There is a pattern in society now that is disturbing. We seemingly have more compassion for dogs and cats in an Animal Protective League shelter than we do for humans. Oh, we might rally for high profile causes, even if we do not have the whole story, but compassion and concern for people is in short supply. In San Francisco people are making a big deal about helping the homeless, but in Ashtabula, Ohio there are hundreds of people living under highway bridges in valleys and only the local churches help them. It isn’t high profile enough for the do gooders of the world to reach out. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if people acted and reacted out of love instead of seeking personal gain?

         Back in my school days in a psychology class we were given a test to give to couples who were going to be married. I saw it online this past week written into a story and I had to stop and think of how long it has been since I had used it. It is good to use as a test to see if you really want to marry an individual, but for me, it is more beneficial to use it in evaluating ourselves.

         1 Corinthians 13 is often called the ‘love chapter.’ In chapter 13, Paul gives us the ideal definition of love. It is read at weddings, it is preached and it is read in devotions. Really good stuff. But it is also a very good test.

         The entire chapter is only thirteen verses. It is as follows;

1.)  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2.) And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3.) If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4.)  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5.) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6.)  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7.)  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8.)  Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9.) For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10.)  but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11.)  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12.)  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13.)  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

         In a wedding setting these words are beautiful. But how much do they impact us daily?

         The test for couples who are contemplating marriage goes like this; We know that this, in just a few verses, is the perfect explanation of love. To see if your partner is going to be a loving partner, take verses 4-7 and everywhere the word ‘love’ appears, put the name of the one you want to marry. For instance, Bob and Emily wish to get married. Emily does the test with Bob: 4.)  Bob is patient and kind; Bob does not envy or boast; he is not arrogant  5.)  or rude. He does not insist on his own way; he is not irritable or resentful; 6.)  he does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7.) Bob bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

That puts it in a different light and gives Emily something to consider as she looks to the future other than looking at Bob with the blindness that passion often clouds our minds with. When Bob puts Emily to the test, he also has something more to consider.

         But there is another application here and it requires personal honesty. It is, I believe, more important than the marriage application. Put your own name in place of ‘love.’ This causes you to evaluate yourself. For instance; 4.) Larry is patient and kind; Larry does not envy or boast; I am not arrogant  5.)  or rude. I do not insist on my own way; I am not irritable or resentful; 6.)  I do not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. 7.) Larry bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

         That makes it a bit more sobering. It is always hard to judge yourself. I have to do it often. Am I always patient and kind? It can be a struggle, especially being kind. It seems some people deserve being unkind to, but they need Christ and treating them harshly can drive them away. Do I envy what others have or boast of myself? That takes some work. Am I arrogant or rude to others? It is so easy to be rude to some! But when you are rude, aren’t you then being arrogant? Do I have to have my own way? I am a confident person and therefore I believe my thinking to be right. Right? Another battle. Am I irritable or resentful? I seem to be able to get past being resentful, but being irritable is so easy! Do I rejoice at wrong doing? I mean, if the cashier gives me to much money, am I proud of myself? Or, do I hold truth dear, even if it hurts me or others? Do I bear the problems of others? Do I see the good, even when it is surrounded by the bad? Do I hope for the best for others even if it diminishes me? Do I endure the bad that comes my way, knowing God is in charge?

         I am going to ask you to do this for yourself. Replace your name for ‘love’ and see if you are a loving person. And, if you are considering marriage, put the other person’s name in place of ‘love’ and see how they stack up. Do not expect perfection from you or anyone else. But, if you are striving for those things, or if your potential spouse is striving, that is good.

Be honest.

1 Corinthians 13:13--- So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

         If things are moving in God’s direction in a church there will be some hard times. Satan will do whatever he can do to derail the train. But the Lord is also present at such times and will make His presence known to us if we will just listen. The church I pastored for 11 years in Ohio was a church in flux; leaving its denomination, breaking decades of tradition and dealing with all the myriad of things that can plague a church. A pastor is often a lightening rod for those who are angry at change and the pastor can feel the brunt of attacks even if he has not instigated the changes. In the case of Ohio, the denomination labeled me a cult leader and that got to the people in the church and community who were disaffected and there was a lot of nasty things said. The active members knew what the real story was and they just laughed it off and went on their ways, but it put pressure on me. Meeting with the Lord every morning was the only way to weather the storm.

         For me, that meant getting up every morning at 4 AM, getting dressed and usually driving to Lake Erie to a spot on top of a bluff over looking the Lake. There I would lay my head back against the seat and pray. Not with my eyes closed, but more in the way of chatting with a friend. Any time of the year; freezing, raining, hot and muggy. It didn’t matter. Window down and talking. We would visit for two or three hours with the background noise of surf or storm or high winds or, if the Lake was completely frozen, silence. We had some interesting conversations. When I went to work at the funeral home, I would often do the same thing. And, really, there didn’t need to be a conflict or problem rearing its ugly head. There were many times that it was a time of laughing and having fun.

