A 90-Year-Old Dying Man

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 185 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

A 90-year-old Dying Man

My friend Ginger, a nurse in a major area hospital, often tends to dying patients. After her shift Tuesday morning, she called inviting me to breakfast. She’s run into a situation which upsets her.

The patient, a man in his mid 90s, was a preacher. He’s suffered a stroke with many medical complications. Heart problems. Kidney failure. Diabetes. And a host of other age related ailments. When he is lucid, he appears to be at peace and ready for death. As the Bible puts it, he is full of days and ready to be gathered to his fathers.

But his daughter insists on every possible medical intervention to keep him going.

This daughter, a deeply religious person, wants the hospital to get the old man well enough to travel. Then she plans can carry him to a faith-healing meeting conducted by one of the television preachers she watches. There, she feels, the old man will be cured.

The lady sits by her dying father’s bedside continually with a huge black Bible open in her lap. The room’s television blares out religious programming. And the lady loudly proclaims to any and all passers-by that she expects God to perform a miracle and heal her father.

Several things about this situation upset Ginger.

“John, she’s going to be devastated when the old man dies,” she said. “I think she’s going to just lose it and come apart.”

She thinks this lady feels so desperate for hope that she’s relying on religious fantasy instead of realistic faith.

Jesus never cured anybody of old age.

Ginger, a dedicated Christian who wants to live as a testimony to Christ among her coworkers, is also concerned about the effect this woman’s stance has on the hospital staff.

When skeptics see this Christian lady’s frantic clinging, how can they take what we Christians say about our belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come?

Does our own behavior belie our own words?

This dear lady proclaims that she expects a miracle, for God to make a sick 90-year-old man healthy and young again.

Can God perform such a miracle?

Certainly.

Is that likely?

There’s a reason they’re called miracles.

Once I had a toothache. An abscessed tooth. I did not have money enough to see a dentist. I could not get into a charity clinic. I suffered and suffered and suffered.

I prayed for God to heal me, to ease my agony, to make my pain go away.

Nobody home in Heaven that week.

Finally I boiled a pair of pliers, rinsed my mouth out with alcohol and pulled my own tooth.

I do not recommend this.

Did my faith in a loving God fail?

Damn right it did!

Nothing like a good toothache to turn this particular Christian into a practicing atheist.

Why did God let me suffer in agony like that?

I have no idea.

I do know that He himself suffered anxiety:

“Father, if it is at all possible, let this cup pass from me…”

I do know that He himself felt abandoned in pain:

“My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?”

I do know that He himself cared about the family of the dying.

“Woman, behold thy son…”

I do know that the life Christ offers us is based on physical reality:

“I thirst.”

No fantasy about it.

Buried under dirt in a tomb for three days Christ — like a visitor to a hospital burn unit walking out with a validated parking ticket in hand — headed back Home.

He once said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you so that where I am, there you may be also.”

I grieve for Ginger. This is the third big hit she’s taken this week.

I grieve for the lady clinging to her Dad because I think this is more about her than about him.

I wonder how much of my own faith is fantasy and how much is reality.

My experience teaches me to view the world as a pretty screwed up place, and it seems that Jesus holds that same view; He said he came to save the utterly lost in the worst possible situations (the incarnation did not take place in Disneyland).

But this world ain’t the whole show.

We live in a staging area.

Temporary quarters.

Transitional housing.

Dorm rooms for the semester.

Resurrection and Home lie ahead.

Two More From The Past:

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, (Hope, D.V., To Be Done About March 1^st) I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 182-187 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

A Little Tin Box

One morning last week I made myself a couple of new matchboxes.

As a pipe smoker I prefer wooden strike-anywhere matches. Pipe smoking carries an entire ritual of behavior patterns that add to the satisfaction, and for me decorating match boxes is part of that ritual.

In recent years I have used the tin boxes that package Altoids peppermints. Friends and family save the tin boxes for me and every month or so, I fix a set of them up for my matches.

Usually I fix a batch of five matchboxes at a time: for the car, for my pocket, for my desk, for beside my reading lamp, and for the tv room.

Here’s how I do it:

First clean the box with a damp napkin then glue a striking surface to the bottom. For strikers I use either a scrap of sandpaper or the rough strip from the sides of a cardboard match package.

I trace the curved shape of the Altoids lid on a sheet of clear stiff plastic and use that as a template for my design. I place that clear template over a picture that suggests my mood at the moment and trace around it. Then I cut the picture out with scissors and glue it to the cover of the tin box

I keep a file folder of magazine clippings (National Geographic is a great source) of photos which appeal to me for box covers. I choose matchbox cover pictures to fit my mood, or relate to some writing project I’m working on, or touch on some holiday or event important to me. Usually I glue a photo of a bikini girl who strikes my fancy inside the box.

This photo shows some of the matchboxes I’ve used while working on the Glog manuscript.

I suppose there are better ways to spend my time than pasting pictures on little tin boxes, but it keeps me off the street.

One Downer Of A Posting:

Depression is such an Everest of a feeling that it overwhelms.

I’ve avoided writing in my journal or my blog the past couple of days. I’ve felt that nobody wants to hear me whine. I think readers have enough downers in their own lives that normally I want my writing to give a lift. So I try to enter bright sunny postings reflecting the joys of Christian life.

That’s dishonest.

Yes, I am a Christian.

Yes, I am a happy man.

But there is a flip side to my life also.

And recently I’ve been pissing against a spiritual wind.

But that’s shameful and I don’t want readers to know about that side of me. I have a reputation to maintain. I don’t want to give folks another reason to reject Christ; I don’t want to bring reproach on His name. I want readers to think I’m a nice guy.

So, I lie.

I pretend to be happier, cooler, more spiritually in touch than I really am.

Well, this past week my faith has hit the fan.

Over the years I have written scads of biographical profiles of successful businessmen for Chamber of Commerce type magazines. I’ve also written a number of biographical sketches of outstanding Christians. And one thing always bothers me in collecting materials for such articles: biographers tend to tell only the good stuff about their subjects.

That bugs me and leaves me hopeless.

I mean if I’m reading a life of some spiritual giant hoping to find some inspiration and meaning in my own life, but all I read about are his successes, then what is there that I can relate to as I stumble through life without a clue?

Don’t these Real Christians ever have an off day? Aren’t they ever tempted to say, “To Hell with it.” Don’t they ever just give up and lay in the dust for a while before climbing to their feet and trudging on?

Maybe I’m just a hypocrite.

Maybe I’m not “Filled With The Spirit.”

Maybe I’m not a true, dedicated believer.

But I’m here.

I put a certain premium on honesty. I’ve resolved to be honest in my journal entries and record what’s there, not just what ought to be there. And I try to do that in this blog. The subtitle of this blog is “a befuddled Christian looks for spiritual realities in day to day living.”

Sometimes that spiritual reality is ‘Being A Christian Sucks.”

Am I still a Christian? Yes. As Peter said, “To whom should we go, Lord? You alone have the words of eternal life.”

Am I a hypocrite? Yes. I do want to put my best foot forward. Once I even wrote a newspaper article on hypocrisy (Right-hand column, www.cowart.info ).

Anyhow even though today’s posting is a downer, it’s what I have to say.

That’s what you get here: one miserable bastard — and Jesus.

I hope someday some guy who’s down will read the stuff I write and say to himself, “You know, if a stupid looser like John Cowart can try to walk with God, maybe there’s hope for me too.”

Three Days In June

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from pages 72-74 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

Everything I know about prayer, I learned from my dog.

For some reason today I’ve been thinking a lot about what my dog taught me about prayer and understanding God’s will.

Sheba, our black lab, lived with us for 17 years; she’s been dead for four years now. After her initial shots, we never took her to the vet again, and, in spite of common knowledge to the contrary, we usually fed her table scarps, and on rare occasions a can of dog food..

One day as I was driving in heavy rain the rubber blade on my windshield wiper gave out. A nuisance. The next Saturday I bought some replacement blades and took them home to mount on the car.

Here I am parked in our drive on a bright sunny day trying to squeeze those rubber refills into the metal fixture. And Sheba sat alertly watching what interesting thing I was doing.

She whined and pawed the ground but she never took her eyes off me. She could not have watched more intently if I’d have been opening a can of Alpo. She cocked her head from one side to the other and gave every indication of yearning to help me accomplish whatever it was that I was doing. She seemed distressed that I was having trouble getting the task done.

I laughed.

And I just loved that stupid old dog for wanting to help.

That night at my prayers I puzzled over some situation I just could not understand; why had God let such-and-such happen?

Why didn’t He listen to my fervent prayer and advice about how to remedy the situation?

How can I follow the will of God when I don’t even understand what it is He’s trying to do?

Why does God want us to pray when most of the time we don’t even have an inkling of what to pray for?

As I struggled with such questions, the image of Sheba sitting in the drive staring intensely at me as I worked burst back into my mind.

I realized that I can no more understand the actions of God than Sheba could understand why I was changing the windshield wiper blades!

And I thought that maybe our Father may just enjoy our company, attention and good will—even when He has no need of our advice.

Saturday, June 04, 2005

A Writer's Life: Adventure, Passion, Thrills & Romance

I sat in front of the computer all day editing the manuscript of Letters From Stacy; up to page 100 now.

When Ginny got home, for our Friday Night Date we drove to the library to check out pleasure reading. Then we drove to Bar-B-Q Junction on San Juan Avenue where we read our books, ate great BBQ, and watched the rain hardly speaking to eachother.

Back home we put on some music, sat in our rockers and read our books all evening.

Can you stand the excitement?

Sunday, June 05, 2005

No good deed...

Ginny claims that when I go out of the house a huge neon sign floats in the air above my head flashing the word “SUCKER.”

