Senior year in high school. A classmate, Dave, and I were being recruited by various colleges for sports. Dave was a runner and I played football. Several of the colleges he was being recruited for were the same as mine, so we took a week and just visited colleges in Ohio and at Ball State in Indiana. Dave and I were both fairly new Christians. Dave eventually decided to go to a Christian college that did offer cross country and track. I was pretty locked into a particular school until one Sunday when the Lord let me know that I was changing plans. I wound up at a Christian college that didn’t offer football. Sports were a thing of the past.

         That was 1974. In 1975 I was invited to be the music and Youth leader at a little church in Tennessee, 85 miles from my school. Since October 5, 1975 I have been in the ministry.

         Practically my entire adult life. I have been bi-vocational (meaning the ministry and a regular job) for some of that time. But always the ministry. I can’t even say I have been focused on the ministry. It is just my life. I was made for this one thing. The Lord has given me a few different avenues of ministry, but always the ministry. Not a career, not a chosen field. Just my life.

         And then, two years ago, my wife stunned me with the news that she was leaving. In time I found out some of the particulars. Someone she had known before we had even met. He pursued her for seven years via Facebook and then she made her fateful decision. That is all I will say on the subject now. It isn’t a part of this story.

         I was done. I couldn’t continue in the ministry. My partner was gone. I was crushed. Those of you who were here at the time remember. I was a mess. To me it had come out of the blue. We had done our first Trunk or Treat at the end of October and she was full of plans for the next year. Then, two weeks later, boom.

         I couldn’t go on in the ministry. I gave my ninety day resignation notice to the church. I started to close myself in. That very thing that had been as constant as oxygen to me for all those years was leaving me.

         But, folks in the church wouldn’t leave it alone. I would get through it, they said. There was still lots of ministry to do, they said. The church folks expressed their love and support in many ways, especially prayer. My world had collapsed and they were offering to help me rebuild it.

         And the Lord wouldn’t leave it alone, either. For the first month I was on autopilot. Then, bit by bit, the Lord began to pierce my conscience. No, I am not done with you. Not just yet. You will stay right here and do My work. Finally, I told God that I would stay (the church allowed me to rescind my resignation) until He gave me the OK to leave. Inside I felt I was ready to go, but I just couldn’t go yet.

         It has been my experience that God will, on occasion, take a Spiritual 2X2 to my head.

         Tanner and Sydney Chamberlain (members of our church) were looking at adopting a child. It wasn’t working out well. Sam and Amanda Hann (Sam is the son of two of our members, but Sam and Amanda were members of another church) were also looking to adopt a child. My wife and I adopted our son (40 years in April! Oh my!) and I felt a deep burden for these two young couples. Even with my own personal issues going on, this was a weight on my soul. I started making some phone calls and e-mail contacts to friends around the country. One dear lady, Beatrice, in Fort Edwards, New York, told me she was glad I was still concerned for people. It wasn’t people in general, just these two couples. I mean, I still had concern, but reaching out to my network of prayer partners was something I had done a lot of before. I felt Bea didn’t quite get it, but she was getting it just fine. I was the one coming up short. The Lord was using something I felt strongly about to pull me back to the job at hand.

         Sydney got pregnant. In typical God fashion, He crossed us all up. I made the joyful calls to the prayer partners. Now we had to pray through the pregnancy. That was a good thing.

         But Sam and Amanda had a major setback. No fault of their own, but a hard thing. More phone calls, more e-mails. A friend in Ohio assured me that God would take care of it. Another friend in Arizona felt it was a matter of God’s time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I was the one walking you through disaster not so long ago. I want this to happen now! At this point in time, I had met Sam once and Amanda never. They didn’t go to our church. But people in far flung places were praying for them.

         In September of 2019, Sydney was due to deliver. This was exciting. But also, in September the divorce my wife was seeking was going to be complete. For that last hearing, I had to go to Cleveland. The way it was going to work out, the divorce would be on one day and the birth was on the next. I wouldn’t leave the courthouse in Cleveland until four in the afternoon. If I were going to get home that night in time for the birth the next day, I would have to drive a considerable distance in the dark, which I am no longer comfortable with. I decided I would get a room and do the drive the next day (six hours) and miss the birth. But that little flicker of the pastor flame hadn’t quite gone out. I could get home that night. I was still Syd and Tanner’s pastor and I could get home.