         Once we came to Indiana, that ended. It is way to far to drive to Lake Michigan in the morning and normally the rivers here don’t make much noise as they slowly meander on their way. I miss it a great deal, but God is anywhere you want to meet up. Still, I have always lived near big water, either Lake Erie or the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. There is just something about the unwavering strength of big water.

         Last week I was on vacation in Ohio. I wanted to see my son and his wife, connect with a dear friend and see the changing leaves. I knew Marsha was getting married, but I thought it was to be on Saturday and I figured to be headed out of the state by then and leaving that behind. But then my son told me that the reception was on Saturday. She was getting married at the Cuyahoga County courthouse on Wednesday. It didn’t really bother me. I knew it was going to happen. This last year has been the hardest of my life and I am mostly out of the darkness. I am OK with it, I suppose, but as Wednesday dawned, I was out of sorts. That and a few other things on my mind were pulling me down. I had the day free and I wanted to go sightseeing. My son and his wife live in the same town they grew up in, which is also the town I pastored in for so long. I love the area and I set out in the morning to see what I could see.

         There are hills and valleys and fast moving rivers and parks everywhere. It was almost like every creek I drove over and every rock and every tree along the way held a memory. But I was troubled still. Without thinking about it, I was gradually heading north. Almost without realizing it, I was soon going down the road that led to my special spot. When I realized it, I thought to myself, I wonder if it has changed. It wasn’t really a parking place. Just a little pull off next to the guard rail. Maybe it wasn’t even there anymore or, because of its place many feet above the Lake, maybe they had a no parking sign up now. Things change.

         At one time I had an ugly yellow car. One winter morning I started sliding on the ice and bumped the guard rail, leaving a little of the paint on the rail. As I pulled up, I saw that little spot of yellow paint. It made me smile. I snugged in next to the rail, slid my window down and turned off the car. A storm was brewing out on the Lake. You could see the clouds forming. As the storm formed it pushed the water ahead of it and the waves slammed against the rocks below. The wind was building. Rain was starting and there was no one around, not even cars. Here it was complete daylight, unlike my other trips in the dark, but it seemed like those other times.

         As I sat there listening, it almost seemed like I heard a voice. “Finally. I wondered when you would get here! Welcome home, my son. You are troubled, aren’t you? I’ve always been able to tell, you know. I can read you like a book. So, what do you want to talk about today?”

         And we sat there for a while, in our regular place. That voice I seemed to be hearing seemed to be reminding me of other times when we worked through problems together. All the struggles. And the voice I seemed to be hearing reminded me of funny things, too. Successes, joys, victories over the evil one. The voice I seemed to be hearing had always been with me here in Indiana, too, but that day I needed to be at home again in the spot by the Lake, feeling the Comforter and being comforted.

            After awhile I started the car up and backed away, being careful not to leave any gray paint this time. I got on the road and saw a couple walking toward my spot to look over at the Lake. I met a couple of cars and the road became busy again. Did we really sit there all that time uninterrupted? How did that happen? I shook my head and smiled. I bet He arranged that one for sure! As I pulled away, the things that had been troubling me were gone. Oh, they were still in existence. They just were not pulling at me.

         I had been home, you see, and my Friend and I had a talk. He knows me so well he can read me like a book. But I know Him, as well, because I read His Book. It was really good to sit in that one tiny place which is, more than any place on this earth, home to me. Just me and my Friend.

         Blessings.

2 Kings 6:13-17 (ESV)

¹³ And he (this being the king of Syria, the enemy of the Jews) said, “Go and see where he (this being the prophet Elisha, the Man of God) is, that I may send and seize him.” It was told him, “Behold, he is in Dothan.” ¹⁴ So he sent there horses and chariots and a great army, and they came by night and surrounded the city.

¹⁵ When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots were all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” ¹⁶ He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” ¹⁷ Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

          1981. Marsha and I lived in Hialeah, Florida with our baby son. I was the associate pastor at a church and Marsha was the church secretary. I had just had surgery on my right wrist for a complicated break. (You will occasionally see me wearing a wrist and hand brace on that hand. The surgery was a failure and I still suffer with it.) Life was pretty good. Good friends, good church folks. Hialeah is just northwest of Miami. You can pass from one city into the next without knowing it unless you see the signs. Some people would consider it paradise, but that would just be an opinion. It was, however, a great place to be living when you were 25.

          Our church needed some legal work done over an issue, so on one really hot September day I met our five Trustees at the church, got them loaded in the church’s van and set out for Miami where the lawyer we were using had an office. Arriving in the city, I drove to his building and pulled up to the front door. I let our people out and then I started to look for a place to park. As luck had it, there was a spot open across the road on the curb. I did a hard U-turn and slid in behind a tall cargo type truck. Immediately the places behind me started filling up, so I rejoiced that I had gotten such a prime spot. Rather than sit in the sweltering heat for an hour, I hopped out crossed the street back to the attorney’s office. I got a cup of coffee and got comfortable in the waiting room so I could be ready when the Trustees concluded their business.