Bums, winos and street people see this flashing sign and home in on me knowing instinctively that they’ve spotted the world’s softest touch who will swallow any sob story.

Well, I was out mowing a neighbor’s huge back yard (long story) in heat pushing 90 degrees. As I worked in the thick grass I was thinking that I’m too old and feeble to do such heavy work. I looked up from my work and there in front of me stood a stood a stranger, an elderly gentleman older and more feeble than I am. He asked me if he could mow the yard to earn a couple of dollars because he is hungry.

Now, obviously I could not turn a total stranger loose in my neighbor’s back yard, so I told him that I had to finish this work myself, but that maybe I could find a bit of help for him. Since I was working in my swimsuit and tee-shirt, I had no cash on me, so I left him sitting in the shade while I walked back to our house and to get a bit of change to give him.

Had to scrounge around in pants, billfold and dresser drawer to scrape together some cash. Then I walked back to the neighbor’s and handed the old guy enough to buy a burger.

I was feeling pretty virtuous about how kind I am to God’s poor and how righteous I am to go to all this trouble to get the old man a few dollars, and how that I am a shining example of Christian charity in action.

The Good Lord in Heaven looked down on the scene and said, “John Cowart, you smug, self-righteous prick! I’m going to have to take the wind out of your sails.”

So I handed the stranger his money, graciously received his thanks, waved bye as he left, and immediately stepped back into a nest of fireants.

God’s tiny little creatures responded.

They climbed upward and began stinging at my knees and proceeded to work their way north.

It’s difficult to feel smug and self-righteous with fireants conducting war games in your pubic hair. I think I could swear that I heard tiny helicopters and music playing “Flight of the Valkyries” from Apocalypse Now.

Unregenerate cynics sneer saying that no good deed goes unpunished.

Even though I’m a Christian, today I’m inclined to agree with them.

Two Things On My Mind Before Christmas

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 259 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad, I wrote it a few days befofe Christmas in 2005:

— Thanks, John

Two Things Occupying My Mind Recently

Well, it’s Friday already and I still haven’t finished Monday’s 2do2da list. I’ve stayed busy all week but have accomplished little.

Story of my life.

Two things have occupied my thoughts recently:

A few months ago I decided to stop clicking on internet pornography sites to look at girly pictures. So far, so good. But I’m being tempted to return to that practice.

What is it about the Christmas season that makes me want to lower my standards and look for license? Observing the incarnation of God into the world should make me grateful to Him, but instead I’m tempted to celebrate the season by cutting loose to look at girls in (or out of) red flimsies.

I’ve been told that mature Christian men out grow such adolescent fantasies, but you couldn’t prove that by me. Apparently I’m a 67-year-old man with the mental outlook of an 11-year-old boy.

I have not given in to the temptation yet, but knowing my own history with temptation – I have rarely been tempted to do anything that I eventually didn’t do it — .I’m not guaranteeing anything.

But at the moment, this bugs me.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have also been thinking about the essential nature of God. (Hey, my mind works that way).

At breakfast Monday, my friend Barbara mentioned something about God being “Wholly Other” and I’ve been thinking about that.

God is unique. That is, there is nothing else like Him. He is one, complete in Himself. He is not exactly like any other being in, or beyond, the universe.

He is Creator, all the rest of us are creatures of His making.

Men, roaches and archangels have more in common with each other than we have with Him. He is Creator; we are all created entities.

Yet, in creating us, He apparently stamped nature with some hints as to His own nature and character. The majesty of thunderclouds, the power of the tornado, the potential of an egg, the wings of a butterfly, the protective coloration of a caterpillar, the love shared by man and woman, the splendor of an angel, the thoughts of the human mind – all these dimly reflect some element of the One who created all.

He is above all and in Him we live and move and have our very being.

That’s scary.

For one thing it means He’s big.

Huge.

Immense.

I don’t picture the Incredible Hulk when I think of God, but that’s close.

In a way I think of when I go downtown and stand at the base of a skyscraper and tilt my head way back and look up; even though I’m standing on solid pavement, I feel as though I’m falling and I get dizzy.

God scares me because He is so big. He holds all the universe in His hand as though it were no bigger than a peanut.

He makes me feel fragile.

I don’t think my view is uncommon.

Remember for yourself one of those times when you felt close to God in your own experience. Regardless of the circumstances, I suspect that you felt some of the same things that I felt.

In my own 67 years, I can only remember a few times when I’ve felt particularly aware of God’s presence. These experiences were almost overwhelming and I feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, even remembering them much less speaking about them.

Oddly enough, only one of these occasions occurred in a church service. Once it happened when I was a kid in my bedroom, once when I was out camping in the woods, once when I saw a girl in a yellow dress, and once when I was dissecting a pig in a biology class.

Odd places to encounter God.

Whatever works for you.

My experiences probably have a few things in common with your own:

While I felt a fear of God, I also felt a strange attraction to Him. I was afraid but at the same time, there was an incredible sweetness. I wanted this awareness of Him to never end.

Was it that way for you too?

I became keenly aware of my own unworthiness, insignificance, uncleanness – not for particular things I’ve done, but just in the light of His holiness. I felt as though I were someplace I didn’t belong – but I was being welcomed anyhow.

Know what I mean?

Now I’m a guy with all sorts of questions, complaints and problems, but during those time I felt aware of being in God’s presence, all that stuff faded into insignificance. No questions were worth asking. No complaint worth voicing. No problem worth discussing. The only thing that mattered was God Himself; nothing else counts.

So here I was, a worm and no man, in the presence of the Almighty, yet I felt loved, accepted in the Beloved, welcomed. And this felt overwhelming, that the Mighty God cared about me. The King of the Universe really cares.

That’s a hard thing to get over, isn’t it?

Now, I’m thinking about the incarnation, that the Creator of the universe, King of Kings and Lord of Lords cares about us.

He sees that we’ve scrambled the eggs He gave us, and He reduced Himself to become a human baby to come into this world and unscramble the mess we’ve made and are helpless to unscramble ourselves.

Somehow I envision the Incredible Hulk in a straw manger.

Yes, in the incarnation, the Lord God emptied Himself of some of His prerogatives, focused His scary immensity into a tiny baby – nothing to be scared of – and came to seek and to save the lost.

So the angels told the shepherds, “Don’t be scared… it’s only a baby.”

Then … well, you know the rest of the story as well as I do.

But there is one other thing I recall about my own experiences of being aware of the wholly other God. I was aware that the scary, sweet bliss I felt would not last. I knew that I was only seeing a temporary glimpse for that moment, that the real, permanent awareness of God still lies far ahead.

Meanwhile there remain bills to pay, phone calls to make, oil to change, leaves to rake, people to love (or at least tolerate), Christmas presents to buy --Yes, in Him we live and move and have our very being – but we do that here and now.

So I need to spend this day catching up on Mondays list — and not clicking on porno sites.

Lord, please be merciful to John Cowart, a sinner.

A Tragic Loss Of Life?

Yesterday dawned bright and beautiful, top-down, windows open, shirt sleeve weather with the temperature here in Jacksonville pushing 70. So Ginny and I ventured out on a day trip driving all over the rural towns of northeast Florida and southeast Georgia, stopping here and there as the spirit moved us, and eating way more than the Spirit might think prudent.

Our aimless quest led us to browse in five or six roadside antique shops, consignment boutiques, and book stores.

At each store Ginny asked about a pattern of dishes she treasures.

At each store I asked about tobacco pipes and old diaries.

She bought a couple of three dollar dresses which she said would cost over $80 each in a mall. And she bought a birdhouse that struck her fancy.

She said that these antique stores offer more and more things that we already own or once owned but gave away. We are turning into antiques ourselves.

At one store a sign above the cash register announced:

We Buy Junk.

We Sell Antiques.

While we browsed, a distraught lady rushed in asking about her glasses. She been in that shop earlier and lay her glasses down somewhere to squint at a price tag, then left. “I can’t see to drive without them,” she said.

I winked at the guy at the counter and told the lady, “You just missed them. We sold that pair of glasses about ten minutes ago”.

The guy cracked up laughing.

That’s me, a Christian spreading light and joy wherever I go.

Not to worry, we found her glasses and she left rejoicing.

At another antique warehouse, I asked the mature couple minding the store about pipes.

No joy.

I asked about old diaries.

The man at the cash register said, “We’ve got one. Just came in. Mind you, it is a bit risqué. Mother, where did we put that girl’s diary”?

“That thing was filthy,” the lady said. “Dirty language about sex. It was trash and I put it in the trash. Won’t sell such a thing in my store”.

“She was just a young woman telling about her life experiences,” he said.

“Well, she shouldn’t oughta been having experiences like that! And she certainly shouldn’t have been writing about it. Garbage is garbage and that’s where it belongs”.

As the conversation developed, I gathered that the girl had been a flapper during the 1920s, or maybe a hippy chick from the 1960s.

In a way, her diary doesn’t matter because it is lost for ever, discarded among headless dolls, mildewed teddy bears, castoff chicken bones, soggy cardboard boxes, cracked DVD discs, hamburger wrappers…

How do I know?

Because as we left the store, I checked in the back ally dumpster hoping to salvage the lost diary.

No joy.

I know how much effort it takes to write a diary; I’ve kept mine for over 30 years. On one level I’m heartsick that the record of this unknown girl’s life was trashed as of no value.

On another level, I know that the record of this girl’s life—of all lives—is inscribed in the mind of God and that one day all the books will be opened, all secrets revealed. The Lord knows the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Did Jesus come to save only the prim and proper?

Or, is the love of God commended toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us?

Our omniscient and merciful God looks upon what we do—and why we did it.

