Rabid Fun

Heavy Day Ahead

02/03/2012

Friday, February 3, 2012

Tracking software leads me to believe the proof pages for the 1942 Eleanor Scruggs Diary will come in today and I need to get them to Ann so she can approve (or not) so I can make needed corrections before another scheduled eye operation. And…

And the new yard men, who I expected yesterday, should show up today. And…

And, I need to put the finishing touches on my Super Bowl ad. And…

And two of the girls plan to come in early. And…

And, I need to get to the bank. And…

And, I expect several phone calls from an author related to a different book. And

And, and, here’s the biggie, this evening my eldest son, Fred, graduates from the Clara White Culinary Arts program and most of the family plans to attend. Ginny and I are still working out travel logistics to coordinate with everybody.

In graduating, Fred has accomplished a major feat through difficult circumstances. For a while he had to live underneath a downtown bridge, yet he managed to finish this course and graduate. Wow!

And, of course, I have my normal day’s work lurking unfinished in the computer.

This is the day the Lord hath made… but it’s looking to get out of hand.

Word From Two Big Guys

02/02/2012

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Yesterday my friend Wes treated me to breakfast at Famous Amos where he gave me a verbal beating on the head to such an extend that some guy at an adjoining table joined in to add his two cent’s worth.

I make such an appealing victim—sort of like one of those Bop-A-Moles in a penny arcade, an appropriate image for Groundhog Day.

In what grew to a five hour conversation my friend explained that I missed God’s will back in 1957 when I graduated from high school and that since then my whole life has been off track, useless and wasted. And it’s too late to ever get back on track now.

He said I’ve lived according to an heretical false premise espoused by an evangelical, pietistic, mystical mindset growing out of 19^th Century revivalist adventist false doctrine—and that’s the cause of all my troubles in life.

Wes explained that what I should have done back in 1957 was learn a trade, get a job, a real job, earn a living to support my family and then, if I had a bit of change or time left over, then I could do goody goody Christian volunteerism. He added that my pipe dream of writing is naught but a pipedream and that my writing is not really work.

The bald stranger at the next table volunteered that all religious people are frauds out to bilk the gullible out of their money and that I am one such fraud.

Didn’t think of it at the time but I should have offered to pay the guy double his money back for every cent he’s ever given to me. That might have shut him up.

Unfortunately I did not see my shadow so I sat there being the Bop-A-Mole groundhog—besides Wes was paying for breakfast.

I asked how I can tell if God is punishing me or if my woes are just the result of being in the world.

Wes says I am suffering the natural consequences of having acted a simplistic, gullible, pietistic fool years ago. Actions have results and these are mechanical and inexorable. God’s intervention in this process is so rare as to be termed miraculous.

Now Wes is the most charitable Christian I know and my best friend; his consistently kind actions belie his harsh Calvinistic theology. He’s a reverse hypocrite in that he lives better than he talks.

Understand please that I’m condensing a long conversation into a few paragraphs and I may have heard wrong—but I think the foregoing is an accurate summary.

My only defense of my wasted life is that of the wheat and the tares.

A farmer planted wheat, bad guys sowed tares, a sort of sandspur, in the same field. The farmhands wanted to pull up the tares but the owner said to wait till Harvest when all would be reaped and sorted, the wheat into the barn, the tares into the fire.

Or, as soldiers said, “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out”.

I do what I do because I do it.

So, I trust the Lord, at the end of the age to harvest the events of my life and sort out the good and the evil to His satisfaction—or not.

I mentioned that I hate to read the bible because I so often shut the book feeling guilty. And Wes said that we only recognize the love of God against the backdrop of His Wrath and indignation against our rebellion. And that apart from His redemption we stand rightly condemned.

I find comfort in the words of St. John when he observes that, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things”.

Wes and I retired to my house to smoke our pipes and talk for another three or four hours.

To cheer up in the afternoon after Wes left, I began reading Matthew White’s Great Big Book Of Horrible Things, which catalogs the 100 worst atrocities in history detailing the most gruesome things people have ever done to other people.

Fascinating reading, a real pick-me-up when you’re down

Now, my friend Wes is a big guy, and later in the afternoon another hefty friend of mine, Ken, called to tell me about a book he’s just finished writing and to ask my advice about getting it published.