          I should note that 1981 was a different time than now. Clergy were expected to wear a three piece suit when conducting church business. Suit jacket, slacks, vest, tie and shirt. Oh, and shiny shoes. I was in the proper uniform, except for the suit coat. Because of the surgery the week before my right arm was encased in a huge cast from the tips of my fingers to my shoulder. Really, I shouldn’t have been driving, but no one else wanted to drive downtown. Because of the cast, I could not wear the suit coat. The shoes, pants, shirt, tie and vest were all in place, so I still maintained proper uniform dress.

          I was struggling to figure out how to hold a magazine and drink coffee when someone came in and said, “Hey, if anybody here parked on the other side of the street, the police just towed them all away.” It took a second or two to register that I had parked on the other side of the street. I jumped up and rushed outside just in time to see a VW bug being towed off. No one was parked there any more. From where I stood I could clearly see the NO PARKING THIS SIDE OF STREET sign right where that tall cargo type truck had been parked. I hadn’t seen the sign because he had been blocking it. The church van was gone.

          This was not good.

          I ran inside and asked the receptionist where they would have taken the van. She told me the police impound lot and she told me where it was located. About twenty blocks away. Quick mental calculations ( I am a mental giant, you know) told me I could get there, get the van and get back before our people were done conducting business. I ran out of the building just as the receptionist started to say something. I ignored her, being a mental giant and all. I was in a hurry.

          That time of the year it is really hot and muggy in Miami. It is hurricane season and it can become so muggy damp that your clothes become sodden in just a few steps. I am in the clergy uniform, minus the suit jacket and wearing the shiny shoes as I ran down the street. In Miami, ten blocks roughly equals a mile, so I am running in high heat and in a suit and shiny shoes. As I say, mental giant.

          After ten blocks I was huffing it. But I had also run into a pretty bad part of town. I slowed to a walk, trying to suck the overheated air into my lungs. Everything I had on was soaked through and my hair (yes, back then I had a full head of hair) was plastered on my head and face. My head was pounding and my arm was just killing me. My feet were screaming at me for trying to run in dress shoes on steaming concrete.

          And it was then that I realized I was being followed.

          Two young men, a little younger than me, were behind me walking along. They, too, were wearing uniforms, although quite different from mine. Ratty jeans and ratty running shoes. Skin tight tank type shirts and do rags on their heads. The uniform of a Miami street thug in 1981. I was walking in the normal manner (normal for someone who had just run a mile in shiny shoes), but they were all swagger. I had turned my head and saw them behind me. When I looked forward there was another young man on the sidewalk ahead of me a half block, also wearing the uniform. I looked to either side down the alley next to me and the one across the street and saw a young man, in uniform, standing in each alley. Larry was trapped.

          Any time I have ever been in a situation, there is something in my brain that clicks. I absolutely hate to fight. Will avoid it. Can’t imagine fighting anything bigger than a puppy now. But my father had taught me to fight. His lessons had been harsh and he wailed on me pretty good, but I learned to fight. Not the Marquis of Queensbury rules, either, but fighting to win. In a one on one with any of those guys, no weapons and me not in a cast, I probably win. But here, I was going to get hurt. I slowly turned and faced the two behind me. Smirks were plastered on their faces. They had something in their hands. Almost like they had practiced it, they each pushed a button and a bladed snicked out. I heard the same sound all around me. I had heard about switch blades, of course, but I had never seen one. My first thought was, ‘Hey, those are illegal!’ Just the thought made me laugh. I looked at the two and said, “OK, let’s do this.” Real brave stuff. The mental giant speaking. But, like I say, something just clicks in my mind and I get stupid.

          The two guys moved forward. I remember thinking I was going to swing my cast and nail someone. After that I would be in real pain from my wrist breaking and the first knife sinking in. What could these guys possibly want? Probably just doing it for the fun.

          Then, they stopped. Their eyes were fixed on a point just above my head. Their eyes widened. The guy behind me gave a gasp and I heard the sound of ratty running shoes hitting concrete as he ran away. The two to either side turned and ran down their alleys. The two in front of me let their mouths fall open, then they turned and ran off, too. They had been looking just above my head, so I looked up to see what had scared them off. And there……

          Was nothing. A heat-hazy sky. Nothing else. I turned all the way around and still saw nothing. No one stood there, there was no great eagle circling just above my head and looking mean. There was nothing except for a quiet that seemed to descend.

          I had to get the van.

          I got to the impound lot and went into the office. A really tall and muscular Hispanic man was sitting there reading a magazine. He didn’t even look up. “¿Qué pasa?” I barely heard him. I was reading the sign that said the tow was $100 and then said $100 for each day and then it said that the day started when the vehicle entered the lot. The mental giant thing kicked in and I calculated that I needed $200 dollars.

          “Ah, yeah, I need to talk to you about the church van that just came in.” He put down his magazine. “The church van is yours?” “Well, no, it is the church’s, but I am driving it today.” “Get out and take it with you!” “Ah, well, OK, but….” “Go, Chico! Now!”

