soul, but no longer. There is only a shutting down of our brain and body activity and then darkness.” The interviewer nodded and proceeded with the rest of the interview.

          What stirred me about both of those events was, first, I have been present at a fairly large number of deaths and, second, the expert on death probably was never in the same room when someone died. Or, if he was, the person dying was filled with morphine or some form of pain killer that rendered him or her unresponsive.

          I have seen Christians approaching death and struggling against it, but only because they were leaving loved ones behind. Spouses, children, grandchildren, special loved ones they didn’t want to be parted from. Maybe loved ones who were not believers. I had one lady grab me by the shirt front and pull me close. With my ear an inch from her mouth she whispered in a fierce whisper, “Tell them at the funeral how to be saved. It’s your only chance!” And that’s what I did. Usually, as death gets closer, the dying Christian begins to relax as they realize it is going to happen. I would have to say, it almost seems as though they are enjoying the passage. I have seen beautiful smiles. I have watched the dying see someone I could not see and I have witnessed joy spread across their face. One lovely gentleman, just before he died, looked up at me and said, “I’m going to see Jesus! Is there anything you want me to say to Him?” A minute later he was telling Jesus face to face.

          Then, there is the other side to that, as well. On a few occasions, I have been present when someone died who had never trusted in Christ. One lady let out a piercing scream as she passed. It completely unnerved me and everyone in the room. On the way home, I told myself that I would never do that again, but I did, the next time I got a call. For a period of time I worked at a funeral home, dealing with families in grief and helping to prepare bodies for burial. One morning the owner of the funeral home told me that we had brought in a woman during the night and the family was going to come in around noon for a private viewing before cremation. Could I prepare her for the viewing? Of course, I said yes and went down to the prep room. The woman had died screaming, a look of unimaginable fear on her face. Rigor mortis had set in and her face was frozen in the scream. When the family got there, their mother looked normal, but only because I had spent over two hours rubbing her facial muscles to relax them.

          History is filled with stories of famous people, rulers and philosophers and great thinkers, and their reactions as they passed from life to death. Their deaths were rarely quiet. They weren’t drugged out of their minds but rather, they had all of their mental faculties. They were witnesses to their own deaths and they were witnesses to their passage to their eternal reward.

          Edger Allen Poe, the famed American horror writer, looked up and, with wide eyes, said, ”Lord, help my soul!” Harriet Tubman, the former slave who had helped to organize the Underground Railroad, by which many slaves gained their freedom, started to sing the words to the old Negro spiritual, “Swing low, sweet chariot…..” Then she died. The whole phrase is, Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me Home! Charles Darwin, son of a minister and the man who gave the theory of evolution its great shove forward, supposedly recanted the whole thing as he died. And my aunt Evie, a true and loving Christian, refused medication for the last two days of her life because she wanted to see Jesus come for her. “Here He comes!”

          There is a privilege at being in the room when a believer leaves this earth. When the gentleman asked me if there was anything I wanted him to tell Jesus when he got there, I was stunned and tongue tied. He was about to see Jesus and he wanted to be a messenger for me. Wow! One of the more impactful moments for me was a time I walked into a hospital room at the frantic call of a young mother. She was frantically pacing with her tiny daughter in her arms. When I entered she thrust the child into my arms. Maybe she thought I could heal the little girl. But that precious face looked up at me, wide eyed, and she gave a shudder and died. The thought I had later was that the last face she saw here was mine and the next thing she saw was glory.

          But there is also an immense sadness when you witness the death of a lost person. Their passing is to eternal damnation. Think whatever you will think, but I have seen them pass to horror. It is something I wouldn’t want any of you to witness, but it is also something I wouldn’t have wanted to have missed. Not for any joy, but for the lesson.

          I never have a doubt about what is coming. I have seen the reactions of people as they slip away. I feel sadness for that ‘expert’ who has it all figured out. His faith is in science, his god is a microscope. I fear that when he realizes the truth, it will be too late.

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 [LW1]

          We tend to assume that where we grow up or where we live is just like anywhere else. The foods are the same, the activities are the same, the thought processes are the same and so on. But that isn’t true at all. There are a lot of things that are regional. For us, since moving to Northeast Indiana a year and a half ago, we have found many things that seem strange.