Think of a nurse monitoring me in an intensive care unit. Can’t burp without her knowing. She sees me sleep. She sees me suffer. She knows what is crucial to my well-being and what I must simply endure. She watches overall and occasionally intervenes in my distress.

She watches me die.

I think that nurse demonstrates how God always watches us.

Not standing by like Big Brother with a cattle prod looking to zap the sinner with glee.

In Him we live and move and have our very being. We exist in His intensive care unit. The hairs on our heads are monitored. Nothing is lost to Him with whom we have to do.

Yet, St. Paul mentions that there are some things that “perish with the using”.

Maybe this girl’s diary was one of those things.

Maybe my own precious writings are another.

Things do serve their purpose and are then rightly cast aside.

That antique stores are full of them.

So the girl’s diary was judged trash and consigned to the dumpster.

I harbor a prayer that when the Lamb’s Book Of Life is opened, she herself will see her name recorded in Glory.

Be kinda nice to see me listed there too—maybe in the appendix?

You should read some of my early journals… but then again, maybe not.

When Faith Hits The Fan

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 252 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

When The Faith Hits The Fan

Sometimes I hate being a Christian.

Case in point – last week an elderly lady of my acquaintance phoned asking for help with a minor chore, a chore which should take me about three or four hours to do. Instead of telling her to go to Hell, I agreed to help the dear old soul.

It turned out that the simple chore consumed three whole days of my life and mind because she kept changing the perimeters of the chore so that it became more and more difficult for me to help her. She just made the thing harder and harder for me to do. Could it be that she treated me like I treat Jesus???

Instead of a one-shot deal, this lady’s chore expanded like the Chicken-Heart-That-Ate-Cleveland. It involved three personal visits from me, two from Ginny, and between eight and 12 phone calls.

And each step of the way, I grew more and more resentful and frustrated and bitter until what started out as a simple act of Christian charity transmogrified into an occasion of black seething sin inside me. At one point I vowed never to help anybody with anything ever again in my whole life! Ever!

You know, it’s relatively easy for me to think I’m a Christian when I alone with my books and my computer, when I’m thinking deep thoughts about my imaginary god and imaginary people — but let me get out in the world dealing with the Living God and real people, let my faith hit the fan, let my idealized version of Christianity inconvenience me, then I feel put upon and I grow bitter, resentful, depressed, angry… Mad at God and man.

What the hell kind of Christian am I anyhow?

Probably a typical one.

But we won’t go into that.

So dawns the season of light and joy, of Peace on earth and Good Will toward men – and here I’m peeved and ready to kick ass.

In spite of my vow to never help anyone anywhere ever again, will I eventually calm down and act like a Christian again?

Possibly.

Probably.

But today might not be the best day to ask me for a favor.

Dressing For Heaven & I Do Not Turn Green

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post starts on page 248 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

Dressing For Heaven

Traditional imagery pictures people in Heaven as wearing gold-foil hats and flowing gauze robes. Friday, I imagined a different picture; I imagined that I would stand before the throne of God wearing the very same clothes that I have given to the poor.

Yes, all afternoon Ginny and I padded around the house in our underwear trying on all our clothes to see if they fit as we cleaned out our closets and packed up clothes to send to the poor at the mission.

Ginny is infuriatingly systematic, methodical, and self-disciplined. In her closet she has 20 green clothes hangers, 20 blue ones, 20 white ones, and 10 clear plastic hangers. She keeps 20 dresses for work on the green ones, 20 casual outfits on the blue ones, etc. I’m not sure about the exact numbers or color codes but you get the idea.

She refuses to add to the number of hangers.

That means that whenever she gets a new office dress, an old one must go. A new casual blouse means that one now on the hanger must come off.

That way she only has her very favorite clothes in her closet at any given time. No muss, no fuss, no clutter.

She’s the same way about her books. She has one bookcase. When she gets a new book, an old one must be replaced so her shelf space remains constant…. On the other hand, I have ELEVEN bookcases in our house and piles of books on the floor, in chairs, under the bed, in the closet… Well, you get the idea.

Yet, somehow this strange woman and I remain married.

Another factor adds to the clutter in our house. For some reason our friends, neighbors and children bring us stuff to go to the mission. I mean, even back when we did not own a car, folks who did would bring mission donations to our house and I’d have to borrow a van or something to get the donations out there to the poor. That still goes on, so the foyer of our home is always piled with bags and boxes of stuff to go the mission.

We cleared the foyer yesterday morning and took out a load, but already another three black plastic garbage bags full of clothes are in our foyer. I’m looking at them right this minute!

Anyhow, yesterday Ginny and I also cleaned out our own closets. This meant we were constantly having to make decisions as to what clothes to keep and which items should go to the poor.

This presents me with a dilemma.

What do I sent to the poor, what do I keep for me?

Pants are easy. If they still button and zip and I can sit down in them, they stay. Those that have shrunk too much for me to zip up, some poor guy can wear them.

Shirts present a different problem. Some are easy to send to the suffering poor. For instance that tee-shirt with cute fuzzy kittens in a basket on the chest that Aunt Hazel gave me – hey, the poor like kittens, don’t they?

But here’s that neat tee-shirt I bought myself, the one with the pack of wolves eating into a harp seal with blood and seal guts strewn about in the snow — That’s a keeper. Definitely a keeper. I’ll be such a hit when I wear that one to Jennifer’s Christmas party.

So I made choices about which shirts to send to the poor — that’s when I got the idea that the clothes we’ll have to wear in Heaven will be the ones we give to the poor here on earth.

As I recall, Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said that what we have there, is what we give here; and I think C.S. Lewis said the same thing about the books we’ll still have in Heaven. Apparently, we lay up treasure in Heaven by giving to the poor on earth.

I doubt that’s right. Sounds too much like salvation-by-works to me but, nevertheless, I suspect that Christ approves of us giving our best.

We can’t brown nose God. Giving to the poor should simply be an expression of our love for the Lord Christ, Prince of the Poor, who though He were rich yet made Himself poor for our sakes.

Be all that as it may, as I packed stuff to go to the mission, I got this ridiculous idea about what clothes I might have available to wear in Heaven.

Do I really want to appear before the throne of Almighty God in castoffs, with my bare belly hanging over pants that won’t zip and wearing fuzzy damn kittens on my chest?

Speaking of clothing… The following entry is from page 66 of A Dirty Old Man Gets Worse:

I Do Not Turn Green!

When I get uptight, scared or angry, my ribs hurt.

Why do my ribs hurt?

Because I press my elbows so tight against my sides; I also cross my ankles and press my knees together so hard that they hurt too.

I spent most of yesterday and last night and a good part of this morning in that condition.

This is not good.

Oddly enough, this doesn’t happen in times of real danger or crisis, just in social situations. I can speak before a large group with no problem because that is a structured situation, but at a party or funeral or Sunday School breakfast, or such… I clam up big time. It’s really painful.

What about the peace Christ is supposed to give us Christians?

Doesn’t work for me.

Not in social situations.

Anyhow, inspired by the movie I watched last night, as we dressed this morning I put on my Incredible Hulk tee shirt to work in while I formatted the Joseph Pyram King autobiography.

Ginny noticed my Hulk tee shirt and said, “Are you going to be the Incredible Hulk today?”

“No,” I said. “I wish I was. When I get hurt or angry I don’t turn green, grow huge biceps and smash things; I just get quite and withdraw into my shell.”

“I’ve noticed that,” she said. “When you get upset, you turn into --- the Incredible Sulk!”

I love her dearly, but sometimes Ginny is a smart ass.

Tits & Tobacco: an odd occurrence

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 126 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

Tits & Tobacco: an odd occurrence

All day I unscrewed pool fixtures and carried out my usual Friday duties.

Gin & I both celebrated birthdays in the same week earlier this month and her mother sent us a nice birthday check (Thanks, Alva). So, for our usual Friday night date, we splurged by cashing the welcomed check and going to Donna Maria’s, an open air Mexican restaurant on the waterfront.

Scrumptious.

While there I saw a bird (actually it landed on the table next to us). I’d never seen one like it before. But Ginny calmly announced that it was a boatswain grackle The scope of the woman’s knowledge amazes me.

Anyhow, this Mexican place sits right next to a Hooters Restaurant which also has an open air section. The two places blend together, so while we dined, I watched a fascinating jiggle show as sweet young things bent over vigorously polishing tables .

An aside: We went to a different Hooters once years ago when Ginny’s new boss treated the office staff and spouses to dinner there. About 18 or 20 people attended. Four or five waitresses brought out huge mounded platters of chicken wings and everyone prepared to dig in. But the new boss tapped her glass for attention, stood up, and said, “Mr. Cowart, I understand you are religious. Would you say grace for us.”

At this, the four or five waitresses paused in their serving, lined up posing and jutting, and stood in an impressive, but respectful, line. Other noisy customers packed the place but the stance of the girls caused a hush to fall.

Normally I believe in praying in secret, i.e. in private, not public, prayer. But what do you do when asked to pray in public in a Hooters?

Stunned, I stood up at the table and prayed aloud saying something or another in thanks for food, jobs and beauty. Then the feasting began .I’ve heard it said that a Christian needs to be ready to preach, pray or die at a moment’s notice — but this really caught me off guard. I have no idea what I said, but afterwards several people commented about how appropriate the prayer was.

Anyhow back to tonight, I enjoyed my fried peppers stuffed with something and coated with the Mexican version of Velveeta. And I enjoyed the scenery of boats, birds, and boobs galore.

Afterwards, Gin & I strolled holding hands along the Riverwalk. A guy came up with a cell phone pressed to his ear. He stopped us and launched into a long story about wife and kids in a broke down car, dead battery, expensive hotel room— and could I give him $57 to make ends meet. Ha! Fat chance.