          I went. I got in the van and said, “Geez, what did you do to light his candle?” Mental giants talk to their vehicles.

          I got back just in time to pick up the folks. I never really knew why those guys ran off.

          Unless, of course, they all saw a fiery angel in the sky just above me. Could be. I know most will not believe the tale, but whether you believe it or not does not affect whether or not it is true. And it is true.

         Blessings.

          Back in the earlier days of baseball, big leaguers rarely made enough money to live on for the whole year. Roger Maris, one of the biggest names in the sport in the early 1960s (he broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record), had to drive a beer truck in Kansas City during the off season to make ends meet. Some of the biggest stars, like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio and Micky Mantle and a few others made enough to live on, but mostly the players played for the love of the game. They farmed or worked in factories or sold insurance or cars, whatever they could do to provide for their families. In the 1910s and 20s and 30s a lot of the players would form teams with other players as soon as the season ended and they would barnstorm the country, particularly the south. What that meant was they would crisscross the south and play local town and country ball teams. Admission would be charged and the pros would take some of that and the local teams would take some. The big league clubs would usually pick up the travel costs because it was great public relations for the sport. Since there were no big league teams in the south, it was the only opportunity for Southerners to see the stars. For five years or so a special team was organized during the 1930s that traveled to Japan to play their teams because the Japanese were baseball crazy.

          In the 1920s the big stars, like Ruth and Gehrig, also went barnstorming. They really didn’t need the money and their shares of the gate mostly went to the other players, but having the super stars was a good advertisement for big league baseball. Because the biggest stars were with the New York Yankees and because those big stars were barnstorming and playing up to the fans, people all over the south fell in love with the Yankees. Very good public relations.

          In 1927 the Yankees had an incredible year, winning the American League pennant by 19 games (This was decades before the division set up that exists now. You played the season and the best record went to the World Series.) In the World Series they swept the Pittsburgh Pirates. Even today, they are considered the best team to ever take the field. On that team there was the famous Murderers Row, a group of hitters no pitcher anywhere could get through without serious damage being done. Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri. Just an awesome line-up. When barnstorming season came along, Ruth and Gehrig and Meusel went out together on the tour.

          They played their way across the south, ending up just before Christmas. The regular season ended in September and, because there was no playoff format, the World Series was usually over by the first week in October. That made the barnstorming season a good two months long and the various teams of big leaguers managed to play in just about every ball field in the south. In late November of 1927, the bus carrying the team with Ruth, Gehrig and Meusel pulled into a small town in Alabama. It was cold with a light snow and some wind, but the small stands were filled to overflowing with fans wanting to see the heart of the fabled Murderers Row bat against their boys.

          By 1971 our family farm had failed. For the first time in my life I was working away from the fields. My sister got me a summer job at the nursing home she worked at. The floors were not carpeted and so needed swept and mopped daily. I happened to be pretty good at that chore. On the second day of work I entered a room with my dust pan and broom. The occupant was a tall man with a full head of red hair, almost as red as mine. The day before he had been asleep when I was there, but on this day he was laying in bed reading a book. I said good morning and began to sweep.

          “Hey, Red.” A reference to my bright red hair. I didn’t like being called Red. It had only happened a couple of times in school and my reaction to it made certain it would never happen again. But he was as red haired as I, so I turned to him and said, “Yeah, Big Red?” He got a chuckle out of that and then he said, “You like baseball?” His southern accent made it sound like ‘basebawl’, so I grinned back and said, “Love it.” “Yeah? Ever hear of Murderers Row?” Big Red was talking to a baseball nut. It might have been 44 years since that group had come together, but I knew all about them. “Sure. Combs, Koenig, Ruth, Gehrig, Meusel and Lazzeri.” Big Red’s eyes lit up. “Red, if you got a few minutes I got me a story to tell you!” So I took a few minutes and pulled up a chair.

          The bus pulled up to the ball field in that small town in Alabama and the big league players piled out. They were already wearing their uniforms and most of the men were hungover from a night of drinking on the bus. Meusel and Ruth and Gehrig were the last ones off because they were the ones everyone really wanted to see. Gehrig wasn’t a drinker and was stone cold sober, but Meusel and Ruth had seen better days. Gehrig said a few words to the gathered crowd and then he followed the team to the field, leaving Meusel and Ruth to fend for their selves. On the field waiting for the pros was the local American League baseball team. A pretty sharp group of young guys, but obviously no match for the pros. Still, most of the pros were hungover. It might be a pretty good game. They had their ace on the mound, a tall, red headed kid of 20 who just the day before had bagged two deer. He felt like he could do anything. Young, strong, pitching against the pros. Maybe he could get into the minors based on this game. He had not thought at all that in four decades he would be bed bound in a nursing home in Madison, Ohio, dying of cancer. No, on that cold November day in Alabama, he aimed to be a hero.