          As an example, food is different. Marsha and I have, for I don’t remember how long, had grilled cheese sandwiches for supper on Sunday nights. I think it started out as a quick and easy meal for me back when I first started doing youth on Sunday nights. So that goes back a long way. When we came here we found out we weren’t eating grilled cheese. We were eating toasted cheese or cheese toasties. It is the same thing, but called something different. It is the same with what we called chili dogs. A hot dog with something on it that somewhat resembles chili. The best ones, made at home, have actual chili on them. Here, they are called Spanish dogs. Makes sense, seeing as how chili is kind of a Spanish dish. It just takes some getting used too.

But some things are either totally different or missing altogether. On Sunday I walked up on a group conversation after church. I stood and listened as various ones talked about the fair foods they really liked. Someone turned to me and said, “I bet you like elephant ears best, don’t you?” Just the question confuses me. Why does everyone assume I like elephant ears? I may look like I can suck an elephant ear down in a micro second, but truth be told, I have never liked the nasty things. My reply, “No, actually, I really like the Belgium waffles.” This was met with a half dozen blank and confused stares. One person said, “Now, what exactly is a Belgium waffle?” Assuming it was just called a different name here, I started describing it. About two inches thick, paper thin crust, a geometric design inside. No filling or any such thing, just the paper thin crust, slightly sweetened, deep fried. No one had ever seen such a thing. Last year Marsha and I went to the fair here before any food concessions had opened, so I didn’t get my yearly fix of Belgium waffles. Now I find out that I will likely never enjoy another of the crispy treats again. I am disappointed.

 One food that I will likely never eat is pork tenderloin. For us, a tenderloin is a cut of beef. A good cut of beef. You can get beef tenderloin here, too, I suppose, but here in Northwest Indiana it is all about the pork tenderloin. It might really be very good, too. I’ll never know. I can’t eat pork. I am down to just two or three strips of bacon without getting sick. I grew up eating pork and loved it, but as an adult everything changed. So, of course, the Lord brought us here to Pork Central, USA.

 Another thing that is different is the county fair. The difference is wrapped up in the name. Where we come from, in fact, everywhere we have ever lived, it is called the county fair. Here, it is the 4-H county fair. When we first moved here we heard of the 4-H county fair and thought that there would be two fairs; a 4-h fair and a regular county fair. Which pleased us. Where we came from, they had 4-H exhibits at the county fair, but it was no big deal as far as the fair was concerned. Most of our kids in our church were 4-H kids, but that really was the exception. The fair there was all about rides and exhibits that had nothing to do with anything interesting. One long building was devoted to political things. You could go in to register to vote or get information on your party or sign up for right to life and things like that. Another building would feature Culligan water, walk in bathtubs, travel agencies, job fairs, a Wal-Mart booth and so on. One building would feature the county’s history. 4-H and livestock were just a sidelight. If it wasn’t for our kids in 4-H, and later Marsha having the assignment to photograph the events, I doubt we would have even gone.

 But here, it is really cool! You start walking around the buildings and you can ask anyone any question about the animals, and they know. Even a little kid. Here, the rides are secondary. If I saw a political candidate anywhere, I didn’t know it because he/she wasn’t there to campaign. To me, this is what a county fair should be. Marsha entered a couple of photos and did well and was much more excited than she would have been in Ohio, because this is really a county fair! My only regret is that I couldn’t eat a Rich Valley tenderloin and there were no Belgium waffles.

 We have lived in Tennessee, Alabama, Florida (pursuing education in those three states), Ohio and now Indiana. We have been to fairs in all five places. All different. We have been to eateries in I don’t know how many states. They all have their regional things. (At a Cracker Barrel in Fredericksburg, Virginia the waitress asked us if we wanted sissy sticks with our drinks. At our confused looks she kind of rolled her eyes and said, “I guess you would call them ‘straws.’) We have been to, and preached or sang in, churches in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Ohio, Georgia and Indiana. All those churches were different. But in every one of those churches, in spite of all the differences in the people and the locales, when you say, ‘turn in your Bibles,’ they take their copy of the Word of God, they reverently open the Book and they settle back to hear the Word read.

           So, it’s not all different. Still, I would really like to have a Belgium waffle.