         And I did. Next day I got to see Syd before she went in. Radiant was the only word that fit. The family and I waited. They were all excited. I was struggling to stay awake. Word came that Clay had been delivered. It would be a little while before anyone could see them, so I decided I would come back the next day and meet the little guy. I had to get some sleep. The next day I got to see a miracle baby and I felt the nudge from God. “How could you ever walk away from this?” Which was true. As I left the hospital I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could do this a little longer. But there was still the issue of Amanda and Sam. That deeply grieved me.

         But then, November of 2019, word came that Sam and Amanda had adopted Ezra. I am a little fuzzy on it all, but as I understand it, they were on a list and this happened suddenly. There was a whirlwind of activity. And then there was a family of three. When I got that news, tears filled my eyes. A lump came to my throat. I was dizzy. God is so good! I sent out some e-mails. One friend said, “See, I told you God had it.” A burden was lifted from my soul.

         Two years ago I started a particular blog like this; It is, as I write this, six AM on Wednesday morning, November 14, 2018. This is, altogether, the hardest morning of my life. It was the blog that I used to tell the church what had happened with my marriage. Time has moved on. Amanda and Sam and Ezra now come to our church. Today, November 29, 2020, I was given the great joy of dedicating to the Lord, both Ezra and Clay. Our God is a God of miracles. He has placed children who should not have been, into the arms of loving parents. And He has renewed the life of an aging minister who thought it was over. Back on 11/14/2018 I was shedding tears as I wrote that blog. On 11/29/2020 I am shedding tears as I write this blog. These tears are much, much better.

 

         Thanksgiving memories. As you get older, those memories become more and more a part of you observance of the holiday. Christmas is like that, too, but so much of Christmas is rush, rush, rush. With Christmas, there is relief when it is over. Taking down the decorations is almost as festive as putting them up. But Thanksgiving, if you can avoid the craziness that is Black Friday, leaves you with a pleasant glow of family, peace and thankfulness. And the memories are part of that glow.

         We all have our memories. Good and bad. Where I come from, the ‘bad’ usually revolves around the weather. We had a massive snow storm blow in one year that took power lines with it. I kept the fireplace going and Marsha made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for our Thanksgiving meal. The dog was happy. She loved peanut butter and jelly and I was happy because there is just something about staying warm by a fire. But Marsha was on the sofa under every blanket in the house complaining because our son hadn’t come over. (Twenty miles away in a storm that left two feet of snow with drifts five times that. He had called his mother’s cell phone and said he would be out at a certain time. I told him not to bother. Too dangerous and we didn’t have power. He did have power, so he stayed home.) Depending which one of us you talked to, it was either a good memory or a bad memory.

         There are memories of gatherings, again both good and bad. For many of us there are memories of solo Thanksgivings. But for most of us the memories bring back a feeling of warmth, even on a cold day.

         And then there are weird memories. Memories that are unique to you and you alone. Oh, yeah…….

         I was pastoring in a place called Warren, Ohio. A city of about 50,000 at that time. From Warren you could drive on state route 442 and go right through Girard, Ohio, an industrial city of 10,000 people at that time and about the same number of factories. As you passed through Girard you were in Youngstown, Ohio, a metropolitan area of about half a million people. You could make that trip and never know when you passed from one city to the next. It was all concrete and factories. The only thing that tipped you off that you were in Youngstown was that the steel mills were larger. We preferred to live outside of the city crush, so it was a drive every day.

         It was getting on in 1987 and Marsha was wanting extra money for Christmas. I suggested a part time job at night so I could stay at home and be with our son. (She worked in the office at a plant in Warren during the day.) She started looking.

         As it happened, there was a huge cemetery just at the bottom of our hill. Beautiful, rolling hills, large ponds, wonderful trees. Picture perfect. In addition to the outside graves, they also had a mausoleum on the grounds. This is a place where they place the deceased, in their caskets, in openings in the walls. Once in, they seal that door up and the deceased is forever in a climate controlled environment. This place was enormous. I mean, you wouldn’t believe it until you walked into it. A large room when you walked in that was for graveside funerals on nasty weather days or if you were going to put someone in a wall. From that one large room There were halls that ran for a couple hundred yards each. The places for the caskets ran ten high. If you were going to go and pay your respects to someone, you were given a map as you walked in at the little office. Then you hunted. I had done several funerals there and I had looked down the halls and had seen mourners there to grieve at Uncle Frank’s final resting place, standing on the floor with their heads tilted back as far as humanly possible trying to read the plagues on the containers.