Ken e-mailed me a copy and I sat up reading it most of the night. Ken’s novel celebrates what he calls Huge Eaters, i.e. big men—I mean really big, Sumo wrestler big guys. And Ken’s novel conveys an almost sensual celebration of eating to the point of gorging on rich, plentiful food.

I’ve never read anything like it before.

I’ve e-mailed him a few suggestions earlier this morning and I wish him well in placing it. His larger-than-life (in many ways) hero proves to be an interesting character and I think readers would get a big kick in reading his exploits.

Now I’m going to stop writing and go see if there’s any Danish left in the kitchen…. and… and for some reason I’ve been thinking about my mother and about my first wife.

—–

Be sure to watch for my Bluefish Books commercial during Superbowl this weekend.

Quotes From Two Diaries

02/01/2012

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

This week I await proof pages from the printer of an old diary I’ve been editing for publication as a book on my Bluefish Books site.. Although I’ve worked intently on this recently, I actually began accumulating materials for the book three years ago.

In a couple of weeks, God willing, I plan to release My Most Amazing Year: The 1942 Diary Of Eleanor Law Scruggs. I’m excited about this new paperback it’s taken me many happy hours of browsing Library of Congress, State Archives and local library resources to produce it.

After my friend Ann’s mother, Eleanor, died, in sorting her things Ann found this diary which she had not know existed before. Ann recently gave me permission to go ahead with its publication.

Here’s an entry telling about my first encounter with Eleanor’s 1942 Diary; it comes from page 73 of my book A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs: John Cowart’s 2009 Diary:

One happy note:

Wes brought me a typescript diary which a young Jacksonville woman wrote in 1942, the first year of World War II.

After Wes left, I read the whole text in one sitting. Fascinating! Filled with zest and breathless energy, innocence, and curiosity.

What a delight!

She was 17 and a college freshman when she wrote:

“This morning I did the most awful thing that I have ever done—I’m still mortified to death & I still don’t see how I managed to let it happen!

“Something happened to my sense of time ‘cause at 10:10 I heard Tish coming up from her 9:00 class & realized that I should have been in English class at 10:00! You should have seen me dash! I got there 15 minutes late… That’s no way to act!”

On July 12, 1942, she describes her first-ever kiss:

“Charlie kissed me tonite for the first time! I mean, on my lips. I got all kinds of tingles all over me & I almost felt like crying! It was awful & wonderful & everything all at the same time. I had really not intended to let him do it ‘til the end of the summer, but I just could not hold out any longer”.

She and Charlie married and lived together for, I believe, over 50 years.

I knew them as an elderly couple; she survived him by a few years before her own death. I wish I’d known them young.

Last night, as Ginny and I were praying after dinner, the telephone right beside us rang. So we put God on hold while I answered the incoming call.

The young lady on the phone said she’d called to let me know that she’d read my March 1^st (2009) blog posting (about the chicken-headed potholders) on her computer at work and started laughing. A coworker came up to read over her shoulder and started laughing too. Soon five ladies clustered around the computer to laugh at me and those potholders.

That news gave me such a lift. So often I feel as though no one reads my stuff and I’m just typing on air. I wonder why I bother writing. It makes me happy to know that there are a few readers out there.

After I hung up the phone, Ginny and I resumed praying—the Lord God was still on the line waiting patiently for us.

He always is.

———-

NOTE: BE SURE TO WATCH FOR MY BLUEFISHBOOKS SUPERBOWL COMMERCIAL ON SUNDAY!…jwc

A Simple Pleasure

01/31/2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

I’ve spent the weekend enjoying the simple pleasure of watching my wife read.

That’s all. Watching her read.

Last Friday Ginny began reading the unexpurgated, 1153-page-long edition of Stephen King’s The Stand; so far, she’s read the first 739 pages of the book.

I love to watch her read. Her facial expression changes from chapter to chapter in her book. She smiles over incidents I know nothing about. She looks so intense over some passages. She is so interested in her book, so focused, so enthralled.

Occasionally household duties pull her away from the printed page and she runs to switch a load of clothes from washer to dryer—moving as fast as she can so she can get back to the story. Occasionally she raises her head to ask me, “Don’t you feel sorry for Floyd?” or “Trashcan man wasn’t crazy till he got to Vegas, was he?—crazy maybe but not evil”.

I love to watch her grope for her pack of cigarettes without looking up from the page. I love to watch her nod and fight to stay awake to read a little more.