          Young Richard, just 12 years old, sat close in front of the family’s new television, transfixed at the flickering picture. It was May 5, 1961. Not all of his friends’ families owned televisions, so several of his friends and his little brother sat on the floor with him. They weren’t fascinated by the television set, even though it was a relatively young technology. They were engrossed with the image of a very large missile sitting on a launch pad in faraway Florida. A voice was counting time down and when the voice reached zero, the giant rocket ignited and the rocket began a slow, thunderous rise. In a tiny capsule perched on the top of the rocket sat Alan Shepard. It was a brief flight, actually just 15 minutes, but with that flight, Shepard became the first American to reach space and the first person ever to actually control his space craft. Richard knew immediately that one day he would fly to the stars.

          Even though he had this vivid dream, he was also a kid. Two years later he went with a friend and his family to an amusement park less than an hour away. Conneaut Lake Park in the north-western corner of Pennsylvania. There were a lot of things to do there, but the big attraction was a wooden rollercoaster. By our standards now, it wasn’t much of anything. But in 1963, it was legendary. Richard was excited! To him, it would be a close approximation to a rocket blast off. He and his friend went to the coaster first thing. They boarded fearlessly. (I actually road the thing 30 years later as an adult. I was terrified. Last coaster I would ever ride.) It took off slow but gained speed. Like all the wooden coasters, the thing vibrated and trembled and shook and jerked and moaned. When it was over, Richard’s friend ran off to ride other rides, but Richard got back into line and rode the coaster again and again.

          In 1967 Richard graduated high school. The dream of rocketing to the heavens was still hot in his mind, but reality said that he needed to do college and be an officer in the military. At the time, all astronauts were officers with college. His plan was to go to college and then join the military, preferably the Navy like his hero, Alan Shepard. But college was the problem. The money wasn’t there from his parents for college and he felt that if he worked his way through he wouldn’t be able to pull the grades needed to get into the astronaut program. So, he went to his local recruiting station (Army) to see what his options were. The recruiter told him the thing to do was join the Army, do his hitch and when he got out, go to college on the GI Bill. Then, he could transfer to the Navy, go through officer school and be on his way. Richard was convinced. He became a recruit.

          For some reason, he never considered the idea he might wind up in Vietnam. But, after Basic Training, he received orders to that war-torn country. Still, he was confident. He had made many friends in basic and a number of them were going to Vietnam as well. He could trust his buddies.

          So, Richard went and fought. He often thought of it as a strange, alien world. Strange and large insects, snakes, weird night sounds. One day, as they trooped along a trail near a wide and deep river, one of his buddies swore softly and said, “Dickie, look at that!” Richard followed the pointing finger and saw a huge fish, he estimated 5 feet long in a letter home, drifting in the river, looking like it was dying. What was amazing was that it was obviously a catfish. Nothing like that in the creeks back in Pennsylvania! It was a strange and alien world.

          The day was coming when Richard would be going home. Well, not really home. Back to a base in the United States. But anywhere out of Vietnam sounded like home to him. His squad was making one last tramp through the jungle in an area that was supposed to be clear of any Viet Cong, when a fire fight broke out. It wasn’t a huge fire fight, nor a very long one, but suddenly Richard spun around and hit the ground. He lay there for a bit as the fighting died away, oddly unable to move much. That seemed really weird, until the pain started. By the time a medic got to him the pain seemed to be all through him. Some morphine and he was being carried away.

          That ended his military career. The bullet had passed through his shoulder, wrecking the clavicle. He was never able to lift his left arm very high after that, so his usefulness to the military was no longer there. With that went the dream of space travel. The disappointment was made worse by the fact that the bullet that hit him was fired from behind him, so it was friendly fire, fired by one of his buddies who reacted badly to the suddenness of the fight.

          But, he still had the GI Bill. When he got home, with a medical discharge, he went to school. He still wanted to be involved in some way with the space program, so he went heavy with science courses. However, war and his devastating injury and his overwhelming disappointment played havoc on his ability to concentrate. One of his professors felt he needed a tutor to help him until he settled down and the person he approached was an attractive young lady, a year older than Richard, who was in her senior year preparing to teach high school science and needed the two extra credits tutoring would give her. As they say, one thing led to another and the two were married two years later.

          Richard did settle down with Janice’s help. He was actually quite brilliant. With the GI Bill and Janice’s teaching, he was able to pour himself into his studies. He eventually achieved a doctorate in theoretical physics. He and Jan had three kids. Richard got on with NASA and they wound up living the dream in Houston, Texas. Other than the shoulder problem, Richard had no physical issues. Jan had a brush with cancer, but it was just a brush and she recovered and became a survivor. The children were strong and healthy kids and became strong and healthy, and smart, adults. Some years ago, Richard retired, his only regret being that he never flew.

