Post 15, Foxhole Cowboys and Ruby

                       

 

Why Foxhole Cowboys?

 

            Perhaps you’ve noticed in previous posts a reference to “foxhole,” to “cowboys,” or to “Ruby.” At some point in the past, when things were bad for one of us, the other referred to the situation as being like a war and how we were sharing a (spiritual) foxhole. Between books that I’ve read, movies that I’ve seen and people that I’ve talked to, soldiers or Marines form a very close attachment in conditions where they share a foxhole. Eating together. Sleeping together. Shaving together when possible (except Dana never shaves) Protecting each other. All with the purpose of staying alive while fighting off the enemy.

            The Apostle Paul tells us how we should put on the whole armor of God, Eph 6:10-18. Then in 2 Tim 2:3 Christians we are even encouraged by Paul to, Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. English Standard Version  In Philemon 1:2, Paul refers to fellow Christians as “good soldiers.” 

            What used to be a frequently sung hymn in churches was Onward Christian Soldiers. http://www.hymnsite.com/lyrics/umh575.sht  Some would argue today that we in the church have lost the will to be soldiers of the Cross for the ease of the couch (or the electronic game). In a typical worship service in the average evangelical church today, references such as “forward into battle,” “marching as to war,” “Hell’s foundations quiver,” ‘Like a mighty army moves the church of God,” are totally missing. Is it any wonder that the Church instead of being fit, hard and trim is flabby, facile and vulnerable?

            And cowboys. Where did that come from? In another life, I think Dana would have preferred to be a cowboy.Once he wrote a short story along the lines of Cowboys & Aliens,  a 2011 American space western-action film directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. But the closest he has come is when many years ago, Dana was chaperoning a number of new Christians on a bus tour of churches through the Midwest and near West. He sent me a couple of post cards, both of which I framed and are still prominently displayed in my bedroom. The picture on one of the post cards shows the interior of a bunk house or cabin. On the wall is a rifle. A pot bellied stove sits in the background with several bowls sitting on its extended wings. On the cloth covered, spindled legged table is a pot of beans and a cup of coffee. An expectant dog sits off to the side, looking up at the cowboys.

            Seated at the table are two weathered old cowboys. Each has on a pair of well worn and faded Levis. One cowboy’s legs are covered by leather chaps. Both have a bandana around their neck.  While some men wear their hats inside, often times even to the table, these two old timers have taken their hats off, one holding it close to his chest. Their heads are bowed. The presumption is, they are honoring God’s presence, and thanking Him for the meal they’re about to eat. And in the foreground, at the edge of the photo is another chair. On that chair is a well worn book, with a satin, page marker ribbon protruding, marking someone’s place. A Bible.

            Therefore, at some past time, one of us began to sometimes close our letters with a reference to being a foxhole cowboy, e.g. Your foxhole cowboy friend.

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As Dana wrote in an email on October 10, 2016

Hi John,

     OK, the split works for me [referring to a future post], with Part two beginning at the place hi-lighted in yellow.  The only change I would make is in the title of Part 2.  Perhaps a Subtitle of "A Bigger Vision of God (or Christ)" would add some clarity.  What do you think?

     John, I have to admit this blog we've been putting together isn't quite as good as sitting around having coffee with you and shooting the breeze, but I remember the last line from Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," when Freddie Sykes, the old outlaw, and his new Mexican bandito buddies ride up on the surviving member of the former bunch, and offers him some work down in Mexico.  Freddie says,

     "It ain't like it used to be...but it'll do."

     I am thankful to be working on this project with you, and over the miles and years and pounds around the waist lines, it feels kind of like the old days.  And that is a good thing.  A gift from God to a couple of old foxhole cowboys.

 

Dana

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So Who Is Ruby? John writes

            I first met her at a gift shop in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. while shopping, sometime in the early 1970s. I was surprised that such a high end store in wealthy Georgetown would allow someone such as her to even enter. Ruby was wearing a dirty, rumpled, flowered, cotton print dress. Over the top of the dress was a worn woolen jacket. Her graying hair hadn’t felt the hands of a beautician in many months (perhaps years?), and was totally disheveled. She was squinting out of puffy slits for eyes. Snot was running down from her nose. And she was beyond overweight. Clutched to her breast was a bottle of Ruby wine.  She was a drunk; nothing but a skid row wino.

            At that time, I was still married, perhaps even somewhat happily, to my first wife (that marriage ended in a large part because I was a drunk). We were shopping and I saw a poster titled “Ruby.” At that time, I was into photography and I was struck by the hard reality of the condition of the person in the photo, which had been made into a poster. What a character sketch! And yet, Ruby could have been me. While in the service, I had been a falling down, pass-out-on-the-street drunk. Even at the time of purchasing that poster, I was drinking my way to a separation and, in time, a divorce. But I wore a white shirt and often a necktie. I even worked for a time on Capitol Hill (and once even lunching with the former 38^th Vice President of the United States). But as Juliet tried to argue of her love for Romeo in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name...” is still a rose. And I was a drunk.