          The first time through the line-up the tall red haired kid got roughed up a little. Even hungover, they were big leaguers. The pros had scored a couple of runs by the third inning and the American Legion boys had punched over a run. Now, for the second time in the game, Big Red was going to face Meusel and Ruth and Gehrig, in that order. Runners on first and second, no outs. Looked like a big inning for the pros.

          Meusel fouled off two pitches and then watched strike three smoke by. He argued with the umpire and got thrown out of the game. Babe Ruth strode to the plate. He pulled two mammoth foul balls to right and then struck out swinging. Both Meusel and Ruth had been trying to drive the ball out of the park, but Gehrig was a contact hitter with great power. He rarely tried to kill the ball, but he still got his share of home runs. All he needed here was a single and a run would score. Three pitches later he walked back to the dugout, having swung and missed on all three. The crowd went crazy! Their American Legion red head had struck out Murderers Row! What a moment in that small Alabama town! It didn’t even matter that the pros eventually won the game. All anyone could talk about was the third inning strike outs.

          He told me the story with great detail. It was all burned into his mind. He grew tired with the telling and fell asleep when he was done. I sat and looked at the older man. I didn’t know the rest of his story. What was it that brought him to Northeast Ohio, if he had ever made the minors, did he marry and have children? At that point I didn’t know he would die in a week from cancer. But I just sat there and watched him sleep. The barnstorming days had always fascinated me and I had read a lot about that time. There were lots and lots of stories of local teams pulling off victories and even a few of a local pitcher who had struck out the three mightiest hitters on the pro teams, always in the third or fourth inning. Although never stated, it almost seemed that such things were planned to excite the local folks. Perhaps this gentleman had just done that, struck out the side because they let him do it. I don’t know, but I do know it was a happy memory.

          A few years later, in college, I was sharing the story with my roommate. Instead of the inspiring tale I was shooting for, my roommate seemed adversely affected by the story. “What, you don’t think it’s a great story?” My roomie looked at me and shrugged. “Yeah, its pretty cool. But just think about it, Larry. You don’t know anything about him except that story. That is what he wanted to tell you. Probably the greatest moment of his life. And he was twenty years old. To find something great in his life, he had to look back a long way. Don’t you think that is sad?”

          I had never thought about it like that. Doing something great at an early age then never anything to top it. Living on a memory. I was at the nursing home a week later when he died. He had no family there. He died alone. Was that really his one shining moment?

          That bugged me. As my roommate said, it was sad. I thought about it and thought about it and I decided that regardless what happened in my life, I would keep looking for bigger challenges and higher mountains regardless of what happened. No greatest moments for me, just greater things to come.

          All this came to mind this week. Sitting in a chair at home (not my recliner because I didn’t want to fall asleep) one evening with the lights out, I was letting my mind run through events of my life. Recent events have been sad, but mostly this life has been very fulfilling. As of Saturday, October 5 I will have been in the ministry for 44 years. It occurred to me that Big Red told me the story of that shining moment 44 years after it had happened. I sat there in the dark and thought, ‘Do I have a shining moment?’

          As I thought about it, there have been many, many shining moments. Moments in time that stand out, faces that become clear in the memory, babies that smile when they see you. Sometimes seeing someone come to the Lord against all odds. Watching a dear saint pass from this life to glory. The unbridled joy of a child at VBS and the gentle pleasure of an older person upon hearing a favorite song. My great moments might not sound so great to some, but at the moment of their happening they were great. For 44 years it has been awesome. Which is not to say there have been no down times, but sitting there thinking about it, the shining moments blow the bad moments away.

          Please don’t live your life in the past. Your personal life, your family life, your church life should all be focused on the next shining moment. If you keep seeking great things, when that time comes to sit in the dark and ponder on your very best moments it will be like a parade of joys and laughter and smiles. Even the heartbreaks will pale.

          Big Red gripped the ball, then fired that third strike past the great Lou Gehrig and the crowd went wild. But then…….nothing else of note. A wonderful memory, yes. It seems so sad, though.

          A year ago, I was ready to stop and end my ministry. The Lord would not let me and, almost as important to me, neither would you folks. So, thank you and keep looking forward. Blessings!

          I suppose I have to do this to bring everyone up to speed. Really, I wanted to write something funny and glib this week. However, in addition to not feeling funny and glib, I know a lot of you have been concerned for Marsha and myself as our marriage has now officially ended. And I came away with some blog worthy thoughts in the process. If you don’t wish to read about it, then don’t. I certainly will not be offended. However, there is nothing bad here, no shouting or name calling, no mean language. Just a few thoughts.