          For his retirement, Richard’s only sibling, his brother Stewart, and his wife, Christine, flew down to Houston. Stew had gone a different path. A year and a half younger than Richard, he had idolized his big brother. When Richard had sat there in 1961 watching Alan Shepard rise into space, Stew had sat next to him. They got to play on the same Little League team and eventually played a year together in football and baseball in high school. Stew had gone to Vietnam, too, but he had been drafted. He had talked to his mother just before deployment and had heard that his brother had been wounded. Vietnam had a different effect on the brothers, though. While Richard was even more driven to reach out to the stars, Stew was driven towards God. While Richard served the sciences, Stew came back and choose to serve the Lord. Still, even separated by miles and ideology, the brothers remained very close.

          The morning after the retirement party, the two brothers sat in a small restaurant having coffee and something that vaguely resembled pancakes. As they chatted, Stew brought up a subject he had talked about with Richard before. He asked his older brother if he was ready to accept Christ as Savior. Richard put down his fork, took another sip of the coffee, and said, “Stewie, I am not like you. I am a man of science. I only believe in what the five senses tell me. If I can’t see it, feel it, taste it, hear it or smell it, I don’t believe it exists.” He smiled the older brother smile that said he had won the argument. But Stew looked his brother in the eye and said quietly, “Then your whole life is a lie. You were certain that the old coaster at Conneaut would be like a rocket ride without ever seeing it. You were sure that your buddies would protect you in Nam without thinking one would break in that shootout. You say you love Janice and your kids, but love is an emotion that you can’t see or touch or taste or hear or smell. You are a theoretical physicist, your job was to go after theories that have no connection to our understanding of the world. You have reacted on faith your entire life, yet here, now, you say that you have no faith.”

               Hebrews 11:1-3---Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

          Even Christians can get to where faith is no longer guiding their lives. We conduct our personal, family and church lives as though it all has to make sense to us personally. But it made no sense whatsoever for Christ to sacrifice Himself on Calvary for us and it makes no sense whatsoever for us to demand proof for our faith when we require no proof for so many decisions we make in life. Let’s all start walking by the faith we speak of instead of just talking about it.

1997. I was pastoring in Geneva, Ohio. We lived about 50 miles from Cleveland. One of our men was in for a touchy surgery at the Cleveland Clinic and I was there with the family. The Clinic is a huge place. Extremely professional. Always rated in the top five hospitals in the country. It was one of those terrible, drenching rainy days in early November, overcast and lightening and booming. Needing to get away by myself for just a bit, I caught an elevator to the 8th floor, at that time the top floor in the hospital. I knew of a glassed- in observatory up there and I wanted to see the storm up close.
          When I got there the room was oddly empty except for a thin man standing by one of the windows. He wore an old suit that was shiny from wear. In the reflection of the glass I could see his eyes were closed and his lips were moving. A battered old Bible was clutched in his right hand. He stood there all alone, yet there was the feeling of a presence about the place.
          After a bit his lips stopped moving and his eyes opened. He took a deep breath and his thin, narrow shoulders straightened. "Pastor," I said. "Are you OK?" I knew, somehow, that he was a Pastor. Maybe it was the suit, maybe it was the old Bible. Or maybe, probably, it was something more. He looked at me via the reflection, never turning, and said in a soft Southern drawl, "Yes, Pastor, I reckon I'm fine. Just praying for one of my ladies, is all. Wouldn't be up here in this crazy ole city if it wasn't for her. She's in surgery. Just had to step away from her family for a bit." By this time I had stepped up to the window next to him and he turned and faced me. About 50, his face was damp with tears that had run down the wrinkles caused by years of care and strain. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. I told him why I was there and I asked him where he was from. Somewhere in West Virginia, I couldn't tell you where now. Pastored a little country Baptist church on some mountain. Had driven his pick-up all night to get there. Couldn’t really afford a room. His clothes were old but clean, his shoes battered but polished, his Bible well read and precious to him. I asked about his church and he lit up as he talked about the little church in an old coal mining town. Good people. They took care of him and his wife as best they could. This was the farthest he had ever come without her, but she had slipped and fallen feeding the chickens a week ago and though she was doing fairly well now she figured the trip would be hard on that sore hip. He talked about how the Lord had blessed him and the Mrs. and the how He was looking after the church even now that the mines had closed. "He's a big God, Brother Pastor," he told me.
             We stood and talked for about fifteen minutes. It was getting time for us both to get back. Still, in one of the busiest hospitals in the country, no one had come into that room. After a bit we prayed together and then shook hands again and he ambled away. He was headed down to the second floor of what was probably the biggest building he had ever been in. I held back for a bit, looking out at the storm. The rain kept coming down, making a drumming sound against the glass. I needed to go and check on my own folks, but for just a bit I tarried. The storm reminded me that the world is a dangerous, gloomy and stormy place, but there are moments and places in those moments that are heaven sent. Right then I was standing right where that pastor had stood. It felt like holy ground and I wanted to feel it a little longer.
          People started filtering in then. The quiet moment had passed and it was the hospital again. I don’t know what became of that pastor, but I thought about it later. I knew he was a pastor when I saw him. He had a depth of Spirituality I had never felt before. When he was there I was standing on holy ground. For 15 minutes God allowed me to be in the presence of greatness. College, seminary, highly educated professors. Yet, none of them compared to that pastor from West Virginia. Weary from driving, ill at ease at being in a city, loving his people, taking the time to talk with a younger pastor. A man drenched in the Spirit. Someone I was privileged to meet. I pray that memory stays with me always. 