She’s so beautiful. So intense. So engaged.

I have my own book to read; in the same time frame as Ginny has read 739 pages, I’ve read 273 pages of the Letters Of C.S. Lewis. I nod off to sleep quicker than she does.

So we sit reading in our chairs. Hardly saying a word to eachother for the whole weekend—very happy and blessed.

Thanks be to God.

These Things Did Happen

01/28/2012

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Joe Bracewell wrote a book.

It tells about a life which fascinates him—his own.

My eyes have adjusted enough that Joe’s book became the second one I’ve read so far this year

The title of the book is These Things Did Happen: The Story of Major Joseph C. Bracewell, Jr. (USAF-Retired).  He wrote it with the aid of publisher Susan Brandenburg. Published earlier this month, the ISBN is 978-0-9833848-1-6.

Joe is the stepfather of my friend Wes—who is identified in the book as a Man About Town!

Wes told me about the book signing his dad hosted to launch this book: over 200 people attended, Joe hired a band, buffet appetizers served by a buxom cocktail waitress in a skimpy outfit.

I’m envious. .Buxom girls in negligees hardly ever even read my books much less promote them to throngs of book buyers.

Joe could not help being the star of the show at his signing; he’s the star whenever he’s around because his enthusiasm shines so brightly.

I’ve only met Joe once and found him unforgettable. A former everything—real estate tycoon, Air Force officer, insurance salesman, singer, tour leader, Gandy Dancer, Donald Duck impersonator, cook, fisherman, gift shop owner, contractor—Joe has a tale about everything.

And as the raconteur tells his exuberant stories, he’s likely to break into song at any moment and before you know it, he’s got you singing along too.

If you don’t know the words to “My Father Knew Lloyd George” Joe is not shy about teaching you—all 87 verses.

Joe’s book captures some of his joy de vie even as he tells about the dimensions of every house he’s ever lived in, or his role in testing Atomic Bombs.

But a high point in Joe’s life was his participation in the Berlin Air Lift. This phase of his career influenced his outlook so much that recently he commissioned artist Susanne Schuenke to paint Raining Hope,. Copies of that art work hang at the Air Force Academy and at the Berlin City Hall. It also provides the back cover for Joe’s book:

Joe attributes his long and happy love of life to the blessing of God Almighty. He testifies:

I’ve learned that God sent His only son, Jesus, a God to live as a man with the same temptations of man. At His age of thirty-three, He was crucified, died, and buried in a borrowed tomb and three days later He arose and was resurrected and sits on the right hand of God the Father. At the age of eleven I was baptized and came to believe that Jesus was my personal savior and I shall be resurrected after my death and go to live with Him in Haven, where I will see my loved ones again.

God has His own timing for my death.

Otherwise, I would have died on a mountain top in Wyoming, or at the hand of my cousin, F.B. Bracewell, or died in the crash of a WB-50 in Japan. If not for God, I would have died in Vietnam when a bomb was planted so near my head, or in the collision of a horse and crew vehicle in Ethiopia, or in a typhoon named Lorna in the sea of Taiwan.

Joe’s book recounts in detail these stories on his life.

Simplicissimus And Me

01/24/2012

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

I read a book.

Finished it yesterday.

The first book I’ve read since my eyes went wonky over the Christmas holidays.

Considering that normally in the past I’ve read a couple of books a week, this eye thing cramped my style. But fading sight and hands shaking too much to hold a book steady, proved only part of my problem in reading Hans Jacob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen’s Adventurous Simplicissimus.

I picked this book up because of the picture on the cover:

What is that all about?

This German novel, written in 1668, tells the adventures of Simplicissimus, a soldier during Europe’s 30 Years War. Moved here and there by the vicissitudes of war and fortune, the young man encounters pillage, rape, witches, demons, water spirits, card sharks, fake doctors, loose women, corrupt army officers, and Gypsies as well as Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptist, Orthodox and Moslem religious ideas as he switches from side to side during the fighting—during which Christian soldiers on each side hang other Christians from the nearest tree.

War takes the 15-year-old soldier from Germany to Sweden, to Poland, to Paris, to Rome, to Austria, to Moscow, the center of the earth, to Turkey, and to Madagascar.