          First, my GPS. If there are any bad thoughts in my head, they are for my GPS. For my GPS I will use feminine gender pronouns because my GPS has a female voice. I originally bought her about eight months ago. I don’t like the things, but sometimes they are handy. So far, just to see if she works, I used her to get to Walmart in Warsaw, Indiana and to a doctor’s office two weeks ago, also in Warsaw. Not really a challenge. She worked OK. Cleveland, however, was another matter. I know the route from Indiana to Cleveland pretty well and I knew where I was going that first night to spend the night, although I had never been there. It was just off the highway, not a problem. The GPS did fine until we were approaching the exit, but she was not advising me to get off. We had been driving for several hours and I supposed she was napping, but when I got off, she immediately began to tell me that I had gotten off at the wrong exit. Once I was headed to the motel, she became insistent that I needed to turn back. When I pulled into the parking lot, she was imploring me to turn around. I mean, she would not shut up. I had this reaction with the funeral home’s GPS in Pittsburgh years ago, but I really was turned around then. Once I got to my room, I had a long talk with the GPS, but she did the female thing and just sat there all silent and moody. The next day I put in the address for the courthouse knowing I was not going directly to the courthouse. Cleveland has some pretty neat neighborhoods and I know a lot of them and I just wanted to take the tour. I wasn’t really thinking of the GPS or that she was going to be angry when I deviated from her instructions, but boy, did she get angry. All I was hearing was ‘RECALCULATING, RECALCULATING!’ I explained there were places I wanted to revisit, but she was pretty annoyed. In fact, once I made a right hand turn on Bishop Road. As I was completing the turn, I realized that at some point in the last four years, Bishop had become a one-way street and I was turning the wrong way. The GPS, in the voice of a woman who has just had it proven that the male in her life is a total idiot, said, “You have now turned the wrong way on a one-way street.” Of course, I had to turn around, but I was laughing so hard it was hard to find a place to turn. And then, once I quit the tour, I began to follow her directions to the courthouse. I have been to this courthouse on funeral home business dozens of times, but I was in the neighborhoods and needed her help getting there. She got me to the courthouse just fine, but insisted that it was on the south side of Lakeside Avenue when it is actually on the north side. The differences between the modern buildings on the south side and the two block long, one block deep 100 year old marble Cuyahoga County Courthouse on the north side are quite striking, but she was absolutely sure, once again, that I was an idiot. Actually, I think she was stressed out. Cleveland can do that. After I left the courthouse and got back in the car and fired the GPS up again, I just hit the HOME icon. I am telling the truth, she seemed to sound relieved when she said, “Please drive to the highlighted route.” She was very pleased to get home.

          The second thing I came away with is that we live in a society that is moving toward ruin. Cuyahoga County is home to 1.3 million people. Compare that to Wabash County’s population of 33,000 people. Actually, Cuyahoga County used to be much larger. As manufacturing jobs went away the county and the city of Cleveland dwindled. Now, much of the area is in decay, both physically and morally. I got to the courthouse just after noon for a 2:30 appointment and, once I got away from the entrance, I became depressed to see how run down the building had become. On the third floor I found the room I wanted and sat down to wait.

          There are family court judges, but the divorce portion of family court is so busy that they do not use actual judges. They use magistrates. These are attorneys who have as their sole job the task of making sure all the ‘i’s have been dotted and all the ‘t’s have been crossed. We sat before the magistrate for 10 minutes of our 2:30 to 3:00 appointment. A few questions and boom, 44 years of marriage were wiped off the books. There are three magistrates covering divorces for family court in Cuyahoga County. They have 30 minute sessions all day every day. That is all they do. Process divorces. I was there two and a half hours early and it was very sad.

          But another thing I saw as I sat waiting was how filthy the place was. Built at a time when things were built to look grand, the doors had patterns on them and scroll work in the marble walls and door frames all around. Once beautiful, in 2019 you can see the caked in dirt and residue from years of neglect. Cracks in the marble look to be growing. In the time I was there no one came by to sweep floors or empty trash cans. In fact, the only maintenance/janitor type I saw was a guy standing at the security desk drinking coffee and talking to the security guard as I was coming in. Society seems to be like that everywhere. Morally corrupt and with a lack of care and compassion.

          And then, I received a lesson on change. I didn’t recognize Marsha at first when she walked up to me in the hall. She is now a blond. I had never seen that look. It didn’t look bad. It kind of looked unnatural, but I am sure that is just because I had never seen her that way. Also, she is getting remarried on the 19^th of October, which should be enough time for the divorce decree document to get to her and for them to get their marriage license. To her, this was just another step into a new life.

But the final thing I learned that day was that when people are praying for you, you can feel it. Actually, I feel it every Sunday when I preach and there is someone in the prayer room. But this was different. Hundreds of miles away in the middle of the day and still I knew that people were lifting me up. Pretty cool.

High points? No traffic problems. No car problems. Had a great breakfast on Monday morning. Passed a tornado in a field a few hundred yards away on the way home. Got to drive around Cleveland. I wasn’t a bad trip overall.

 However, it was sad. The hardest thing I have ever done. Now that it is over, though, there is a sense of stress being relieved. I feel better physically that I have in a while. This ordeal will never be fully over, but the impact is in the past, if you know what I mean. Life will go on.

 I have a very big personal day coming up next week and I intend to enjoy it. I haven’t enjoyed very much in the last year, but that changes as of now!

 Blessings.