          Back in 1994 we had finished a long ministry at a church in Warren, Ohio. At the request of our denomination at the time, I had gone to a church in crisis to deal with a nasty little issue. It was something that was very difficult, something that, even though I had been trained for, I would have been happy to have avoided forever. But, we jumped in with both feet. Very stressful.

One night Marsha showed me an ad in a local paper saying they wanted someone to report on high school football games that fall. I had no hobbies and no way to blow off steam from the pressures of pastoring that wayward little church. Wouldn’t it be fun to do something a little different for a while? It would only involve ten Friday nights. It also only paid $20 a game but they covered gas and you got into the games free and got to sit in the press box. I thought for a bit and then thought, sure, why not? And soon I had a genuine press pass and a pencil and I was a sports reporter. One thing led to another I ended up doing all high school sports in that town for an entire year, which wasn’t real fun. But I learned some things, one of which was that girls’ sports were not the same as they had been when I had been in school. Girls no longer slapped at volleyballs or squealed and tried to get away from errant basketballs. The first girl’s sport I covered was a volleyball game. Several times girls would slam into the floor diving for balls. One girl crashed into the stands going after a ball. They were fearless to stand in front of a spike. I was completely mesmerized. Girls, 20 years after high school for me, were every bit as tough as the guys. Actually, I think that if I was in high school now I might be a little scared to date.

          There were two girls on the same volleyball and basketball teams who went over six feet. They dominated. They were great. They were unstoppable. In every game I covered I was completely impressed. Rebounds, elbows flying, bodies knocking others out of the way. It was hard to think of these girls as kids who had normal issues and concerns. They were scoring machines.

          One evening I went by the school to talk to the coach. I was walking into the gym after practice and a lot of the players were leaving. I smiled and nodded at them but then one of the two really fine players stopped me. Everything about girls’ sports made me feel out of place and now standing there looking up at a 6’2” girl just seemed surreal. But she wasn’t stalking the basketball court now, looking for someone to devour. Now she was a pretty blond girl who just happened to be 6’2”. Like most blonds when they are a little embarrassed, this girl was blushing a deep crimson red. Oddly, that made me feel better. She kind of stammered a little, but she wanted to thank me for writing a favorable article about her. I told her that I had only reported the facts, nothing more. But then I remembered that this was just a kid, a senior in high school who would be going out to meet the world soon. “Grace, I want to tell you something. There are college recruiters in the stands at every game. Don’t be bowled over. You have a great talent, but you are a greater person. Go to school on that scholarship, get what you can get but keep your mind focused. You are Grace Bennett, be the best Grace Bennett you can be.” She smiled a little and said she would be the best she could be and off she walked.

          Grace got her scholarship and then Grace got pregnant. By that time, I had quit doing sports because I had been called to another church farther away. I heard what had happened and I felt bad for Grace. I was a little disappointed, but she soon slipped from my mind. I knew she never went to college. One mistake, one bad choice…….