(The asking price of panhandlers has gone up. My Daddy told me that back during the Great Depression a running joke was:Q: “Say, Buddy, you got a nickel for a cup of coffee?” A: “No. But I’ll get along somehow.”)

I gave the man a bit of change and he pressed for more till I said that was all I’m willing to give. I suspect the cell phone was only a prop for his scam; panhandling is illegal on the Riverwalk and there is a strong police presence.

So much for that.

Now here’s where things get weird:

As Ginny & I drove home we stopped at a Walgreen’s drug store because they were having a sale, a dollar off, on my brand of pipe tobacco. I bought my tobacco and Gin picked up a couple of things she needed.

Now remember: the sum total of my thinking all evening – tits, tobacco.

As we walked to the car, I saw a homeless man. No shirt. A ragged bundle of clothes. Thin as a rail. Not a hair on his head. Looked like an AIDS victim with a really bad T-Cell count. He foraged in a trashcan, found a plastic soda bottle with a little liquid left in the bottom, and he drank it ( heat index of 105 today).

Now without thinking I gave this man a tiny courtesy, nothing big, just the sort of normal kindness you’d extend to anybody you know.

He started crying.

He stepped close and threw his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder and cried his heart out. I have a great aversion to being touched; it’s so strong in me that I cut my own hair rather than let a barber touch me. And here this stranger is embracing me and crying. I deliberately shelved my aversion, steeled myself to being touched, and put my arms around him. I cradled him in my arms. I patted his back and rocked him back and forth like a child.

All I said to him was, “It’s ok. It’s going to be alright. Don’t be afraid. It’s all going to be ok.”

I said this over and over.

I think we stood like that in the Walgreen’s parking lot for a good ten or 15 minutes. Ginny quietly got in our car and waited.

Now, here’s what’s odd.

This man sobbing in my arms said, “Forgive me. I’m just a sinner. Please forgive me. Forgive me.”

I had not said one word about religion. I quoted no Scripture. I gave no testimony. I didn’t read Four Things God Wants You To Know. I did not lead him in The Sinner’s Prayer. None of that standard Christian witnessing stuff – Tits & tobacco had been the only things on my mind. – And here I felt God was using me??? Why? Maybe He’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for witnesses here in Jacksonville.

Yet, nevertheless, this poor bastard was crying for forgiveness with tears streaming down his face and snot dripping from his nose.

Finally, he pulled himself together. Wiped his face with his forearm, picked up his bundle and walked down the street sniffling and saying, “Lord, forgive me. Lord, forgive me..”

I really don’t know what to make of this.

Don’t you have to be pious and prayerful and “on fire for the Lord” to be used by God?

Or, maybe I was not “used by God”

Maybe I just ran into an emotional AIDS patient.

Maybe the man is a kook who does this with everybody?

Or, was this some kind of scam? Cynical Christian that I am, after embracing, cradling, and rocking this guy, I immediately checked to see my wallet was still in place – it was.

I really don’t know what to make of this odd incident.

Was I on Candid Camera or something?

Puzzling.

One commenter remarked:….I can see you at Hooters saying, "I don't pray publicly too often, but I'll try my breast."

A One-Ply Christian

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system. This post comes from page 119 in my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad:

— Thanks, John

On Being A One-Ply Christian

Again today I re-discovered that my religion is as thin and flimsy as one-ply toilet paper.

I’m fine as long as I’m safely on a roll, but let the slightest bit of friction come, let something rub me the wrong way, and — well, there’s a nasty break through.

As often happens, today’s break through came because of my own expectations; I’d envisioned spending the weekend in a certain way accomplishing certain things important to me. Instead, I find other people have other plans. As usual, this rubs me the wrong way. I grow frustrated. My Christianity rips.

And there you have it!

This afternoon I vented a lot of this frustration in the presence of my daughter Eve— who had nothing whatsoever to do with the situation. Eve is a gentle fawn of a girl who just happened to be in the room when Dad began his rant.

Did I complain about the situation at hand?

No. I raged about everything that bugged me from an unexpected $400 bill, to the government’s handling of the war in Iraq, to the carpetbagger jaguar football team moving from Jacksonville (leave losers!), to the letter “i” sticking on my keyboard.

Poor Eve got to see the real me – the bitter, sour, grump who lurks brooding beneath my thin layer of Christian faith.

Incidentally, one reason Eve was over at my house – after treating me to a nice lunch out – was to set up her own blog. She made her first posting today. Please visit her new site to leave a comment welcoming her to blogging. Her site is called Of Cabbages And Kings and it’s found at http://www.eveyq.blogspot.com/

Anyhow, does the breaking through of my frustrations, my ranting and raving and exposing the ugliness that underlies my thin, flimsy faith, prove that that faith is not real?

When a Christian falls, does that mean his faith is only a misty vapor?

On one hand, it would be easy to say that a person who acts like me, is not a real Christian. Real Christians don’t say the sort of things I said.

But I am a real Christian. I’m a born-again, fire-baptized, spirit-filled, card-carrying Christian and I’ve got a tee-shirt and bumper sticker to prove it! (My tee-shirt says: JESUS LOVES YOU – BUT I’M HIS FAVORITE)!

On another hand, does such behavior as mine mean I’m just a hypocrite, pretending to be a Christian, but just using Jesus to enhance my own reputation?

That could be.

I do believe better than I act. But I’m working on that one.

On still another hand (yes, three hands), does the behavior of any frustrated Christian under stress, when the faith hits the fan, mean that Christianity is false. That there’s really nothing to it?

Not necessarily.

The truth of Jesus in no way depends on being propped up by His followers.

He is Himself whatever we are.

Besides if I, being a Christian, can be such a mean, bitter, sour, nasty old grouch underneath my one-ply faith— just imagine what I’d be like without that thin redeeming film of God’s grace!

Sad, isn’t it?

And here I thought so highly of my own shining, sterling example as a model Christian. I though so much better of myself than that.

I expected more of me …

Maybe that’s the whole trouble right there.

Three Secrets

Please Note: Over the next few days I am changing this site. The address will stay the same, but I have to transfer to a new software, new server, new format, new look, new features, etc. But it’s the same old me.

While making these changes, I plan to re-post some of my favorite entries from former days. Please bear with me as I learn how to work this new system.

— Thanks, John

Over this past weekend I almost did something good for somebody.

Didn’t do it.

But I intended to.

Big deal. Back on July 10, 1736, John Wesley, founder of Methodism, wrote in his diary, “It is a true saying, Hell is paved with good intentions”.

Actually, I intended to do good deeds for two different needs but I did not do either of them. One project I was physically unable to; the other self aborted.

That being the case, I suppose it’s ok for me to tell about it. Had I actually done a good deed Jesus actually forbids my letting anyone know about it. Doing good is one of the three things He commands that we do in secret.

He said, “Take care not to do your good works before men, to be seen by them; or you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. When then you give money to the poor, do not make a noise about it, as the false-hearted men do in the Synagogues and in the streets, so that they may have glory from men. Truly, I say to you, They have their reward”.

He said to do good in secret, “So that your giving may be in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward”.

When it comes to doing secret good, Jesus said, “Let not your left hand see what your right hand does”.

I can do the Lord one better—most of the time my right hand does not even know what my right hand is doing”!

So, even though I did not do or give or accomplish anything good, maybe I learned something valuable from this weekend’s experience.

First, I learned that I shouldn’t give what belongs to somebody else.

I’d encountered this poor family and I intended to do something good for them, but since I lacked enough cash to do it, I planned to use somebody else’s money to do it.

That’s a no-no.

As Kind David said, “Shall I offer unto the Lord that which cost me nothing”?

When I sought the counsel (and the cash) of somebody I knew could afford to do what I intended, he pointed out the difference between helping the poor family and meddling in their life. He noted that they had not asked for my help, and he pointed out that they did actually need what I wanted to give but that I had a bug in my ass to give them something that I thought they ought to have. It was all my idea.

As St. Peter said, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters,”

Instead of acting out of a heart full of Christian charity, I was being a busybody.

I think the reason Jesus said to give in secret was to save us embarrassment. If the world really knew how little I give in proportion to what I keep and spend on myself, I’d be ashamed.

I recall an old cartoon from some magazine: this guy in a business suit sits of a park bench feeding pigeons. Beside him he’s placed this large sign proclaiming:

These Crumbs Are Brought To You By A Grant From The John W. Cowart Foundation.

Jesus said to give in secret.

He also said we are to pray in secret.

“And when you make your prayers, be not like the false-hearted men, who take pleasure in getting up and saying their prayers in the Synagogues and at the street turnings so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

“But when you make your prayer, go into your private room, and, shutting the door, say a prayer to your Father in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward….”

Again, obeying Him saves us from embarrassment; if folks realized how little I pray…

Personally I feel reluctant to tell somebody, “I’m praying for you”.

That statement presupposes that my prayers are bigger and more effective than your prayers. I’m a better, more pious Christian than you are. Your puny prayers don’t work; my powerful prayers do because I have an inside track with the Almighty. I’m a superior Prayer Warrior!

That’s ridiculous.

I think it better if I were going to pray for somebody, that I just do it. There’s no Heavenly reason for them to know about it, is there?

The third thing Jesus said we should do in secret is fast:

“And when you go without food, be not sad-faced as the false-hearted are. For they go about with changed looks, so that men may see that they are going without food. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But when you go without food, put oil on your head and make your face clean; so that no one may see that you are going without food, but your Father in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will give you your reward”.

That’s one commandment I keep with bells on.

Just look at my photo—All 270 pounds of me.