         This place was hiring someone just to sweep the floors and vacuum the office and to straighten up. That was it. There were back rooms where the bodies were prepared and such like, but someone else did that. It was very close and, except for the size, the work wasn’t overwhelming and Marsha took the job. I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t like the people who ran the place and it was big. Just pushing a large sweep up and down those fake marble floors was going to be pretty strenuous for Marsha. But I was just being silly (she said) and she took the job.

         First night. She calls in hysterics. She had to go to a particular place in the building to get the sweep broom and the vacuum. The cleaner’s closet was in a prep room. On that first night there was a body they had left on a prep table, partially done. She hadn’t expected it (and as I learned later, you are not to leave a body overnight in that condition) and when she saw it she freaked out. Now, this is the Monday before Thanksgiving. I get Adam up and load him into the car and head over there. It really wasn’t a pleasant sight, but she was going to have to get used to it. I sent her home with Adam and I stayed and did the job. It was one of those out of season nights that was unusually warm. I say that now because it explains something later.

         Second night. Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Marsha was finding out how much work there was to do in those long, long hallways. The place was giving her the creeps, but she wasn’t going to call me. With the fake marble floors, even your footfalls echoed. Still, she was holding it together until a sound like a cannon went off. She called me, terrified. I couldn’t even tell what she was saying. I woke up Adam, got him into the car and went over there.

         We walked around until we saw what had happened. One of the bronze plagues that they inscribe the name on and then seal into place over the place where the casket goes had fallen off. It had dropped about fifteen feet. Yes, it would have sounded like a cannon and it was lucky she hadn’t had a heart attack. Never did know why it fell.

         Third night. Wednesday before Thanksgiving. She was refusing to go. It had gotten really cold and she figured it was the perfect night for zombies. She wanted me to go. I told her it was her job. I hadn’t wanted her to take that job. (I didn’t see the need for any part time job) But she went ahead and took the job anyway. Just go. There can’t be something every night.

         The place closed for business every night at five, so she would get there at six and start. By that time it was nearly dark and she was scared and looking for zombies, so I wasn’t surprised when she called at 7:15. When the phone rang, Adam went and got his coat. He knew the drill already. When I answered Marsha whispered, “They’re trying to get in! They’re out there and they’re trying to get in and eat me!” So, over Adam and I went.

         Marsha unlocked the door while brandishing a steel rod. I didn’t even ask where she got it. She said that she was sweeping and all of a sudden there was knocking coming from every hall, getting louder and louder. At first she thought it was from the stained glass windows that went from floor to ceiling, but it got so loud and echoed so bad it was from inside the walls. THAT WAS WHY THAT DOOR FELL OFF THE NIGHT BEFORE! THEY WERE STARTING TO EMERGE THEN!!

         I was trying not to laugh and Marsha was getting mad at me. Then I heard the first knock. Then another. And another. Then everywhere. Echo, knock, echo. It was getting pretty loud. I will say, it was very unsettling.

         We were standing in the big room they used for services. Big double doors led to outside. I glanced that way and saw several geese pecking the windows. I walked over and they went nuts. The unseasonably warm weather had kept them from flying south, but that day had turned so cold the ponds were icing over. They wanted in. When I had pulled up they had scattered and I hadn’t seen them. But now they were pecking all the windows, trying to get in. They were freezing. The noise inside was terrifying.

         I ran the geese off with the steel rod and Marsha and Adam got in a car and went home. I finished up. I got home after midnight, Thanksgiving morning. I didn’t even have to try and talk Marsha into quitting.

         Thanksgiving memories.

         I know this year was different, but be blessed. Read Mary’s blog if you haven’t (http://urbanayokeparish.com/blogs/mary-marys-moments) and be grateful.

          One of the very large hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio would host a big grief conference every year. It seemed like every funeral home in North East Ohio would be represented. Held in the conference center, the auditorium would seat at least a thousand people, the book area had dozens of tables loaded with books and the dining hall had food that was out of this world. The first two years I worked at the funeral home there were three of us who went. The third year I was by myself. I was so excited about going that first year. I always want to learn new things and I figured I needed all the help I could get. All my counseling classes in college and seminary dealt with the full array of counseling. But this was just on grief.

         I was disappointed in that first year. It seemed that the speakers were disconnected from the grief issues I faced all the time. I said as much to the owner of the funeral home a few days later. He assured me that the next year would be better. Needless to say, I was not really looking forward to year two.