After being slave chained to an oar rowing a Turkish galley, he ends up shipwrecked on a desert island where in his old age—he was 40 by then—he survived using clever ways to gain salt, food, drinking water, make dishes, and even palm wine. There he wrote of his life-long adventures—and his book appeared 50 years before Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe.

Also, in his old age, Simplicissimus reflects on the sins of his soldiering days when he killed, stole, raped and pillaged.

And he also repents to reflect on Christ’s forgivness.

Not having a copy of Scripture, Simplicissimus lets natural things remind him of truth. He said:

That little island must be my whole world, and in the same, everything, yea, every tree, an incitement to godliness and a reminder of such thoughts as a good Christian should have. Thus did I see a prickly plant, forthwith I thought on Christ his crown of thorns; saw I an apple or a pomegranate, then I reflected on the fall of our first parents and mourned therefore; when I did draw palm-wine from a tree, I fancied to myself how mercifully my Redeemer had shed His blood for me on the tree of the Holy Cross; when I looked on sea or on mountain, then I remembered this or that miracle which our Saviour had wrought in such places; and when I found one or more stones that were convenient for casting, I had before mine eyes the picture of the Jews that would have stoned Christ; and when I walked in my garden, I thought on the prayer of agony in Mount Olivet, or on the grave of Christ, and how after His Resurrection He appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden. Such thoughts were my daily occupation; never did I eat bread but that I thought on the Last Supper, and never cooked my food without the fire remind me of the eternal pains of Hell.

The passage strikes a cord with me because, as my blog header says, I am “a befuddled ordinary Christian who looks for spiritual realities in day to day living”

Maybe so but the the above quote from Simplicissimus is only about a third of its full paragraph which runs almost two pages! And the book consists of 398 pages of such humongous long paragraphs!

Maybe my eyes can focus enough to watch tv for the rest of the year.

Beauty Lies In The Mind Of The Beholder

01/20/2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

On an Easter egg hunt when I was five, while crawling on my hands and knees in the park, I came nose to nose with a beautiful creature, a tiny grass snake, its emerald scales blending with the grass, tiny bead-black eyes, red tongue flickering in and out as curious about me as I was about it.

Never before had I seen anything so beautiful.

I ran to get my Dad to show him this wonder, but when he came, the little snake was gone, disappeared into the grass. Its beauty remains only in my memory 70 years later.

While I’ve been recuperating from my eye surgery, mostly I’ve sat in a darkened room with my eyes shut. Unable to read or even watch tv, I occupied my time by making a mental list of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

What a happy way to pass dark hours!

I think the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen was Florida’s Ichetucknee Springs. Back before the state acquired the springs as a park and imposed all sorts of restrictions, we Boy Scouts often camped at the spring head. Because the water flows from deep caverns of the earth at a constant 72 degrees, in winter, as the warm flow hits the cold air, columns of steam form. Like wispy ghosts of Spanish Conquistadors, or water nymphs in diaphanous gowns the steam clouds rise, fall and dance on air currents.

Beneath the crystalline waters you can clearly see from bank to bank as fish, turtles and gators go about their business amid red, blue and green water plants. The water flow washes fossils out of the limestone banks, and once I found a Paleo-Indian flint spear point amid a pile of black mastodon bones. An archaeologist estimated my find was over ten thousand years old.

My mind’s eye still beholds that beautiful sight.

In fact, a vision of Ichetucknee Springs is my centering place, the place I envision to calm down when I am tense and under stress–such as last week when a doctor prepared to stick a needle in my eyeball.

Not a pretty sight!

The most beautiful room I’ve ever seen was the old Prints And Photographs room at the Library of Congress where once mosaic floors stretched beneath gilt scrollwork, classical paintings on the ceilingm and medallions of the Four Seasons in each corner of the room–that was before some bureaucrat thought how efficient to would be to add gray cubicles and a drop ceiling.

Alas, beautiful things have a way of getting away from you like little green snakes in the grass unless you deliberately treasure them.

Now, there’s a tie for the most beautiful furniture I’ve ever seen:

One, also at the Library of Congress, in the Music Room, is the desk of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff., an exquisite museum piece.

But topping that as most beautiful furniture was in the home of Miz Sidney, an ancient lady I once moved. I pulled the van up to an unpainted share-cropper shack with a rusted corrugated tin roof in a Mississippi cotton town. To get in the house, I had to walk over two wooden planks spanning an open ditch.