          Ten years later Marsha and I were in that small town where I had written for the paper. We were sitting at a table in a small eatery. A tall blond woman walked in with a tall blond boy of about ten. She handed him a few quarters and he ran off to join his friends in the arcade and she went to get their meals. It took me a second to realize I wasn’t just seeing a Mom, I was seeing Grace and her child. She got their food then called to him and he left his buddies and came over to eat. They prayed before they ate. They chatted and laughed over their meal, enjoying the food and each other. It was a sweet scene. When she saw me, she smiled a little and turned red. As they were leaving they passed our table. I said, “Hi Grace.” She turned a little redder and said, “HI, Mr. Wade.”

The thing that pleased me was that she hadn’t let that one mistake beat her at life. It changed the course of her life, yes, but she had risen above it. She was neat and clean and her son was neat and clean. They got into a nearly new SUV in the parking lot. Not only did she and her son have a good relationship, but his friends seemed to like her, as well. She could have had a very different life, but she wound up embracing the life she had. She became the best Grace Bennett she could be.

Because they had prayed over their meal, I knew that the Lord was involved in their lives. So long as the Lord is there, Life doesn’t have to beat us down.

 Blessings to you all.

          The day after the 4^th of July. I had an 8 AM doctor appointment in North Manchester. As I walked into the office there was a bottle rocket laying on the sidewalk. The back end was burned from the rocket part, but the tip was not exploded. So, a dud. The thing that bothered me was that it was there, right in town. Whoever had fired it off had little concern for others who might be out walking or enjoying the evening. I started to feel a little angry, and then I thought about my own youthful fascination with firecrackers.

          I wasn’t always the serious and mature person I am now.

          When I grew up in Ohio, fireworks were illegal. I had a cousin who would occasionally get his hands on some, but mostly we had nothing. But, when I went to college in Chattanooga, Tennessee I discovered that fireworks were legal throughout that state. At almost every exit on every interstate there was a fireworks store. The first time I walked into one of these emporiums loud joy, I was blown away (no pun intended). Not only were there firecrackers, which to me were exotic, but there were bottle rockets and sky rockets and snakes and Roman candles and all kinds of other explosive things. One of my favorites was a little military tank that, when lit, would shoot out a series of small, exploding balls until the tank itself exploded. Oh my! What fun! And there were virtually no restrictions. You had to be at least 18 to buy the Space Master, which was a huge rocket that looked as though it might reach space, but that was it. Little kids could buy stuff. In most places, the only thing they watched out for were people smoking. That could have created a problem.

          I went home from college the summer of 1975 and got married. Within a week of our marriage Marsha and I were headed back to Tennessee. It was on that trip that Marsha began to realize she had married an idiot. We crossed the line into Tennessee at Jellico, Kentucky and I immediately wanted to find an exit. I knew Marsha would be as excited about the abundance of fireworks as I was, so you can imagine how shocked I was when I found out different. She was shocked at the prices. She was shocked at how easy it was for kids to buy stuff. She was shocked about my attitude toward the fireworks. In the end, I bought a little bundle of bottle rockets. My days of space exploration came to an abrupt end.

          I had my moments. Once in a while I would run up the highway and stop and get a sky rocket, then take it to an old little league field and shoot it off from the pitcher’s mound. But then one day one got away from me and wound up hitting a cow in the neighboring pasture. That was my last pitcher’s mound excursion. Another time the bride and I stopped at a popular ice cream stand. This particular evening it was crazy crowded, so the cars were parked in rows. Right in front of us was an older man and woman. They were enjoying the soft breeze and their ice cream treat when a Sky Blaster flew across the parking lot. A Sky Blaster was a bottle rocket, but it was about 10 times bigger than a regular bottle rocket. You can’t really aim a bottle rocket, so I am pretty sure the shooter didn’t mean for the rocket to go into the older couple’s car, but it did. It made it into the backseat and then was unable to escape. So, it rocketed all around the backseat until it exploded, filling the car with noise and fire and smoke. Marsha was outraged, and I felt bad for the folks in the car, but there was still a part of my brain saying, “That was so COOL!”

          By the time I was in my second year of seminary, however, I had settled down. I was involved in the serious business of preparing for the ministry. I was also involved in the serious business of working a full-time job. I was also involved in the serious business of pastoring a small church in the country. I had no time for the foolishness of fireworks. Until the Russian Air Force shot down a Japanese civilian air liner.