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A Short Note from John About What Follows:

            Perhaps some of you, by now, are asking yourselves, “If John was a drunk and Dana is a vintner, how can they be friends or how can they do such a thing as this blog?” Or, “How can John in the earlier post ‘Blog 4-The Grapes Are Awake ! -Or The Vinedresser’ seem to be in favor of wine, or alcohol by writing favorably about what Dana does?” This is not incongruous. Jesus first miracle in the Book of John turned water into wine for the guests at a party (see John 2:1-10). Or in 1 Timothy 5:23 where Paul encourages Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake.

           Also when Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, one of them is temperance, or better expressed, self control.

            You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do everything in moderation.” While this sounds Biblical, I can’t find it in my concordance. There is however a verse that says, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit...” Eph 5:18 ESV 

            That verse is an answer I can live with for the Church at large. Do not get drunk. For people like me, that means no alcohol. For others, take it easy and think of your witness, think very hard of your witness. Maybe this should be the topic of a separate post?

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Now, More on Ruby

            I’ve gone to some length to describe the poster. Why? When I went to Bible school, I took Ruby with me and hung her in my room. Most of the younger students, when entering the room, would look at the disheveled, fat, drunken woman with mucus running down her face from her nose, and they’d often go, “Eww. Why do you have that up there?” They were shocked that a well known and somewhat respected student would have something like that up on the wall in his dorm room.

            I almost always answered, “There but for the grace of God go I.” Drunkenness cost me my first marriage. Excessive drinking caused me to do things that I never would have done otherwise. It is only through God’s grace that I never had a serious accident while driving under the influence.  I so hurt the one I was supposed to love that when the court awarded custody of our daughter to my first wife, she took her and I’ve not seen her or talked to our daughter in about 37 years. There is nothing pretty, nothing cool, nothing inviting, nothing worthwhile, nothing good in what alcohol can do, and did to me.

Proverbs 23:29-35 NIV

29 Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
    Who has strife? Who has complaints?
    Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
30 Those who linger over wine,
    who go to sample bowls of mixed wine.
31 Do not gaze at wine when it is red,
    when it sparkles in the cup,
    when it goes down smoothly!
32 In the end it bites like a snake
    and poisons like a viper.
33 Your eyes will see strange sights,
    and your mind will imagine confusing things.
34 You will be like one sleeping on the high seas,
    lying on top of the rigging.
35 “They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt!
    They beat me, but I don’t feel it!
When will I wake up
    so I can find another drink?”

            While there are at least 70 plus Bible references to drinking and drunkenness, what do others have to say? F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”  “Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” said Ernest Hemingway. And Robert E. Lee said, “I like whiskey. I always did, and that is why I never drink it.”  I should have been so smart.

            But God. Oh, how I love those two simple words. But God, is the difference between life and death. But God, is the difference between joy and sorrow. But God, is the difference between heaven, and a godless eternity. But God, saved me, delivered me, and gave me a new life.                        

                ⁹ Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; ^[a]neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [by perversion], nor ^[b]those who participate in homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers [whose words are used as weapons to abuse, insult, humiliate, intimidate, or slander], nor swindlers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you [before you believed]. But you were washed [by the atoning sacrifice of Christ], you were sanctified [set apart for God, and made holy], you were justified [declared free of guilt] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the [Holy] Spirit of our God [the source of the believer’s new life and changed behavior]. 1 Cor 6:9-11 AMP

            As I write this post, I’ve brought Ruby into the office next to me. She’s still squinting through those slited, puffy eyes. She still clutches that bottle of alcohol. But thanks be to the living God, not me. Not since May of 1978, over 37 years, have I knowingly drunk alcohol in any of its forms, shapes, sizes or colors. When God tells us, He whom the Son sets free is free indeed (see John 8:36), He means it. When He tells us that Jesus came to set the prisoner free (Luke 4:18), He means it.

            Some people strive to forget where they have come from, or what God has delivered them from. Not me. While I don’t wallow in morose thoughts of what I was like and what problems my drunkenness caused, I don’t want to forget from what God has delivered me and why I have the joyous new life I have. So Ruby will go with me to the end. And perhaps as some of you may have read in an earlier post (see Post 6, Great Expectations-But Whose?  http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/post-6-great-expectations-but-whose.html) where Dana talks about how I used to pray for Ruby (Remember, she was a real person, not just a static face on a piece of paper.), maybe she’ll be my neighbor in that mansion Jesus went to prepare for me...just over the hilltop...in that bright land where we’ll never grow old...and there’ll be no more sorrow, no more tears, and no more death.

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PS

            Remember above 1 Tim 5:23, taking a little wine for the stomach’s sake? Until about two years ago, I never allowed any alcohol in the house. I wouldn’t even buy traditional Dijon mustard because there is alcohol in it. And buy a red wine vinegar—never. But about that time, after we returned from a party where wine was available, and my wife had some, later she commented on how it helped her medicinally. I asked her if she had noticed this at other times. “Yes,” she said.

            I love my wife. So when I knew that a periodic glass of wine helped her physically, I went out and bought a bottle for her. I’m pretty sure it had been well over 35 years since I had been in a liquor store. I had not bought a bottle of anything alcoholic since before I threw my supply of alcohol away after I got delivered in the late fall of 1977.  But a little wine helps my wife so now we keep a bottle in the fridge.

            And as I also wrote above, He whom the Son sets free, is free indeed!!!.