You’ll never in this world guess how much I fast!

If we think our religion is real, there is no reason for anyone else to be told about it.

You can be a Christian on a desert island 500 miles from any other living soul.

Our relationship is with God. It need not be on public display.

And, if I truly believe Jesus, I do not need affirmation from any outsider.

But…but…but, how will anybody know that I’m a born-again, fire-baptized, card-carrying Man Of God if I don’t let them know it?

Well, there’s one thing Jesus said I can do which need not be kept secret:

He said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”.

Oh. That.

Life & Limb; The Story of Dr. Eleanor Chesnut

Last Monday I mentioned my adventure researching a footnote I’d lost.

Found it.

This fits into a book I started writing off and on (mostly off) about 15 years ago. It’s a book about divine guidance called If God Leads Me, Why Do I Run In Circles.

The book looks at ways God guides people. It draws on incidents from Scripture, incidents from the lives of notable Christians, and incidents from my own 30+ years worth of diaries. And, as I said Monday, “I really hesitate to ever pontificate saying, “God Led Me To…”. I feel more comfortable saying, “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.

But I’m delighted to have found the references I searched for to quote from Dr. Eleanor Chesnut. Here is an excerpt from my manuscript:

Life And Limb
Dr. Eleanor Chesnut

The Lord God promised the Prophet Isaiah, “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them”.

Jesus once said, “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth”.

Throughout the ages men and women of God have actually staked life and limb on such Scriptural promises of divine guidance.

Life and limb?

Yes.

Life and limb.

Take Dr. Eleanor Chesnut for example:

Her father deserted and her mother died when she was little so the Iowa girl was raised in extreme poverty by charitable neighbors. She begged her way into Park College by appealing directly to the president of the school. She was allowed in as a charity student and dressed herself from the school's mission barrel for needy students. She became a Christian at college.

In 1888, she entered the Woman's Medical College in Chicago where she excelled in her studies. She did volunteer work in a women's prison and she also enrolled in the Moody Bible Institute.

In 1893, she applied to the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board in New York.

“I am willing to be sent to whatever location may be deemed fittest,” she said. “But being asked if I had a preference, my thoughts turned to Siam... I do not, however, set my heart on any one place, but rather pray that wherever it may be will be the appointed one, that what powers I posses may be used to the best advantage”.

The board assigned her to South China.

In 1898 as she served as the only physician at a hospital in Lien-Chou, a man was brought in with a severe infection. She found a volunteer to help hold the patient down (I think this was in the days before chloroform) and with no other help, Dr. Chesnut amputated the leg.

Unfortunately, the flaps of flesh covering the amputation did not mesh as the surgery healed.

A skin graft proved necessary.

When none of the man's relatives nor anyone else would volunteer, Dr. Chesnut cut a large patch of skin from her own thigh and used it for her patient.

Did God lead her to do that?

Dr. Chesnut heard no voice from Heaven commanding her to do it; she relied on the promises of Scripture concerning God's will, guidance and leading.

She wrote a friend at home, “Every morning I have a choice little time all to my lonesome. First I read the new quotation on the calendar, then the thought for the day in 'Daily Strength For Daily Needs' and finally play and sing a hymn.”

Was it only on the basis of a quote from a Scripture calendar and a little Scripture passage in a page-a-day devotional book, that this woman decided that it was the will of God for her to risk her own leg to gangrene?

How did she know what God was leading her to do?

In a letter before she left for China she told a friend about her reasons for wanting to be a missionary in the first place:

“I have had developed in me a liking for medical study, although I did not seriously think of the matter until of late. It seemed to me such an utter impossibility to carry out the design, as I am without means and without friends to assist. But I do trust that I am by divine appointment fitted for this work. My age—twenty-one next January. Oh! I just long to do this work.”

She liked medical studies; she wanted to do useful work. Were her personal likings and wantings the voice of God leading her?

On October 29, 1905, at the height of anti-foreign sentiment in China, three new missionaries arrived at the Lien-Chou hospital; a single woman and a married couple with their 11-year-old daughter.

Less than 48 hours later a Chinese mob attacked the hospital. The little girl was stabbed to death and thrown in the river. Her parents and the single woman were clubbed to death. Four men from the mob threw Dr. Chesnut into the river then one of them speared her with a pitchfork—“once in the neck, once in the breast, and once in the lower part of the abdomen”. The other men jumped in the water and held Dr. Chesnut under till she drowned.

What can we make of this?

Would God led three new dedicated missionaries and an innocent child to be on station for less than two days then allow them to be murdered?

Was it God's will for an experienced physician who loved Him and desired to serve Him to be forked to death?

Did God guide His people to this point?

Should the missionaries have gotten out to safety when they saw the anti-foreign riots begin in the Boxer Rebellion years before?

How did Dr. Chesnut and her friends decide what was the will of God for them? Why did she think God was guiding her to stay on duty at the hospital? Was she positive that God was leading her?

The same day she died, the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board received a letter from Dr. Chesnut who wrote weeks earlier; in it she wrote a poem concerning her own questions concerning divine guidance:

Being in doubt, I say
Lord, make it plain!
Which is the true, safe way?
Which would be in vain?

I am not wise to know,
Not sure of foot to go,
My blind eyes cannot see
What is so clear to Thee;
Lord, make it clear to me.

Being perplexed, I say,
Lord, make it right!
Night is as day to Thee,
Darkness as light.

I am afraid to touch
Things that involve so much;
My trembling hand may shake,
My skilless hand may break—
Thine can make no mistake.

Notice the words Dr. Chesnut uses: doubt, blind, perplexed, afraid, trembling. I like this lady! I can identify with her questions about recognizing God's guidance for sure.

She is confidant of God's trustworthiness, positive that God won't make a mistake; but she is not at all sure of her own ability to see His will and follow His way.

I think I know how she feels in this poem.

I feel exactly the same way.

On Avoiding Work

This morning a website I use all the time announced that it is “migrating to a new platform”—whatever that means. And yesterday my g-mail account began to buzz.

Work piles up on my desk like snow falling in Washington. I can cope with that—I can deal with it one shovel full at a time, or I can wait for it to melt of its own accord.

Overwhelmed by work, I chose to ignore it and read a book of ghost stories about near death experiences.

But wait, work is not piling up like snow, it’s piling up like the volcanic ash that buried Pompeii. It will turn to stone if I leave it there….

What to do? What to do?

Where’s my place marker in that book?

Speaking of near death experiences…

Know what Papa Mosquito said to the family gathered around his death bed?

“Don’t go to the light! Don’t go to the light! It’s a bug zapper”.

Three Things About An Old Shipwreck On Ponte Vedra Beach

• First off, the following post reprints page 305 from my book A Dirty Old Man Goes Bad. For 30+ years I’ve kept a diary trying to make sense of my own life; but this section about the Ponte Vedera Shipwreck explains why I publish some of these recent diaries.
• Next, I’m reprinting an exciting e-mail from Chuck Meide, chief archaeologist for LAMP (Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program) at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. His website can be found at http://www.staugustinelighthouse.com/lamp.php .
• And finally, there is a long link is to LAMP’s 2001 Report which details the findings of marine archeologists exploring the wreck. (I think you have to be signed on to Google or to G-mail to read this PDF document).

I find all this elating!

Exploring A Shipwreck (from page 305 DOM Goes Bad)

A few years ago my friend Wes and his brother explored a shipwreck site on Ponte Vedra Beach, a few miles south of Jacksonville, Florida. Just before Christmas, Wes gave me a set of photos of the wreck to post on my website.

Every once in a while as hurricanes surge up Florida’s east coast, the wind and waves and tides uncover things buried in the sands of the beach.

When I was a boy, I heard about a man who, as he strolled the beach down south of here, found an 18-foot-long chain made of heavy gold links. And on this gold chain hung a cross studded with emeralds and rubies It had been buried in the sand for centuries, debris from a Spanish galleon’s wreck in the 1500s.

Yes, the waves uncover odd things in the sand.

But the sand washes back in to cover all sorts of things too. I’ve seen cars, parked on the beach for only a few hours, completely covered by sand so you can only see the roof and radio antenna. Docks disappear beneath the sand and even whole houses.

Then, after a time long or short, the tides uncover them again. I’ve heard of ancient Indian dugout canoes which were buried in the sand being uncovered by the moving waters.

My friend Wes has no idea of the name of the ship he and his brother found, but he did take photos of the Ponte Vedra shipwreck. I’ve tried to Google search Florida shipwreck sites without being able to find any information at all about this particular ship. The hand-hewn timbers and rusty square-cut nails indicate it is an ancient wreck.

The 15 photos Wes took are posted in the Jacksonville history section of my website at http://www.cowart.info/MyWeb_001.htm

If anyone out there in the Blog World has any information about this ill-fated ship, I’d appreciate an e-mail.

I chose today to post these shipwreck photos because today marks the one-year anniversary of my venture into blogging.

In that year I’ve seen many things uncovered within myself that I thought were safely buried beneath the sands of time. Waterlogged timbers from the shipwreck of my life, rusty twisted wrought-iron ideas, sharp slivers of broken glass from my past … but even, now and then, a tiny flake of gold.

In ways, I feel exposed, ashamed, uncovered, when I realize that people read my posting – the counter software says about 13,000 readers of the blog in this first year and scads more readers on the website.

I brag and feel proud and flattered…

Yet, like a ghost crab, I’m tempted to scurry for cover and burrow back under the sand when exposed to light. It’s uncomfortable to be so vulnerable.

I feel I am a singularly unsuccessful man, a looser, a washout,. a shipwrecked soul, a man Christ rescued by the skin of my teeth.