         Year two came and again, it just didn’t feel right. The speakers were very learned. They had critically acclaimed books out on the tables. Tey had long lines of letters after their names. They were dressed very nicely. But I came away from the experience with a heaviness, as though I had wasted my time. I didn’t want to feel that way. I didn’t want to feel as though I thought I was better somehow, than these highly credentialed speakers.

         Year three I returned. I tried to talked the owner out of it, but he was insistent. The other two who had gone with me before were soon to retire, so I was by myself. I took a seat well in the back of that huge room and waited for the ‘fun’ to start. There was the usual line-up of people who had amazing careers and all manner of insight into grief. I squirmed and shifted in my seat and waited for lunch to get there. Just before the lunch break the facilitator of the event announced that a particular gentleman who was to speak to us that afternoon had been bumped from his flight from Boston and would not be there. I had never heard his name, but the others had. Groans filled the room. The facilitator raised his hands and everyone quieted down. Taking his place would be a grief counselor from a local funeral home. Folks looked at each other with puzzled looks. Apparently, they did not recognize the name. In the hallway I heard one woman huff to another that she had paid good money to hear someone knowledgeable. She was going to get her money back. I just shook my head. I figured this new speaker could not be any worse.

         He was awesome. I think he had a four year degree in psychology. Certainly not as impressive as the high paid people. He worked for a funeral home rather than a prestigious university. He was uncomfortable in front of the large crowd instead of being arrogantly sure of himself. But he spoke of going into a home at one AM and talking with a shocked and grieving widow. He shared about talking to a ten year old about why his daddy committed suicide. He talked about the young parents whose baby died of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). He talked real world situations.

         He was not well received, but I went up to him later and thanked him. He had given me more in his fifty minutes than I had gotten in three years there. A good man doing an honest work.

         Just in 2020 in our church family, we have lost Dan Haupert, Lois Haupert, Esther Wagner, Barbara Speicher, Orville Chamberlain and Max Chamberlain. Some of our church members had family pass. Coming to mind are Shelley Lambert, who was a daughter to Jim and Pat Hartley. Also, Connie Lerner, Steve Runkel's sister and Betty Bolsover, Donna Harmon's mother. Elaine Werner, a very close aunt to Aaron Mattern and Gerald Thielmeier, Jane Swanquist's father. In addition, we have had folks in our community pass, people like Larry Eads. Many will say that they don’t want to go to a funeral home or confront the one who is grieving. Not because they don’t care, but because they care so much and are afraid they will say the wrong thing. What you must realize is that just your presence speaks louder and much clearer than your words could ever speak.

         Early one morning, sometime between midnight and two AM, I received a call from Hospice. There was a death and the family had prearranged for our funeral home. I called our team and then I drove to the home. The transfer team had just arrived and were going into the home. As the door opened, I heard wailing. Not pretend wailing, but anguished sounds from a tormented soul. When I walked in, the Hospice nurse had tears running down her cheeks (by the way, I am always so impressed by Hospice). The wife was by her husband’s bed with her arms wrapped around his cooling body. Their son sat in another chair in tears, unable to help his Mom. “No, no! You can’t have him!” I called her by name and she turned her head toward me. “Please! Don’t take him!” She shook her fist at me. Years of experience, I should know just what to say. Only I didn’t. “OK, Florence, not till you are ready.” I took the fist that was threatening me and guided her to her chair next to her husband. No words were forming in my mind. The grief just washed over all of us. I opened her fist up into a hand, held it and knelt before her. I lowered my head onto the top of her hand and just stayed that way, silently praying. In a moment her head lowered until her face was on the back of my head and we stayed like that for several minutes, just crying together. Finally, she brought her other hand and laid it to my face. She lifted her head and I lifted mine, her hand on the side of my face. “OK,” she whispered. “I’m ready.” I softly explained what we were going to do and she was OK with it all.

         You don’t have to say some magic words. There are none to say. Just be caring, just be compassionate, just be there.

         Go. Be the friend. Be open. Jesus said the Comforter would come. We are the Comforter’s feet and hands and embracing arms. Be there.

             He was a kid from Indiana. A farm kid. One of the biggest days of his life had been when his Dad finally bought a tractor. The two old mules seemed to like the noisy thing, too. He worked side by side with his father to prepare the land, plant, cultivate and finally harvest. He had to go to school, of course, but he didn’t like it. His mind was way beyond the boundaries of his small school. He loved to look at the stars and imagine going there. On the rare occasion that a plane would fly over, he would stop what he was doing and stare until it disappeared from sight. One year at the county fair they were selling plane rides. Oh, how he wanted to go up for the fifteen minutes! But he didn’t have the money. All he could do was stand and watch as the biplane taxied out, rolled out across a pasture and slowly climbed into the sky. Oh, to be so free! But he was earthbound.