          My preaching course in seminary (called Homiletics, or the planning, preparation and presentation of a sermon) was a two-year course. I was working really hard at it, mostly because I wasn’t very good. Our professor told us at the beginning that no one had ever gotten a final grade better than 95%, and that was just one person in the 30 years the professor had been teaching. Most of us, he assured us, would fail and we would have to take the two-year course again. As I said, I wasn’t very good, so I took a speech class as well. This in addition to the full scholastic load. Working full time, more than the normal school load and pastoring. I was numb and was making stupid decisions. When the Russians shot the Japanese plane down I just happened to have a demonstration speech coming up with no idea what to do. My befuddled brain reverted to fireworks and I hatched a plan

          Killing innocent people is serious stuff. But, part time idiot that I can be, I decided to do a speech on people making their own jet fighters to combat the Russian menace. My idea was to take a toy balsa wood glider plane and tape a bottle rocket onto the back of it, creating a tiny rocket plane. Then I would light the fuse, toss the plane and it would take off. It would be funny, but we would present it with full seriousness. I say ‘we’ because I enlisted the help of my friend and next door neighbor, Dave, to assist me in this project. We were both in the same class and in return, I would help him in his speech. All the while we were putting the plane together I would be explaining the ‘technical’ aspects. We saw it as being funny.

          To prepare for this debacle we decided we needed to practice. We were in Florida, but very near to the Alabama line. In Florida at the time, you could set fireworks off if you had them, but buying them in Florida was illegal. Alabama, however, had no restrictions. So we went across the line and bought a bundle of bottle rockets (25 in a bundle as I recall) and 10 gliders and took them home to practice. We learned where to place the rocket on the plane for the best flight. Our first thought was to tape the stick to the front of the plane so that the rocket was about 9 inches in front of the plane. That worked nicely, but the rocket fire caught the balsa wood plane on fire. Kind of pretty shooting through the night sky, but impractical in a classroom setting. Then we taped the rocket to the rear of the plane, but that unbalanced the whole thing and it didn’t fly right. We settled on taping it in the middle. Gave good balance and good flight. The only problem was that the rocket would explode, destroying the plane. We decided that for the speech we would use a rocket that had the explosive tip cut out. The night before the speech found me sitting at the kitchen table with a pocket knife cutting the explosive tip out of a bottle rocket at midnight. It was painstaking work and I was exhausted after another full day of work and school. After I got the first one done I decided to do a second just to have the back-up. I cut away the paper and was ready to cut into the rocket, but I was so tired I decided to stop. I didn’t stop to think that both rockets were cut in the same way, but only one had no exploding tip. As it was, they looked pretty much the same. In the morning I put both rockets into my briefcase along with the other things I needed for my ‘jet’ and left the house.

          Five speeches were give a day. Mine would be number five. The first two were quick and easy and boring, so it was OK. The third one was a former police officer in Miami who announced he was going to demonstrate the correct way to handle a service revolver. He was a big man, and absolutely humorless. He pulled the gun from his holster and proceeded to wave it around as he talked. He broke it down, put it back together and loaded it, all in a careless fashion. He dropped the bullets and everyone jumped. He had everyone nervous. When he was done he took the holster off and placed gun and holster on the table in front of him after he sat down. The next person came up with a compound bow and proceeded to show everyone how to safely use a bow. It was actually a speech that was aimed at scaring the snot out of everyone, although that wasn’t intended as such. He finally set up a board with a balloon on it, went to the other side of the room, and loaded and shot an arrow at the balloon. The arrow stuck into the very edge of the board. He quickly took another arrow and fired it. It caught the edge of the board at an odd angle and shot off the board, hit the wall and landed next to one of our ladies. Her scream was quite impressive. Again, he pulled another and quickly shot, while the professor was shouting at him to stop. This arrow got the balloon with a loud pop. He went and got his board and arrows and sat down.

          Everyone was more than a little shaken by this time. My speech was next. The professor said, “Mr. Wade, if you kindly bring us back to earth, I would appreciate it.” Dave and I went forward and I started the speech. I explained what I was doing while Dave put the contraption together. (Somewhere Dave had gotten hold of a lab coat, so he looked like a tech. at least.) The problem was I hadn’t shown Dave which rocket had the exploding tip taken out. They looked the same, so he just picked one. Then, while I held it, Dave lit the fuse.