Other men have to drink heavily to get to where I am in life. And I got here sober!

I feel ashamed of myself and my failings and I want to bury all in the sands of time…

Yet I feel there are a lot of beachcombers out there in the world, people wandering the beach hoping to find something of value in the litter washed up by the tide, people searching for a flake of gold, people hoping to find something worthwhile leftover from a floundered ship -- or from my floundered life.

I write with these beachcombers in mind, thinking they may find something useful in the shipwreck site that is my life.

So, I let the tide wash over me exposing worm-eaten timbers and broken crockery and shipwrecked dreams -- and an occasional bit of glitter worth putting in your pocket.

I try to be honest in this blog, writing happy things and pleasures as well as frustration and despair; temptations and failures as well as giddy joys.

You’ll find a lot of plain old aluminum tab tops when digging through my blog. But every once in a while, maybe someone will uncover a cross in the sand. That’s what I hope they’ll find.

Or, maybe my musings are just flotsam and jetsam which should rightfully be covered by the sands of time with no loss to anyone.

But, nevertheless, I keep on believing and I keep on writing.

It’s what I do.

E-Mail From Chuck Meide, chief archaeologist for LAMP:

Hello John,

I came across your webpage, and in particular the photos of the old wooden wreck at Ponte Vedra Beach which you have posted (http://www.cowart.info/MyWeb_001.htm). You requested that anyone contact you if they had info on this wreck.

My name is Chuck Meide, I am the chief archaeologist for LAMP (Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program) at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Back in September 2001, archaeologists from my program (this was before I took the job) visited the wreck which had been uncovered by Tropical Storm Gabrielle. They recorded the hull timbers before it was naturally re-buried. While it remains unidentified, it is believed to represent the remains of a late 19th century coastal trading schooner, probably at least 150 to 200 feet in length.

I have attached a section from our 2001-2002 report which details the investigation and description of the wreck.

I hope you don't mind, I've downloaded copies of the photographs you have posted for our records. I'm sure this wreck is periodically exposed, as it was in the mid 1980s when your friends took these pictures.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. If you have any further information about this wreck that you think we might be interested in, please let us know. I saw a brick in your photos, there was no mention of this in our report so any exposed bricks may have all been taken by beachcombers by the time archaeologists visited the wreck, so that is of interest to us.

Link To The 2001 LAMP Report on the Ponte Vedra Wreck:

Report can be read at https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=126b0f74742966c1&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D2ab3279a8c%26view%3Datt%26th%3D126b0f74742966c1%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTrJDmiLSwFfkFoQ8g7xqUp7P8bbw

Anyhow, recently my life revolves around purely clerical work on that Florida History Materials Sale Catalog and puzzling over incomprehensible software programs I’m told I can’t do without. So to think that some photos I posted five years ago actually are of interest to a professional archaeologist… That’s made my day.

Help! I'm Being Improved!

New and Improved—

I cringe when I hear those words.

Especially when they apply to my computer. it means that somebody somewhere is changing things so that stuff I used to be able to do, I can no longer do without learning how to do it all over again from scratch.

Yes everything is improving but me.

Now, I’m all for self-improvement because it works like this billboard I saw on the Oddly Specific site—this says it all:

New and improved means change.

The only thing in the universe that does not change is God. He is immutable. To change He would either have to get better than He is, (how can perfect get better? )or worse than He is. Neither is possible. His love does not change.

But computer systems change.

Boy do they change!

And I resist change.

Case in point: I got an e-mail saying that an improvement may knock my blog off the internet come March 26th. Of course I can improve my postings by going from an FTP to something else.

That’s fine, except that I don’t know what an FTP is.

I thought it had to do with sending flowers, until last night when my son and his wife explained that that last letter is a P not a D. For years I had not paid that much attention because I don’t want to send flowers so I ignored those initials. Donald explained that they mean File Transfer Protocol.

I used to watch West Wing when it was on tv so I knew the word protocol has to do with seating arrangements at a White House dinner.

Well, I was right about the arrangement part of my hazy definition. But I have not been invited to the White House yet.

So Sunday while the Superbowl players provided background noise, Donald and Helen answered a laundry list of questions I’d written down about computer improvements. Every answer means more work for me.

I almost snapped this photo of Helen and Donald with my keychain camera; they watched Superbowl while their cat Perl nudged my elbow (I love my little camera!).

One improvement I face involves plugging two new cables into my computer. Another may involve reformatting book files. Another apparently means learning a new software system. Another involves giving a third party access to withdraw cash from our bank account.

Whoa!

Not a chance of a snowball in Haiti.

Let me read that contract again.

These changes are supposed to keep me on-line and generate more income for me by generating greater book sales…. Humm, back in October and November I sent weeks reformatting books to do that very thing. Let’s check the accounting records….

Yes, my earnings have increased. I made 3 cents more than I made before I put all that work in.

Patience, John.

It takes time for improvements to show results. Right? After all this is the computer age when data moves around the world in seconds. In fact, when some company wants to remove money from our bank, they do it in the twinkling of an eye.

One improvement ahead will transfer my blog to Word Press; that challenges me.

My postings may have a new improved look, maybe even a different color scheme.

Also, watch for this guy to appear in my sidebar; he is the harbinger of a new FreeEbook to be offered each month after we get the program set up.

Yet another computer site improvement will be an 86-page sale catalogue for the Florida history materials I’ve collected over the past 35 years.

Yes, under duress, and with a suspicious mind, I am tiptoeing (dragged kicking and screaming) into the required improvements.

But I don’t want to be new and improved.

I’m old and entrenched.

Remember that old church song: Just As I am?

It says we surrender to God just as we are, naked, ashamed, confused, reluctant, “O Lamb Of God, I come”.

Barbara White, author of the Along The Way series of books (at www.bluefishbooks.info ) says, “The Lord loves me just as I am and too much to let me stay that way”.

St. Paul said, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away ; behold , all things are become new. And all things are of God…”.

He does not just patch me up; He makes me a new and improved creature.

Trouble is, this new nature gets packaged in the same box as my old nature. That creates problems.

I don’t want God to love me too much.

I don’t want to be improved.

I don’t want to learn new tricks.

I’d rather that God tolerated me instead of loving me.

Cause Love just don’t quit.

He won’t leave well enough alone.

So what if I have a few rough edges, I don’t like to be held to His grind stone. It hurts to be polished.

Lots of folks seem to hanker after joining churches—but they want to be members without any change in lifestyle or behavior or attitude. They want the same thing I want.

I like me as I is too.

Old and entrenched.

My e-friend Amrita, in her biographical sketch of Sundar Singh yesterday provides this illustration: A man in the river swims around unaware of the weight of water; but when he comes out and tries to lift even one bucket full of water, he realizes how heavy it is.

Sin is like that. We swim immersed in it as our natural element with hardly a thought. It is not until we begin to get out that we realize that sin has weight. A heavy, back-breaking burden pressing us down.

And, being old and entrenched, we thought it nothing to soak in sin.

No wonder we need the Lifeguard.

But I’m getting away from griping about improvements to my computer…

Be that as it may, floundering, I’ve screamed for help with my computer upgrades, with improvements and with the downright arbitrary changes which swamp me.

So my daughter-in-law Helen, who is a … What’s the right word for a female geek? Geekess? Geekette?—anyhow, Helen is coming to my rescue this afternoon to begin some of these many changes.

Look for exciting new changes and improvements to this site…. Maybe by March first. Can’t guarantee that, but it’s my target date.

Of course, that may change.

Mary? Eleanor? Where Are You?

The book I’m writing requires many footnotes.

I’ve worked on this manuscript, If God Leads Me Why Do I Run In Circles, off and on for years and I tend to forget where I got what?

If I steal material from one writer, that’s plagiarism; but if I steal from many writers, that’s research. I research biographies, histories and reference books a lot because other writers say what I want to say better than I can say it.

Thus, piles of book surround me as I work. As I read in my easy chair, a dozen sharp pencils at hand; books balance on the aquarium; books clutter the coffee table; books pile up in my lap; books, some open, some closed, fill the end table. The books bristle with bookmarks and Post-it notes like flattened sea urchins.

Camouflage for an uneducated man trying to write authoritatively.

So, yesterday I wondered whether it was Mary Chesnut or Eleanor Chesnut I wanted to quote? Mary Chesnut wrote an extensive diary during the Civil War; Dr. Eleanor Chesnut died a martyr during China’s Boxer Rebellion.

Which one wrote that poem?

And where did I put her book?

Fear for your lives goldfish as I try to browse the titles poised above you without getting out of my chair.

I narrowly avoided setting a Post-it note on fire as I fiddled with the stack of books by the ashtray. I shifted my feet, propped on the coffee table, to seek the volume I wanted there.

Nothing for it.

I’d have to get up out of my chair.

I found my glasses and put them on.

I stacked this book and that one on the floor beside me to go check the bookcase in the foyer…Oh. Here’s the book I wanted—it was open in my lap the whole time I was searching.

Must be some deep spiritual lesson here somewhere.

But I can’t figure out what it is.

By the way, here’s a photo of the lady:

P.S.: To family members in Maryland and Virginia complaining about Friday’s snow blizzard… It was so bad here in Jacksonville that yesterday when I was cleaning the swimming pool, the water felt so cold I could hardly stay in for more than 30 minutes.

P.P.S.: As I write this I hear Ginny behind me running the vacuum cleaner.

It sounds odd.

I look around to see her chasing some flying bug around the living room trying to slurp it from the air with the vacuum hose.

We both start laughing like crazy.

A typical Sunday afternoon at the Cowarts.