          I indulged myself a bit this morning. I read Mary’s blog first thing. I don’t normally do that. It is Friday and I have much to do. In fact, my blog is normally done over a period of two or three days. Not constantly over two or three days, but kind of like letting a plant grow over a period of weeks or months. But this week my mind is hard to bring into focus. Too much of a personal nature going on. So, I read Mary first and it got me to thinking.

          Without getting into what she wrote (if you want to know what she wrote, go to her blog and read it at https://mary-marysmoments.blogspot.com/) she discussed the difference between weeds and grass. She brings it into the Spiritual realm and it is quite interesting. But with my scatter gun brain this week, my mind took off in another direction.

          Growing up on a farm, I was taught that weeds were our mortal enemy. If you let them get ahead of you, they would destroy the corn and the soybeans and choke off the garden. Meanwhile, we had a couple of acres of rolling lawn of mostly Kentucky blue grass. Beautiful stuff. Only I didn’t see it like my parents saw it. We didn’t spray our fields so we had to run the cultivator through them. Each field was cultivated once a week, which kept me busy all week. This was done until the corn or beans got high enough that the cultivator might damage the crop. By that time, the weeds were not going to be a problem. I have two sisters and their job was to hoe the garden, so I didn’t care about those weeds. The grass in the lawn was another matter. My father didn’t believe in riding mowers, so I mowed the grass with a hand mower. You were walking either up hill or down hill. Given my choice, I would have rather ridden on a tractor attacking the weeds than pushing a hand mower up and down grass covered hills.

          Growing older, I began to notice other things. My mother worked hard in her flower gardens to make her blooms beautiful. Meanwhile, wild weeds often had small blooms that were just as beautiful. I pointed this out to Mom one day and was surprised at her reaction, which was not good. After that, being the good and loving son, I pointed this out quite often. Always got the same reaction from my mother. I think I drove her crazy.

          And, just for the record, who made the decision that a pansy is a flower and a dandelion is a weed? I have read that the dandelion is part of the sunflower family. You can eat parts of it, use other parts to make tea and still other parts to make wine. And it is abundant. Pansies take time and work and all you can do with a pansy is look at it. Personally, a dandelion filled yard is a welcoming yard.

          Anyway, we are talking about weeds. The area I come from is hilly with some deep valleys. There is also a vast difference in soil content. Just in our township, the area from Lake Erie to North Ridge Road is all sandy. Between North Ridge Road and Middle Ridge Road it is a mix of sand and loam and is very fertile. From Middle Ridge Road to South Ridge Road it is a combination sandy, loam and clay, also very fertile. Mostly, we farmed between North Ridge Road and South Ridge Road, although we did have a forty acre field north of North Ridge. Being hilly, we didn’t have a lot of acreage together like here, but the fields were apart from one another. It was just different. And, while there were differences in the soil and fields running from north to south, there were also differences running from east to west. I grew up in Lake County. The next county to the east was Ashtabula County. And, right at the county line, the soil changed yet again. Ashtabula County is Ohio’s grape country. Wines and jellies and juices and some of the best grapes you could ever eat come from Ashtabula County. The wines win awards against Napa Valley brands and even win awards in international competition. A large portion of Welch’s jams and jellies and juices come from Ashtabula County. Many of the rolling hills in Ashtabula County are covered with vineyards rather than corn and soybeans while in Lake County you would be hard pressed to find a single grape arbor. Another wonderful thing no one really knows about unless you live among grapes is that every year, right about now, the grapes are coming in and the smell is amazing. And between the rows in the vineyards are weeds. Mowed and kept short, but weeds.

Mary’s blog set me to thinking about the difference between weeds and grass, which led over to the soil from north to south back in Northeast Ohio, which led my fevered brain to think about how odd it is that on the west side of Countyline Road the soil is rich and good for crops and on the east side of Countyline Road it is wonderful grape soil. And I should finish this travelogue by pointing out that on the eastern side of Ashtabula County to the Pennsylvania state line and on into Pennsylvania is apple country and the home of apple cider donuts. Ooooooooooooooooooo!

You see, when a person’s mind is fractured it can go in a dozen different directions. And there is still one more major wrinkle in this mindless wandering.

I pastored in Geneva, Ohio for years. Geneva is in Ashtabula County and is actually where most of the grapes are grown. For many years, Coca Cola had a bottling plant in Geneva. They didn’t bottle Coke, though. They bottled Welch’s grape juice and apple juice and peach juice. Big operation, lots of people worked there. And they had offices and labs and such like places that needed cleaning. For a while when we first went to Geneva, I needed a part time job I could do at night and they needed someone to clean these places. So, I got a part time job at the bottling plant.

You cleaned the front offices, then you walked through the darkened plant to the labs in the back of the building and cleaned those. It was a long walk through the darkened rows of machines and equipment. It never bothered me. I was never afraid that someone might be there. Mostly my thoughts centered on when the church was going to be able to afford me full time. (Which actually happened pretty quickly, much to their surprise.)