The idea was to give it a gentle toss and when the rocket ignited it would streak across the room, hitting the far wall and fizzing out. But I was a little nervous and I threw it too hard. It left my hand and started to climb. When the rocket lit the plane was already a little off balance, so instead of streaking off it began to cartwheel through the air, completely out of control. The rocket was making a pretty pinwheel of fire as it hissed sideways across the room. The lady who had screamed before when the arrow landed next to her screamed again as the spinning ball of fire buzzed over her head. It went right to the former Miami police office, hit him in the head, fell to the table and nosed into the revolver so that fire spewed all over his crisp white shirt and black tie. Everyone immediately thought it would set a bullet off, then the rocket exploded. Even the men screamed. The professor wound up under the table he was at. The policeman’s shirt and tie were smoking. Dave and I were the only ones not freaking out, but that was only because we could see our seminary careers going up, literally, in smoke.

As it turned out, the professor thought it was hilarious. He even bought the cop a new shirt and tie. Dave and I had created a new school legend and I got an ‘A’. And best of all, It was so COOL!

          Why are there so many struggling churches, churches that are weak and ineffective? There are many answers floating around out there. To many other things going on to attract the attention of people is the primary reason stated most often. It is true, too. But why are there so many things going on? There was a time when practically nothing was open on Sunday except the hospitals. Now, though, it is brunch at restaurants, all retail is open (except for places like Hobby Lobby, who are often put down for being closed), sports dominate on Sundays. In other words, fun stuff. The reason this has happened is because most people, including Christians, want these things. We want to shoehorn worship into an hour on Sunday morning and be done with it. This attitude has come about because most Christians have quit praying in earnest and have let the Word of God sit on the night stand untouched from Sunday to Sunday. We depend on a quickie prayer and a five-minute devotional, yet love to sing about the “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and “Standing on the Promises.” At least so long as it fits that hour.

          Why is this country in such a mess that we had as our presidential choice a woman who has real issues with telling the truth and a man who is vulgar and crass? There are many answers floating around out there. There are two distinct cultures out there, one being a culture of entitlement and the other being a culture conservative thought. The person who represents the culture we hold dear and who makes the most noise about it is the choice we have, whether they are smart enough to find their way out of a paper bag or not. Whoever is president or whoever is in Congress or whoever is our local “leaders” were put there by the voters.

          Churches struggle because Christians ignore prayer and the Word of God. The country struggles because people get their knowledge of the news from TV and radio and the internet and print media, and when they get that news they listen to whoever is the loudest or boldest. Christians spend too much time on other things to be able to spend the time to draw close to the Lord and Americans spend too much time on other things to dig deeper to make informed decisions. We want the easy way and then we want to complain about it.

          And yet, it has never been easier to find a Bible version you can read and understand. I use a web page that gives me 37 English versions of the Bible. I can increase the font size, some of the versions have audio and all of them have access to Bible Study tools. Finding a verse or passage is super easy and the whole web site is user friendly. And, of course, prayer has always been an easy thing to do.

          And, it has never been easier to find information to become well informed about the political aspect of our country. Why would anyone listen exclusively to CNN or Rush Limbaugh or Fox News or any of that? All these people and organizations have their own agenda. Nothing wrong with having an agenda, but there is something wrong with adopting someone’s agenda as your own without critically studying it. Dig a little deeper. If you are reading this, you have access to the internet. There is a lot of junk out there, but there is gold, too.

          At Christmas, Christians get all upset when the cashier at Wal-Mart wishes them happy holidays rather than Merry Christmas, yet the indignities that the Word of God suffers the rest of the year goes unnoticed. When someone on TV or radio says something is unconstitutional, Americans get upset, yet few Americans make it a habit of reading the Constitution or the Declaration. It is all at your fingertips. I have the Constitution and the Declaration in my computer. The Constitution is 28 pages on my computer in a font I can easily read. Most of you who like to read will do that in one setting with no problem. The Declaration is 3 pages long.

          This is Independence Day. Make a promise to God that you will not continue to be a slave to a devotional book or even your preacher when it comes to learning Scripture. Make another promise to yourself that you will not continue to be a slave to the Cooper Andersons or the Rush Limbaughs or the networks to form your opinions and to get your news. Stand up for Jesus and stand up for America.

          Blessings.