PPPPPSSSS: It’s now 4:18 Monday morning. I knocked off work for a few minutes to go outside and watch the space shuttle launch. Standing on our pool deck, I saw the rocket arc as though it were flying above the rising moon. Beautiful!

Glad to have seen this. If I understand correctly, this is to be NASA’s last launch (last night launch?) for a decade…. But I don’t want to start a tirade about that.

Note To The Kid In The Attic

Since this is Superbowl weekend, I doubt if many of my contemporaries are likely to read this entry—not that many ever do—so I’m using this to address the Kid In The Attic. He’s the reader I envision when I write, a kid who will stumble across my diaries in a dusty box in an attic 50 or a hundred years from now.

I want the Kid In The Attic to see how a Christian life worked out in real time for one lone guy at the beginning of the 21^st Century. This is pretty individualistic stuff, Kid, but to give you a peg to hang things on I think it’s a good idea to mention current news events now and then.

So, here’s your update on two things I’ve mentioned before:

Haiti’s earthquake.

It will be a cold day in Haiti before I send them another penny.

Last week the haitian government arrested ten American aid workers and charged them with kidnapping 32 children.

According to articles in the Wall Street Journal and in the New York Times, the ten Baptist missionaries were sponsored by a large church in Iowa which has sent aid workers into Haiti for years. They had bought property and had drawn up plans for an orphanage for Haitian children long before this earthquake.

Looks like such experienced aid workers would have known who to bribe.

Investigative reporters find no record of criminal connections or wrong doing among any of the Baptists except that one lady owes money from when her business went bankrupt in the present recession.

The ten under arrest for “kidnapping” the children face up to 15 years in a haitian prison—which seems to have escaped earthquake damage while news photos show rioting mobs of native people being served by American troops who appear to be carrying all the boxes.

Talk about bite the hand that feeds you!

So, my first reaction is not to give one penny aid and to stop payment on all checks that have already been written for Haiti earthquake relief, and to fly back from U.S. hospitals all those injured people American rescue workers have “kidnapped”.

An A-bomb would not be amiss either.

The earthquake was not the disaster; those people are.

They do more damage to each other than the earthquake ever did.

That’s my first thought… Then here comes a Bible passage (Matthew 23) to mind (I’ve got to stop reading that stuff!).

Jesus said, “Behold , I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city…”

But the love of God does not write us off even them. Despite how we all have treated the wise and good people, God keeps on sending them. Those rescue workers arrested in Haiti are just the last in a long line. In spite of their treatment, God’s Love keeps on coming.

He is relentless.

Swine Flu (H1N1)

Although a third wave may be in the offing, the Porky Flu epidemic dose not seem as bad as predicted.

Around the world, governments are trying to unload stockpiles of vaccines going stale. Loud voices accuse health organizations of crying wolf, being doom-sayers when there was no cause for alarm—and of even deliberately falsifying the severity of the flu danger just to get money for pharmaceutical companies.

Politicians bemoan money spent on unneeded vaccines.

On the other hand, Keiji Fududa, World Health Organization Pandemic Influenza Adviser, said that claims that H1N1 is a mild pandemic are wrongheaded.

"There have been over 14,000 deaths that have been laboratory-confirmed, many in young, previously healthy people. Who is going to tell their families that the virus is mild?" Fukuda wrote to TIME in an e-mail.

He said that the WHO's definition of influenza pandemics has always been based on transmissibility and has never had anything to do with the lethality of a virus; it was no different with H1N1.

In response to accusations of overreaction to what has amounted to a mild disease, Fukuda says that once the 2009 H1N1 pandemic had been declared, "WHO consistently made it clear that it could not predict the future course of the pandemic but consistently provided sober, balanced and scientifically supported information and guidance."

The quotes are from Time.

A couple of months ago, through our Civilian Emergency Response Team, Ginny and I trained to work at vaccination sites. But we were never mobilized. The anticipated huge crowds seeking inoculation never materialized.

Being in a high-risk group, Ginny did get her vaccination. Being in the Too-Old-To-Bother-About group, I did not. We took the CERT training courses but were not needed.

I feel disappointed that I missed the show, but grateful that the epidemic did not send death carts rolling down the streets collecting bodies for a mass burial pit (That has happened in Jacksonville in two previous epidemics, Yellow Jack and Spanish Lady).

Soon there will be another CERT disaster drill. I’ll have a chance to be a victim.

Age, arthritis and adrenaline preclude my training as a rescue worker pulling fair maidens from the rubble, but I am able to play the role of pathetic victim…

Sometimes I think I’ve been training for that role all my life.

In For The Long Haul—With Cookies

A passing tourist snapped this photo of Ginny and me in St. Augustine last summer:

We were sitting on a shady bench in a park smoking and talking about marriage.

Wednesday night at the library we again fell into a discussion about marriage. A young man noticed us and asked, “How do you two manage to stay together for so long?”

I replied, “The grace of Jesus Christ”.

I regretted that quip, a damn pious platitude to his serious question. Yes, what I said is true but evasive, a knee-jerk reaction to an out-of-the-blue question, not a real answer.

This stranger really had no interest in our marriage. He hungered for somebody to talk to about his own. He needed a listener, not a bumper sticker response to his pain.

He explained that he and his wife had been married for three years and now faced splitting up. “I don’t know if we should quit now or hold on a little longer,” he said.

“Hold on whatever it takes,” I said. “When all is said and done in this world the only thing you’ve got is each other”.

Understand that these words of wisdom come from a guy who failed at his first marriage. Ginny and I have been married for only 42 years now and I don’t want to fail again. And yes, recently a couple down the block who’ve been married as long as we have broken up. Just because you’ve been together a long time doesn’t mean you can take it for granted.

When the young man asked if there were some secret to staying in love, we felt at a loss to answer. We think we’re doing something right, but we can’t pinpoint what it is. Love is just there, sort of a white-noise background to each of us moving through life.

“Be totally honest with each other,” I ventured. “Nobody loves anybody all the time. Realize that, and don’t have unrealistic expectations”.

Ginny said, “One thing that’s helps us is to be able to say, ‘I love you forever, but I can’t stand you right this minute. Check back with me in the morning’”.

The lines at the video reserve counter moved on separating us from the stranger. “Hold on. It’s worth it in the long haul,” I encouraged him in parting.

Yes, it is the grace of Jesus Christ that keeps us going. I’m crazy in love with Ginny and she appears to fine me tolerable too, but it is God’s grace that makes us able to live with eachother. When our youngest daughter got married on January first (see that entry for photos), I think I gave her and Clint that same counsel, to cling to the Lord God and to eachother. That’s all that counts in the long run.

If we ever run into that stranger again, I might have more to say.

To show how a long-term, loving relationship works, here is the body of an e-mail about chocolate chip cookies; my son Johnny sent it to me last week:

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death's doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in Heaven.

There, spread out on newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it Heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table. The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when he was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife.

“Stay out of those,” she said, “They're for the funeral”.

In Costume

Now I know why hardly any of my books sell.

I don’t have an apple costume.

Last night as Ginny and I made our weekly book run, some event was going on around the library. Hoards of people surrounded the place and the overflow encamped in Hemming Park. I never found out what the event was, but I noticed a number of people in costumes. A bunch of Star Wars troopers lounged by the bike rack. I saw an Indian chief, a chef, and a Victoria’s Secret Angel (or maybe that’s just what she normally wears to the office).

Once we forged through the crowd and got into the library, I noticed a number of tables set up in the lobby where local authors were signing their books. Outstanding among them was a gentleman in an apple costume (a real apple, not a computer system).

I asked permission to snap his photo with my little keychain camera; sorry about the blur but my hands shake too much to hold the thing steady. (You don’t want to watch me eat soup. Honest, you don’t).

This intrepid bookseller was promoting Lois Simon’s book Mac: Story of A Happy Apple (Vantage Press, © 2008). I asked his name but he said, “I’m only a prop. She wrote the book”. And he introduced me to Ms Simon who wrote and illustrated this story which she said is for kids from 3 to 103.

While I enjoyed talking with Ms Simon and the Apple Man, Ginny sat in the park across the street drinking a soda she bought from one of the street vendors.

Ms Simon is an accomplished artist whose paintings can be viewed at http://www.stellersgallery.com/Artists/ArtistPortfolioO.asp?artistID=38&O=1&R=0 When I checked out the website, I noticed that one of her paintings is called Leading The Way…

Ok, now I’m moving to a completely unrelated subject… or am I?

For years now I’ve been working on a book about divine guidance. Spent ten hours on it today. So far I have over 500 pages expounding about three words in the Shepherd Psalm, Psalm 23.

The three words—He leadeth me.

Naturally my title is If God Leads Me, Why Do I Run In Circles?

The book examines examples of how God leads people in the pages of the Holy Bible—those are solid examples of divine guidance.

It also examines examples of how God has lead notable people of the past such as Salvation Army founder William Booth whom I mentioned in yesterday’s posting. I am less positive about attributing divine guidance to such people. Yes, by their fruits shall ye know them, but does achieving success in some particular field necessarily mean a person was guided by God? After all, Attila was an eminently successful Hun.

Then the book also examines examples pulled from my own diaries for the past 30+ years. These examples shake and wobble worse than my hands! I really hesitate to ever pontificate saying, “God Led Me To…”. I feel more comfortable saying, “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.

For instance…

Back in the early 1970s I took a class in public speaking with a bunch of preachers. For one exercise, the teacher split us into small groups to teach a practice lesson to each other. Now I was fresh from a job as a long distance truck driver; I’d go for days on end alone without saying a word more than “Fill ‘er up” or “Eggs over easy”. And here these preachers orated all week long.

I worried that I’d make an ass of myself when I…

Ding!

A mental bell rang. The little light bulb flashed above my brain.