But then one night, one o’clock in the morning, I knew I was being watched. I was about halfway through the plant when I felt it. Eyes. Someone was watching me as I walked through. I was suddenly alert. My pace slowed as I scanned through the plant, although other than distant EXIT signs there was no light. I reached the labs and set to work cleaning them, but my mind wouldn’t rest. No one was supposed to be in there, so if someone was, they were up to no good. I locked the lab doors behind me. I cleaned and swept and mopped in pretty quick order and then gathered my cart and set out for the main offices. Walking through te dark I was straining my eyes to see anything. Then, I came around a particularly large machine and in the gloom I saw him. My height. All I could see was his silhouette. I didn’t know who it was, but I knew he didn’t belong and I figured I was in danger. I lashed out with a right that had all my strength behind it and I nailed him on the chin. He went straight down and I turned on my flashlight. It was a grisly sight.

Lying on the floor, not making a sound, was an old time heavy cardboard cutout of a Coca Cola deliveryman. What made it grisly was that I had knocked his head clean off. It was the kind of thing you might have seen somewhere in the 1940s advertising Coke. Why it was there, in a juice bottling plant, I don’t know. But I figured it had some age and was therefore valuable. I stood him up and retrieved his head and tried to tape it on with electrical tape. All I got was a jaunty Coke delivery guy who looked like he was walking with a broken neck. I hurried up to the main offices and checked out, figuring I would get a call the next day. I never did and two weeks later I was able to quit, so I never did find out what it was all about.

          There is a moral here……Never, ever get me started on weeds.     

          It has only been eighteen years. The country was blindsided by a cowardly man who somehow managed to manipulate his ‘followers’ to do the nasty work he was afraid to do himself. Fly planes into towers and kill people. It was a statement. If they just wanted to kill a bunch of people, they could have flown just one plane into an NFL stadium on gameday and 10s of thousands would have died. But that wouldn’t have been a big enough statement. But, take out the twin towers and the Pentagon and whatever the target was for the plane the passengers tried to retake and that crashed in Pennsylvania. That was a statement.

          As a nation, we rose to the occasion. I remember the shock and grief, but it was mixed with a growing pride. People running away from the falling buildings, as they should have been doing, but police and firefighters and EMTs running towards the buildings to try and save lives. At the Pentagon, the generals and colonels and admirals and captains and staffers who had all grown comfortable in their roles in the biggest office building in the world all of a sudden reverted to the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines they had started out as in their military lives. A man from the community I pastored in was visiting the Pentagon with his wife. Their son had just been transferred there and they were walking down a hall when that plane slammed into the building. This man told me that immediately military efficiency took over. He told me that if there was any panic, he didn’t see it. The entire nation was energized. Less than a year before a hotly contested presidential contest had divided the country. (Remember Florida’s hanging chad problem?) But, suddenly, the Republican president was accepted as the President of all the United States. And we were united.

          Eighteen years later. Where are we?

          A grossly divided country. Personally, I have no problem with lawmakers who are Muslim, so long as they recognize and promote American values and ideals. What we have are Islamic lawmakers who want to install Islamic law. I have no problem with people who disagree with me politically. That is what we are built upon. But when those people would rather see me dead than at the ballot box, then that is a problem. And when a major news source, in their remembrance of a national tragedy just eighteen years after the fact, never mentions that the planes that were flown into the twin towers and the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania that the hijackers were radical Islamics are engaging in a history rewrite, that is just wrong. Their reporting made it sound as though the planes did the attack, just as their reporting makes it sound as though it is the gun’s fault in a mass shooting.

          Eighteen years later. Where are we?

          We are in a bad way. Eighteen years ago we rallied behind the flag. Nothing wrong with that, not at all. But more was needed. There were voices calling out for it, but those voices were mostly ignored. However, if those voices had been heeded, even just a little bit, we would be living in a different country.

           It is common in our country to hear someone shout, “We have the right!” And that is true. This is the United States of America. We have rights. A video is out there of American children whacking away at a piñata, seeking to break it open so that they could get to the candy inside. The piñata was made to look like the president of the United States. The parents of the children stood around shooting video and laughing and cheering on their little ones as they taught the lesson of disrespect. But they have that right. Another video. A FedEx driver heroically shoulders his way into the middle of a protest to save an American flag from being burned. He had a right to do so and, apparently now, the protester had the right to burn the flag. We all have rights, or think we do. But we have neglected the most important right of all. The very thing that would have really changed things eighteen years ago.

I know I go on and on about this, but I am a Christian first and foremost. If I am a good Christian I will be a good American. So, the Bible is my one essential in life. I read the Bible daily and I also read the Constitution of the United States through yearly. The precepts in the Constitution emerge from the Bible. And this I find in the Word of God;

          2 Chronicles 7:12-15---Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Why have we turned our backs on being humble before the Lord? Why have we turned our backs on praying to Him and seeking Him out? Why have we turned our backs on righteous living and instead chosen evil? If we had listened to those voices crying out eighteen years ago to turn back to Him, we would not be in the mess we are in now.