I wondered if I had the right address.

Once inside I found marvelous furniture. Most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Rosewood tables, chests and chairs inlaid with filigree vines and birds and flowers. Exquisite craftsmanship. Art works of incredible beauty.

As was my custom with any shipper, I asked Miz Sidney if there were any particular item she valued most. She led me to her kitchen and showed me four flat irons, the antique kind you heated on top of a wood burning stove to iron clothes.

She explained that she’d sent her eight children through college by taking in ironing, and although her children were moving her from the shack to an ocean-front condo at Playa Del Ray, she wanted to keep her irons handy.

She said as one child graduated from college, he’d help the next in line get through. One of her kids was a dentist, one an attorney, one an airline pilot, etc. She’d helped them in their careers taking in ironing, now they all chipped in to buy her lavish furnishings and move her to that condo.

A beautiful lady, beautiful furniture, beautiful family, beautiful story.

I have seen and handled a Guttenberg Bible, as well as 12^th Century illuminated manuscripts. White velum pages with pictures and borders inlaid with gold foil and lapis-lazuli, their covers encrusted with precious stones–perhaps the most beautiful things created by human hands.

In my younger days I made model clipper ships and felt wonder at the beauty and ingenuity of the men who built the originals. As the models took shape under my hands, I wondered at their beauty as though someone else had created them.

Once hiking near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ginny and I watched a sunset over snow-covered desert from the mouth of Sandia Cave.

Once when camping at Port St. Joe on Florida’s Gulf Coast we did not see another human being for five days. One night of a full moon we walked to the beach, undressed and danced naked in the moonlight.

I once saw beauty in an auto mechanic as Mr. Floyd worked on some mechanical problem beneath the hood of my car. He focused with intense concentration whistling under his breath as he solved the problem to his satisfaction, a man who loved what he was doing and pleased with his work.

In western Pennsylvania at dusk I watched a family of beaver emerge from their lodge, gnaw down saplings and work on their dam. They moved with such grace and purpose that I felt inspired to worship their Creator for making such magnificent creatures.

I remember the first time Ginny took her tits out for me to admire.

I saw a sky full of shooting stars in Arizona.

Once driving near Arcadia in South Florida on a night of the full moon, I encountered the aroma of orange groves in full blossom. In the small hours of the night, I turned off the truck’s headlights and drove mile after mile, meeting no other vehicle on the road, through the moonlight and scent of orange blossoms.

A few days before one Christmas I had a shipment from Petersburg, Virginia to Atlanta and crossed the Blue Ridge mountains in heavy show–again I was the only vehicle on the road,  while some radio station played the full score of Handel’s Messiah.

Once a nurse shark, longer than our boat, surfaced and rolled just yards away from where I sat on the gunnels.

Many times I’ve glanced up from what I was doing to see Ginny gazing at me with a look of utter adoration on her face–nothing more beautiful than that sight.

I knew a girl named Rusty, a bush pilot in Alaska, bright red hair–after a long absence we ran into each other and her face brightened with happiness. That was so beautiful. And I remember Trish, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known; it was a joy to walk with her–both Rusty and Trish, my good friends, not lovers, but the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.

Walking at dawn in a dark hemlock forest where rays of sunlight slanted through gaps in the trees to spotlight patches of forest floor, I saw a red fox step out of the forest to pause in one of those spotlights with the sunray behind her. She burst into color, the color of a new minted penny. She lifted a forepaw and looked at me then moved on into the shadow again. I felt I was seeing the kind of beast Eden knew.

I’ve seen my daughters all preened up to go out on a date; and my sons head to head solving some computer glitch. I’ve heard the hum of my children doing homework; I’ve seen them happy together in some activity that does not involve dad–hardly anything in the world more beautiful that that.

Once my Aunt Hazel and I explored Fort George Island when I saw a bone sticking from the earth. Realizing it was a metatarsal, a bone in the foot, I ran and got a whisk broom from the car. Brushing sand away and working my way up the legs, I uncovered the skeleton of a man, an ancient Moundbuilder. The symmetry of his bones, the grace of his posture, the color of the amber-brown bones against the gray sand–Beautiful! We are indeed fearfully and wonderfully made.

Of course I covered the skeleton, marked the spot, reported it to archaeologists and later a team from the university excavated the mound. I did not get to work that dig, but I’ve never forgotten the beauty of that Indian’s skeleton.