And farm bound, as well. They had sports at his school, particularly basketball, but he had little interest. If he’d had the extra time, he might have played, but winter was still busy on the farm. One hundred and sixty acres. Originally a homestead. Just he and his father to work it. Equipment needed to be fixed, wood needed to be split and stacked and carried and, of course, the livestock needed to be cared for. Just some milk cows, a dozen or so hogs, some chickens and two old mules that seemed to be enjoying their retirement. But by the time you have cleaned out stalls and hauled in feed and everything else needed to keep the animals happy, well, basketball wasn’t very important.

He grew tall and very strong. He read everything he could about the growing war in Europe. He imagined himself running off to England when he hit eighteen years old. He would be a daring Lancaster bomber pilot pulling off daring raids. His mother prayed that America wouldn’t get in the war and his father, a veteran of the Great War, always looked worried. But the boy had visions. The big question, though, was how to get to England? That would be the struggle.

In school one day the teacher was talking about Canada. It seemed Canada was still, technically, a part of England. When you went to Canada, you were actually on British soil. Wow! Canada wasn’t far! It would be way easier to get to Canada than England, and then he could join the Canadian Air Force (did they have one?) and get to the war that way.

He was a farm kid, though. The war would probably be over by the time he could get there. Life wasn’t fair.

And then, in early December of his sixteenth year, came the most horrible news. America had been attacked in a place he had barely ever heard of by a little nation that had no business going to war with the USA. All of his thoughts had centered on the war in Europe and now here were the Japanese attacking us in the Pacific. Who did they think they were? Why, we would beat those little guys every which way, you just wait. So, the farm kid listened to every radio report and read every newspaper article. FDR declared war. Good! Now we would box their ears a good one! Only it didn’t happen that way. Not by a long shot. America was in the war and troops were headed over two vast oceans, east and west, but they weren’t turning the tide of war. Spring of 1942 came and Jimmy Doolittle led his attack on Tokyo. American troops landed in Africa. It was heating up! But victories just weren’t coming.

He was going to join up, but his father said no. He wasn’t old enough to join by himself and the old man needed him at home. He would not be eighteen until he Fall of 1943. There had better be some fighting still to do.

The Indiana farm boy fumed and fussed the rest of the year. Word of victories began to filter in. The tide wasn’t turning very fast, but the Allies were starting to hold their own a little better. Another cold winter and suddenly it was 1943. The Allies were starting to gain some ground. The year moved along (aided by a cute little blond haired girl from a farm across the way) and it was finally September. Eighteen years old! Dad, I’m off! You’ll have to do without me for a spell! His father shook his hand with a sad look, his mother and two sisters cried and wailed and embarrassed him and the cute blond girl wept and promised to wait for him, which made him smile with pride. Skipping his senior year, but that didn’t matter. He signed up with the Army so he could fly bombers.

But the Army had a different idea. During Basic he signed up for flight school, but they had plenty of flyboys. The Army needed ground pounders. He was shocked at first. He had never even considered being a foot soldier. But if it got him into action, so be it.

Basic ended and his class didn’t even get to go home for a bit. It was all rush-rush. Next thing he knew he was marching up a gang plank with his full kit on his back boarding a huge ship. They were heading out to England. Maybe there he could get into planes!

Getting there, however, was a problem. First, they were told that if they were torpedoed, wait for the ‘abandon ship’ klaxon, leave your kit and get topside. Then they told them that if you were going to be sea sick, get topside. He snorted at that last. He had been out on the water lots. He would be fine. But he found that a rowboat on a calm Indiana pond was somewhat different from a troopship in the Atlantic. Day and night, he was on deck. Eat a little something and he was leaning over the rail. Other GIs laughed at him good naturedly. One evening he was leaning against the rail trying to catch his breath when a major smoking a cigar ambled by. He came to something resembling attention and weakly saluted the major. The major replied with a return salute and asked him what he was doing on deck. The young soldier thought quickly and told the major he was looking for periscopes. The major smiled and told him to keep up the good work.

By the time the ship pulled into port at Aberdeen, Scotland, the Indiana farm kid didn’t care about planes or glory or even the cute little blond haired girl back home. He wanted firm, unmoving ground under his feet.