“Make an ass of myself… Make an ass…Isn’t there a Bible story about an ass that talked? Yes, Balaam’s donkey in Numbers 22 where as St. Peter said, “Balaam the son of Bosor, loved the wages of unrighteousness; But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet”.

So, I constructed a big donkey head mask with long ears and when it came my turn to speak to the preachers, I put it on and told the whole story of Balaam from the viewpoint of the donkey!

Those preachers got the lowdown straight from the ass’s mouth.

It was a hoot!

Afterwards, Dr. Keith Johnson, director of Teens For Christ, came up to me saying, “My kids could use something like what you just did”. He invited me to teach some Bible lessons to his “Kids”.

TFC was a residential refuge at the beach for runaways, addicts, drunks, destitute people, the abused, the homeless, and disenfranchised. These “kids” ranged in age from young kids to guys in their 70s. Their common denominator was that none of them had any interest in religion whatsoever.

To tell them about the forgiveness of sin and Christ’s death on the cross, His return from the grave, and His love for them, I manufactured a lot of gimmicks to gain their interest and to make Bible lessons palatable for them.

From the one idea about wearing the donkey mask, I ended up teaching every week for about four years till the place went belly up.

One worm in my apple:

I think my long tenure as an unpaid Bible teacher had little to do with God’s leading and a great deal to do with my love of being center stage in the spot light. I wanted everybody to see how clever I am. I made the gimmicks more to display my talent than to glorify God.

Jesus warned about the perfidy of guys like me—“All their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi”.

In the light of that Scripture, can I claim that God lead me to make that donkey mask in the first place?

No.

It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

Likes, Don’t Likes, And Divine Guidance

Each morning the barkeep came outside the bar, attached a garden hose to an outside spigot, and hosed blood, spilled the night before in drunken fights, off the sidewalk.

The notorious bar sat at the corner of Eight and Main in Jacksonville’s Springfield section, an area since subjected to urban renewal, still a tough area but back then a squalid slum.

I drove by that corner every night going home from work.

A few years ago as I drove by one evening, I heard music, not honky-tonk music but a gospel tune. Glancing over, I saw a small group of clean-cut young people conducting an evangelistic meeting before a gathered crowd of bums. Interested, I pulled over, parked, and walked back to stand at the fringe of the watchers. Hot, sweaty and filthy from my day’s work, I blended right in with the other bums.

The guys in the church group looked like wimps to me—brave wimps to be out there at all, but wimps nonetheless. The group included a few girls, one especially noticeable because the way she enthusiastically kept time to the music with her tambourine.

A crusty street guy nudged me with his elbow. “Just look at that gal shake that thing”.

He was not referring to her tambourine.

“What do you suppose would happen,” he said, “If I was to run up there and grab her tits”?

I thought it over for a moment then answered in a slow drawl, “Well, I don’t know it for a fact, but I imagine somebody would throw you down on the pavement, kick off your kneecaps, then stomp you till blood squirts out your ass”.

Now he looked me full in the face. “You really think so”.

“I reckon”.

“Ain’t Christians supposed to love people”?

“Yeap”.

“Are you with those kids”?

“Nope. Just watching the show, same as you,” I said.

“Oh,” he said and edged away into the crowd.

After those pathetically young Christians finished their service uninterrupted, I got back in my car without having spoken to anyone else and drove on home.

I wouldn’t swear to it, but I suspect I did the will of God that day.

I had not thought of this non-incident for years till a conversation with my friend Wes yesterday reminded me of it.

Wes took me out to breakfast and when we returned to my house we enjoyed a long conversation about Christian mysticism, pietism, subjective religion, objective reality, and logic. Our talk centered around the question: Just Who’s In Charge Here Anyhow?

My talk with Wes Tuesday and my talk with Barbara Monday boosted my spirits to resume work on that will of God manuscript again.

By pondering the question of control, divine guidance, and God’s will for individuals, and by reading a biography this afternoon, I see four elements related to how the Lord guides us.

Sometimes God guides us by using things we like.

Sometimes God guides us through things we don’t like.

Sometimes He guides us through things other people don’t like.

And sometimes He guides us by using things other people do like.

I spotted these four elements at work in the lives of William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army.

For instance, on April 10, 1852, William and Catherine met for the first time at the home of a mutual friend.

He liked what he saw.

She liked what she saw.

He walked her home afterwards.

As she later described it, “It seemed as if God flashed simultaneously into our hearts that affection which none of the changing vicissitudes with which our lives have been so crowded has been able to efface… Before we reached my home we both felt as though we had been made for each other”.

They married within three years. They remained together till her cancer death 38 years later.

I think they had received God’s guidance through something they liked.

On the other hand, William hated his job. When he was 13, his father had died and William became sole support of his mother and family. He had to take work as a pawnbroker’s assistant. Seeing destitute wretches pawn the very clothes off their backs just to buy bread, a night’s lodging, or another cup of gin, turned his stomach.

Yet it was that distasteful daily contact with the poor that developed Booth’s sense of compassion and influenced the future course of his life—and of England.

Walking home from a Methodist meeting one night, Booth said he was filled with a sudden spiritual exaltation, a sense of being forgiven by the blood of Christ, and a sense of gratitude to God. He knew this ought to be expressed by preaching the Gospel to the poor. He and Catherine decided to “reach for the worst”.

God was leading him by way of a job he did not like and found galling.

So, William Booth gathered a bunch of street people together and took them into his church. The church folk did not like these nasty sinners cluttering up the sanctuary. Booth and company were kicked out.

God guided Booth by way of something other people did not like.

Trusting God to provide and having no study income, William and Catherine began to preach on the streets, in front of bars and dance halls, at public hangings, anywhere lost, lonely, hurt people might be found. Their motto became “to work where the need is greatest, guided by faith in God and love for all people”.

The Booths had found their niche.

By 1879, they had established 81 preaching stations throughout London, recruited helpers, and held 140 services every week. They established soup kitchens, employment services, reading rooms, street schools, immigration helps, health care services, and a host of other needed helps for the poor… A book they and their son wrote, In Darkest England, changed the face of the British government’s social attitude to this day.

All rooted in the fact that some other people kicked them out of a church because the refined congregation did not like what they were doing. That’s the way it appears on the surface, but underneath are the Everlasting Arms.

What about something other people did like?

Once at one of Booth’s open air evangelistic meetings in Salisbury, a local builder named Charles Fry and his three sons became interested. The four happened to enjoy playing in a local brass band. Just because they liked to play, they brought their instruments to the meeting and began to play peppy tunes.

When someone objected that the tunes fit a barroom venue better than a religious meeting, Booth countered, “Why should the devil have all the good tunes?”.

Thus came into being the world-famous Salvation Army bands, rooted in God’s guidance through a bunch of guys who liked to toot their horns.

Taking inspiration from an organized military model, Booth fought the works of the devil .Near the end of his life as a guest of royalty, General Booth was invited to deliver an address in London’s prestigious Albert Hall. He said,

“While women weep as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison as they do now, in and out, in and out, I’ll fight; while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight—I’ll fight to the very end”.

Lunch With A Happy Hooker

My friend Barbara White has become a Happy Hooker.

Barbara is the author of the Along The Way series of books at www.bluefishbooks.info .

Yes, she’s joined a group of women who crochet or knit baby clothes which are given to mothers of newborns when they leave a charity hospital. The 18 or 20 ladies who crochet these caps, booties, and baby blankets call themselves The Happy Hookers.

The hooking part of the group name refers to crochet hooks.

“John, I do this because this is something I can do,” Barbara said as she treated me to lunch yesterday at Silver Star Chinese Restaurant. Because of an injury to her wrist, Barbara knits instead of crochets. “When I found out that I may live a while longer, I wanted to do something I’m able to do as service to the Lord, and I can do this,” she said.

It appears that the chemotherapy has worked for Barbara’s cancer; yet she felt it prudent yesterday to see an attorney to adjust her will. And since that brought her over to my side of town, she came by and picked me up for lunch.

Since I firmly believe in the old adage that the chief duty of a writer is to avoid writing, I was happy for the excuse to leave off work on the will of God book to go with her. No wonder it has taken me so many years to get this far with that book!

I have this deep ingrained feeling that no one reads what I write and that it does not matter if I write or not because my work is useless.

Barbara said I listen to the wrong voice. “The enemy’s voice is persistent and persuading. But it is not pervasive,” she said. “He is a smooth-talking liar. The Lord may convict but He does not belittle you”.

But I am so attuned to the put-down voice and have listened to it for so long that it is difficult for me to discern the Voice of God when it relates to the value of my own work, life or influence.

The main thing I cling to is that phrase of Scripture that declares I am “accepted in the Beloved”. And the Lord Christ said, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent”.

Barbara quoted that the important thing is not whether we make right decisions but that we make faithful decisions.

Over the weekend she attended the Bar Mitzvah of the grandson of a friend. The young man represents the third or forth generation in his family in that same temple. The continuity of faith there impressed Barbara greatly as the Torah scroll was passed down among family members before reaching the young man. He read the passage from Judges about Deborah and Barak.

Barbara said tears of worship streamed down her face during the service.

Of course, I also contributed to the high tone of our conversation as we also talked about e-books, writing and editing.

I told Barbara about a murder mystery I’ve been reading: a 15-year-old girl accuses a candidate running for governor of molesting her. She can prove it. She tells the two detectives that the politician has a birthmark on his testicles; it’s shaped exactly like a semicolon.

Outside the interview room, one cop says, “She’s lying. Somebody coached her.”.

“You don’t believe he could have done it”?

“Oh, he may have done it. What I don’t believe is that a 15-year-old in our educational system knows what a semicolon looks like”.