Yes, as my eyes adjust from my operation, I’ve been contemplating beauties I have seen in former years. There are so many that spring to mind.

I have seen the orange eyes of shrimp glowing in the net as I draw them snapping to the dock. I have seen lynx running through the snow. I have seen deer bounding over fallen chestnut logs covered with lichen. I have seen painted bunting, Florida’s most colorful bird. I have seen a nuclear submarine cruising on the surface. I have seen a circle of wood storks dancing in the green marsh. I saw my father’s body moments after his death….

The Bible says, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

The Lord is too big to see.

Hard to see Him when we and the whole universe lie in the palm of His hand,

So, no, I have never seen the beauty of the Lord God… but sometimes I feel I have come close.

And I look forward to seeing more and more beauty ahead.

As Iasiah prophesied in wonder, “Since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him”.

Well,, while I wait to see how this eye thing settles out,  I may not be posting as much or as often  in my on-line diary as I have in the past.

Not to worry. I’m still here and still happy… but a bit limited. For the moment

And I still see beauty in the world around me

Brighter visions gleam afar!

Look In to My Eyes, Deep Into My Eyes

01/12/2012

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Yesterday, business took Patricia, Johnny, and me to the Duval County Courthouse in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. .

As we left the building, we noticed a memorial plaque near the front door; Johnny photographed it with his cell phone.

The kids asked me, a Noted Authority on Jacksonville History — I wrote a book about it– they asked me why there is a memorial plaque to Daniel Boone at our courthouse? Was the American hero ever even in Jacksonville? Did he commit suicide here? And why put up a memorial to a frontier pioneer hero made of metal from the Battleship Maine?

Heavens! Don’t they teach history in schools anymore?

As a local history authority, I explained that in 1493 Daniel Boone sat on that very spot in front of the courthouse and a raccoon fell out of a tree and landed on his head. He placed his musket in his ear (click on plaque photo to enlarge) and pulled the trigger, thus creating the first coonskin cap.

Immediately afterwards he sailed aboard the Battleship Maine with President’s Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. The three of them charged up San Juan Hill with Boone’s faithful Indian companion Tonto pushing Roosevelt’s wheelchair. They removed all Soviet missiles from Cuba.

As the heroes smoked Cuban cigars on the deck of the Maine celebrating their victory, a burning stray ash landed in the powder magazine, caught the battleship’s sails on fire and blew up the battleship in Havana Harbor starting the Spanish-American War.

Jacksonville would have put up plaques to Teddy. Tonto,  and JFK also, but there wasn’t enough metal left over from the battleship after the explosion.

Any historian who disputes my interpretation of things is a fraud and is just making it all up.

I’m The Authority on Jacksonville Pseudo-History. I wrote a book which is just as accurate as my telling about why Daniel Boone stuck a rifle in his ear on the steps of the Duval County Courthouse.

Does anybody know different?

Any other history questions, Just ask me. I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em.

That being so, while I’m off to the eye surgeon today, here’s something to look at:

Pearls. Mercy Pearls On A String

01/11/2012

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

“I have a problem that you’ve never ever heard of before in your life”.

That’s the first thing I said to the office manager when I phoned her at the doctor’s office yesterday.

Cautiously she asked, “What problem is that, Sir”?

“I don’t have enough money to pay my bill,” I said.

She broke out laughing. We arranged for me to pay next month a bill due this week and we signed off good friends.

* That was the first nice thing in a string of nice things that happened to me yesterday.

* Next, I met Paul, a young Christian man who will be blowing leaves off our roof, cleaning rain gutters, and tending our yard–chores I’m no longer fit for myself. One of my children arranged for this kindness.

* Moments later, I spoke with the owner of that antique school girl’s diary and she gave me permission to publish the diary. We’ve talked about this off and on for months and it makes me happy to get the go-ahead.

* I wrote the first draft of the first section of the movie script I mentioned yesterday.

* Then a friend pulled in the driveway bringing me a huge amount of cash as a gift; my friend realized that I’ve been troubled about money and came to my rescue.

I want to digress a moment her from my string of pearls:

Here in the South, we have a term I don’t believe is used elsewhere; it’s called poormouthing–that is to talk about how little you have in order to manipulate sympathy in your hearer and guilt him into giving you money. That’s poormouthing.