He expected to ship out to Italy right away. That was where the real fighting was going on. Instead, he wound up at a training camp somewhere. There was ocean nearby, but for a while they went no where near it. They were just run through drill after drill. This was stupid, he thought. If you are not going to put me on a plane then let me go somewhere and fight! Training, marching, running. Let me soldier! Sometimes, passes were issued to allow the men to go and have a good time in town. He never went. He would take the time to write to his sweetheart back home. They were not to mention where they were, but he wouldn’t have, anyway. She would not have believed a town actually carried that name. Once in a while he would get a letter back. The last one he got before the world came unglued for him simply said, “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!”

Then came the day they climbed aboard landing craft and started practicing beach landings. After that, all communication to home or anywhere else was cut off. Suddenly superiors were all business. The waters around England are rough any time of year, but Spring seemed particularly wicked. They didn’t spend a lot of time on the landing craft, but it was all misery to him. He had wanted to fly bombers. Now, drowning was looking pretty good.  

And then came the BIG day. They clamored aboard boats and headed out to sea. Thousands and thousands of men, coming from everywhere. Brits, of course, and Canadians and French and Poles and who knew who else. And Americans! More Americans than he would have thought lived in the whole state of Indiana. Whatever was going to happen was going to be really big.

It didn’t matter how big it was, though. Once on the transport ship he started the familiar heaving. When they called for the men to board the landing craft, he couldn’t do it. He was too weak. An officer came to him and asked him if he wanted off the boat. Yes, he gasped. Well, soldier, over there is land and the way to get there is on that landing craft. Suddenly that had a real good ring to it. Over the side and into the boat.

The wave action was worse on the small boat. Torment! A French soldier was in the bow of the boat, cheering and pointing. “Pays natal, PAYS NATAL!” The Indiana kid shook his head. He wants paid? And then the Frenchman went quiet. He toppled over into the boat, a ghastly tear in his chest. He blinked his eyes a couple of times and then his eyes just stayed open, empty and staring. The sea sickness was gone as the Hoosier stared at the dead French soldier.

The gate fell and the men rushed off. Into very deep water. Being tall, the young soldier fared better than some. He slogged forward, held to the ocean floor by his kit. Waves washed over his head and little splashes leaped around him. Bullets, his mind informed him. Well, OK. We kind of expected that, but still the actuality was surprising. The closer he got to land the shallower the water got. And then he was on the beach. Running around the obstacles that had been placed by German engineers.

What followed was worse than any movie he had seen in town. First, it was all noise and yelling and screams. Men, his comrades, ripped apart by enemy fire. Then there climbing and shooting and fighting. If an officer or a sergeant gave you an order, you followed that order. You didn’t have to know that officer or sergeant. You just trusted them completely because of a piece of brass on their collar or three or more stripes on their sleeve. The young man left the thinking to others. Days went by. Somewhere he got a second stripe on his sleeve. Corporal? How? More marching, more fighting. Gradually his mind began to work again. People were depending on him. That seemed to galvanize him. They left the beaches of Normandy behind, along with the horror that was D-Day, and they moved farther inland.

By the time winter was coming on, the Indiana kid was a man, a two striper who had a squad to look after. When replacements came into the squad, they were told by the others to just do what the corporal tells you and you will be alright. A grizzled vet who had only been in the Army a year.

Early morning, December 16, 1944, in a forest called the Ardennes, the young corporal was dreaming a sweet dream of the blond girl he had left behind. Mail hadn’t caught up with them yet, so the last message he had was “COME HOME TO ME, SOLDIER BOY!” In his dream he was home. A wonderful meal had been prepared and he and the blond were about to eat. “Hey, corporal! Wake up! The sarge says there are reports of activity up ahead. C’mon, Corporal! WAKE UP!” And just then, the world exploded. An 88mm HE tank round slammed into a nearby tree. The sweet dream was gone. He was shouting out orders. “FORM A LINE!” But instead they had to withdraw. The German attack, known to history as the Battle of the Bulge, had caught the Allies completely flat footed. The day was spent in retreat. Several days, actually. Over a week. In the dark of the morning on Christmas Eve, the allied troops that the corporal was attached to, were hunkered down in a village with the unlikely name of Foy-Nôtre-Dame. The misplaced Hoosier was exhausted. The Germans wanted that village. The orders were to hold it. The young private next to him was softly crying. He had come into the line just before the initial attack and had seen no combat before. The corporal wondered if he had cried some time after D-Day. He couldn’t remember.