When my friend brought that gift of money, my first though was, Have I been poormouthing God?

Pride dictates that I try never to let anybody else know when I need anything.

Some folks call that living by faith.

Not for me, it isn’t.

I’m proud, but poor. But I don’t want folks to know I’m short of cash because that means i don’t work hard enough and I’m lazy and no account.

So, recently with all the medical expenses, wild living and bad management, Ginny and I have been having to eat our hurricane supplies to get by. But we did not tell anybody. We’re proud.

A Bible guy name Agur– and his name is all I know about him– prayed, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny Thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain”

Wise man, Agur.

If I am short of cash, that means God is not taking care of me in the style I have become accustomed to and He ought to be ashamed of Himself for letting me be so damn poor. Therefore, I don’t ever want people to know how bad things are. That’s a reflection on my spirituality–Good guys ain’t poor. Are they?

So, my first reaction was to turn away my friend’s gift.

My need is none of his business.

In seconds the thought flashed in my mind, John, the most important thing you can ever do in life is to receive.

That’s right.

Giving makes me feel important and happy–Big Daddy John swooping in to bless the poor downtrodden wretches who are not blessed like me.

Receiving, on the other hand, can make me fell thankful, or resentful, because I’m not the big dog but on the receiving end of mercy.

But being on the receiving end of mercy is the keystone of being Christian: To as many as received Him, gave He the power to become the children of God.

So, yes, I said thank you to my friend and put the money in my pocket.

* Here comes the mailman bringing an envelope postmarked as being mailed in Jacksonville on Monday but with no return address. It contained two generous gift cards to a major department store.

Fan mail from someone who appreciates the great literature I write? I think not. Here’s a computer scan of the unsigned note:

Again I am on the receiving end of mercy, giving and generosity.

* This morning, when I clicked on the link to Felisol’s blog in Norway, the first thing I saw was my own name and a photo of a stack of my books

What a surprise!

And she wrote such nice things about my work. Again, I am on the receiving end of kindness.

So, like a string of pearls, good after good after good has come to me in the past 24 hours. And yet I feel apprehensive about the impending eye operation tomorrow. Will it hurt? Will God be good to me? Has He got it in for me? Why did this happen to me? Is God good? Does anybody care about poor me? What’s on tv tonight? All these questions plague my mind.

I am not a very good receiver.

Salvation by works ought to work.

If God owed me, then I could hold Him to it and get my just due.

If I own Him, then all I can do is receive mercy, take it, and be thankful.

King David wrestled with this same dilemma, “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD”.

Me too.

Six And One

01/10/2012

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

In his most recent novel, 11/22/63, one of Stephen King’s characters observes, “Life turns on a dime”.

In 1667, Simplicissimus, a soldier in the 30 Years War, observed, “When a thing is to be, all things shape themselves to that end…So wondrous is fortune and so changeable the times!…Things do happen in different fashions…Nothing is so certain in this world as its uncertainty”.

As two ancient kings prepared for battle, the defender told his taunting challenger, “One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off.”

King Solomon, wisest of men, said, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth”.

He also said, “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing….A man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way”?

My, but I’m contemplative this morning.

The recent problem with my sight and my fall the other night combined with my finishing the text of A Dirty Old Man Tells All last week–all these factors encourage me to contemplate my own goals and work plans for the coming year.

Yes, I know I’m overly ambitious, but if you aim at nothing, that’s what you’ll hit.

If God gives me life and strength, I’ve set six minor goals and one overriding major goal for myself.

1. I want to finish writing the movie script for the animated Gideon video Donald and Johnny intend to make.

2. I’d like to edit and publish a charming old diary I have in hand written by a local high school girl.

3. I’d like to finish writing Worshday, a collection of 25 of my own short stories.

4. I want to finish writing that Florida pioneer novel I started last year.

5. I plan to continue reading the books I’ve accumulated on my own shelves but never got around to reading yet.

6. Come next December, I’d like to publish another in my Dirty Old Man Goes Bad series of books…

But, life turns on a dime.

I may not get all–or even one–of these projects done. Like the 89-year-old guy who marries the 19-year-old girl, my reach may exceed my grasp.

But I have one overriding goal, one expressed by King David in a Psalm. This is an attainable goal, come what may in life, fortune and dimes:

“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I diligently seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His temple”.