When the Germans attacked it wasn’t really a surprise. And it wasn’t as intense as they had thought it would be. But they had overwhelming numbers. The boy next to him screamed and rolled over, dead already. Then it felt to our young Hoosier that someone had grabbed his leg while he lay there and yanked. Yelping, he looked down. His leg was a shambles. Didn’t even look like a leg. As he stared at his leg, the pain began. Amazing, he thought. At first it didn’t hurt. But now the pain was getting white hot. He dropped his head into the rubble of the village and closed his eyes. He would bleed to death soon. The pain! Death needs to come soon!

He heard voices behind him. “They got the corporal!” He couldn’t die! Not yet! His men needed him. He pulled his head up. He pulled his rifle over. The young dead soldier close by didn’t need his rifle. The corporal took his rifle, too. He began to fire at flashes in the dark. “Somebody go get the corporal!” He fired his rifle dry of ammunition. He started firing his dead comrade’s rifle. Two men dropped down next to him. “C’mon, corporal. We gotta go!” “You go! I ain’t backing up anymore!” Then they heard the rumble of tank treads. “Panzers!” the corporal gritted out. “Go NOW!”

The woman was a little stooped with age, and she hadn’t been very tall to begin with. Her hair, still with a few sprigs of blond, ruffled in the breeze. She stood on the porch of her home and looked out over their Indiana farm. It had been in her husband’s family for generations. She remembered the first time she had bounded up those steps to this house, which had been new back then. The farm had been a lot smaller, but her husband had managed it well. He had gone to Purdue on that new G.I. Bill and had become quite the farmer. He was handicapped, but he didn’t live handicapped. Oh, that was so long ago! But the Lord had given them good health and five strong children, fifteen wonderful grandchildren and….how many greats? Hard to remember now a days. Then she heard a noise. Looking around the corner of the porch she saw the youngest of the greats. A little guy who was SO BORED out here on the farm. He was playing with some little plastic, well, dolls.

“Great grandson,” she said with mock severity. “What are you doing?” “Playing with my Action Heroes.” She looked at him with a small smile. “Really? Why don’t you go and spend some time with a real hero?” “Yeah, that’s funny! There are no heroes around here.” “Well, great grandson (my, I wish I could remember his name!), you sit on this swing and I will be right back and show you a hero!”

She bustled away, a smile on her lips. She returned in a few short minutes with a simple wooden box. The little boy looked bored.

Grandma sat down on the swing and slowly opened the box. Inside were various medals and badges and ribbons, carefully mounted, and right in the center of the mountings was a red, white and blue ribbon. Attached at the bottom of that ribbon was a five pointed silver star. In the corner of the box were the two stripes of a corporal. The boy’s eyes grew large.

“Who do these belong to?” Grandma pointed out across the yard to where an old man was leaning on a cane and looking out over a field of soybeans. An old dog had laid down and was waiting for the old man to move.

“There is a man who fought in the greatest war of all time. He fought hard. He had a terrible wound but kept firing to hold off the enemy while ordering his men to escape. The enemy was almost ready to break through. The war might have been lost….” Her voice trailed off. “G’ma, what happened!”

She caught herself. “American tanks showed up just in time. By the time the medics got there he was unconscious from loss of blood. His leg was nearly shot away, but he was going to do whatever he could to save his men. He won the Silver Star for heroism. Grandpa is a real hero. My hero.”

The little fellow watched his aged grandfather for a bit. “Yeah, he’s my hero, too!” With that, he jumped off the porch and sprinted out to the old man.

The old woman watched from the swing. Softly, as if still talking to someone, she said, “Yes, my soldier boy came home.”

        Thank you, veterans. Thank you, families, for raising and giving us heroes.

          As I write this, there are still five states to go in the counting for President. Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Alaska. As of right now, Alaska has a huge Trump lead, but Anchorage and Fairbanks have yet to report. Alaska will likely go Trump, but there are only three electors for Alaska. So, it is Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada, and right now they are all to close to call. Control of the Senate is still up for grabs. And the House, while still unresolved, will almost certainly remain under control of the Democratic Party. However, it may be that by the time you read this, all will be resolved.

Personally, I do not like writing about politics. I prefer to write about the work of the Lord in our lives. But this is a time when we have to consider both Christianity and politics. Please bear with me.

         The history student in me is hearing alarm bells ring. It seems most people do not have real knowledge of history. People just don’t like it. Anything prior to the year 2000 is ancient history and is useless. Even the events of 09/11/2001 no longer matter. A famed American philosopher, George Santayana, coined the often repeated quote, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There is an undeniable truth in the quote. (Winston Churchill said it better, but who has ever heard of him?) We are seeing now, however, that the lessons of history are of no use.

The Democratic Party has been relentlessly drifting towards socialism for decades now. The last few years the thing that riles conservatives is the call from the Democrats to ban guns. This is inane to me. Saying guns kill people is like saying that my pencil wrote the wrong answers on a test. Even so, the clamor continues. I no longer have a firearm, but it is merely because I have no use for one. I am very opposed to the government taking them away.

Socialism goes further than that, though. And that is what I wish to explore here.

If you ask most people thirty five and older what the letters USSR stand for, they will tell you communist Russia. Anyone younger will have a problem because it is ancient history. But. USSR does not stand for communist Russia. It stands for Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There were many nations other than Russia that made up the USSR. Now, if you ask people what NAZI stands for, many will say it stands for Trump and his Hitler tendencies. Which is, of course, stupid. NAZI stands for, in German, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. In English that is National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Both called themselves socialist. Now, someone out there is rolling their eyes, but it is a fact that the two most destructive regimes to ever to exist were socialist.

Webster’s defines socialism as, “a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.” Someone might say that the NAZIs were fascist, but that person has no idea what a fascist is in reality. Fascists are so much like communists that it is hard to see the difference. So, from Webster’s definition we see that socialism is a stepping stone to communism. Webster defines communism as “a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism, a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.” In communism there is no private ownership. Your farm becomes the government’s, your home becomes the government’s, your labor does not benefit you, it benefits the government.

I was in Pittsburgh in January and got into this conversation with a young adult. BUT, he said, WE WILL DO SOCIALISM RIGHT! To which I replied, Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. To which he looked me right in the eyes and said, “Huh?”

There is no way to do socialism right. It has always, always, always given rise to dictators and strong arm rulers. I have been amazed over the years at the number of people who point out that the early church followed a socialist way of life. That is completely true, too. But it wasn’t put forth as government. The early church was more reminiscent of a family. In a family it is all for one and one for all. In a government situation, however, the traditional role of a father in a family is taken over by the dictator, and he is never a loving and kind father figure.

So now it appears that we are on the slippery and steep slope heading down to the sewer that is socialism. People are posting on Facebook that they are loading up on guns and such like. Your choice. But I have a different concern.

In the Soviet Union, in NAZI Germany, in communist China, in North Korea and in every other so afflicted country, they do round up weapons. Nothing says total control like fear of the government. But there is something else. Karl Marx (the creator of socialism and communism) wrote that “Religion is the opium of the masses”. (In the original German it just goes on and on.) Marx’s thinking was that if the people have access to religion, they will turn away from government. Because of this, in every socialist/communist regime ever, Bibles are confiscated from the regular folks. Churches are either eliminated or so heavily controlled by the government that they hardly resemble churches. In all of that, though, the underground church, the church of Godly people willing to die for their faith, flourishes.

This also is what socialism breeds. Don’t be foolish and believe otherwise. When we lived in south Florida, I had a conversation with an older Cuban man. He told me that when the revolution was taking place in Cuba (where the communist forces of Castro were warring with and seeking to overthrow the leadership and army of Batista) he was drawn to communism. He had always been poor and this was a way for him to rise up a little. His only concern was for his faith. He was told that he would be able to worship God as he saw fit. So, he fought for the communists. And then, in a fairly short while, he was in prison for his faith.

 In my sermon on 11/01/2020 (which is available on the church website http://urbanayokeparish.com/worship-videos) I shared a passage out of Luke. Luke 21:5-19 is the entire passage and deals with the time before the end times begin, but right now I wish to look at just verses 14 and 15. Jesus is talking about the hardships Christians will face at the hands of government, but this will be an opportunity to share the Gospel. Jesus says, Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. I believe He will have to give us knowledge because our Bibles will be gone and our churches will be shuttered. Churches have already been closed in some states in the name of COVID and for the last decade and a half the Bible has been said to be full of hate speech.

Read your Bibles. Not just devotions, but really read them. Store that knowledge up. We are on the very verge of losing everything. A land that was once a land of equal opportunity will become a land of equal outcome, and a land that promises you can worship how you wish will become a land that closes the door on that wish.

And you know what? This is the reason we Christians are here. This is our time, our opportunity. Offering hope to a hopeless world.