Saturday, January 28, 2017

Post 23-Sympathy for Peter (or, Is That Really Him?)

                                                        The Fisherman


Dana Wrote on January 18, 2017 at 11:55:56 AM


    “ ...while I wouldn't go to the mat on this, I'm not 100% comfortable with being used as an example of ‘grit’”


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John Explains on Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 9:19 PM


            As part of the conversation we had concerning Post 22-Your Second Most Favorite Book, Dana reminded me of some of his exploits after college and before he committed himself to serving Christ. One of the things he did was hobo, that is ride the rails, to be “on the road.” Back in the 1950s, during my elementary school days, I remember often seeing men “on the road” riding in the box cars or sitting on the flat cars of the numerous railroad trains that passed through our town.  Dana, personally, did this a decade or two later. (Depending, I’d like to do a post on this, but we’ll see.)


            Some people presume that our experiences help to make us who we are. Some would argue it is the nature (an individual’s innate qualities) verses nurture (an individual’s personal experiences) debate.  Well, maybe. But because I’m not a psychologist I won’t get into the professional arguments. But I do know that it is often our experiences that help make us who we are. I contend that it takes nerve, “grit,” to ride the rails. (Not only that, I contend that being a Christian also takes “girt,” which quite often must come from the Lord. Look at Joshua. He was with Moses for years. Saw the miracles. Took part in the action. But when God taps him for leadership, what happened? It seems to me he was close to chickening out. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=joshua+1&version=NASB  Why else would God have to give Joshua a pep talk, three times? But after being encouraged to “be strong and courageous” we read how Joshua is then able to do what God is asking him to do.) My comment to Dana about this set off a discussion about this and about the men Jesus surrounded himself with.  Dana contends that the disciples were a “rough cut” bunch, especially Peter.


            This led to the idea of writing this post. I can’t remember giving much in-depth thought  to the toughness of the disciples. Yes, some were fishermen, not an occupation for softies. (Remember Freddie Bartholomew in the 1937 movie Captains Courageous where he played the role of a pampered young boy who falls off an ocean liner and is rescued by a Portuguese fisherman, played by Spencer Tracy, on a fishing sailing schooner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captains_Courageous_(1937_film)  Bartholomew can’t convince the crew to set him ashore before they fill the schooner with fish, so he becomes a young crew member. By the time he lands in Gloucester, MA, he has so matured that his wealthy father hardly recognizes him.  Feddie got “grit.” This is an excellent movie to rent and show to your children. But make sure you watch it with them.)


            Sympathy for Peter? As Dana develops this, I think many of us might see ourselves, and be thankful the Lord is who He is-- Jehovah Mekoddishkem, or M’Kaddesh, which  means The Lord Who Sanctifies You. God sets us apart as his children when we become believers. He sanctifies us and makes us holy because we are incapable of it on our own.


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Then Dana expands on Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 9:25 AM


Hi John,


     While I wouldn't go to the mat on this, let me say that I'm not 100% comfortable with being used as an example of "grit" in the Favorite Second Book blog article.  There are many more interesting examples.  Since we’re talking about “grit,” why not look at some of the Biblical characters who displayed this quality. 


     While the Bible has so many men and women with “grit” about whom we could write, this is a blog, and not an encyclopedia. That said, my “Cliff Notes” version of “gritty characters” would be Hebrews chapter 11. Even so, there are too many in that chapter to expound upon here.  So I’ll pare things down even further to just Jesus’ disciples, and take a look primarily at Peter. 


     While I cannot prove it by citing chapter and verse, I feel pretty secure in the belief that Jesus of Nazareth, as a man on this earth, had good times of enjoyment and fun with His disciples, family and friends. If God has a sense of humor, then it would be safe to say that Jesus, being of one and the same essence as the other persons of the Trinity from and for all of eternity, had one too.  It couldn't be helped. 


     It's hard to imagine the "boys" and Jesus not having a good laugh now and then, and most likely Peter alone provided plenty of fodder for such. The disciples were a rough cut bunch of guys, and having spent a good portion of my life around rough cut bunches of guys, I know only too well how they like a good joke and a hearty laugh once in a while. 


     I find it harder to believe that on occasion, someone didn't attempt the equivalent of sneaking some hot pepper into Peter's coffee (or whatever he drank) without him knowing it, and ignited (literally) a huge round of guffaws when it lit the unsuspecting fellow up. Jesus wasn't just training disciples, He was herding cats. 


     These depictions of gentile, almost effeminate looking, nearly Hallmark card-like angelic likenesses of the disciples, reclining dutifully at the Master's feet with halos above their heads, are really pretty ridiculous in my book.  Many of the disciples were fishermen, whose exposure to the sun and the salt air and years of hard work left them looking more like grizzled 40 year olds, while still in their 20's.  Simon the Zealot was a guerrilla in the underground resistance against Rome. James and John were nicknamed "Boanerges," the "sons of thunder." Peter whacked the ear off of the high priest's servant in the garden when Jesus was arrested. These guys were neither nerds nor sissies.  They were uncouth, politically incorrect tough guys, who acted like uncouth, politically incorrect tough guys, and, they were men who never got much right until after Jesus' ascension when Pentecost occurred.  And, don’t you find it interesting that the disciples who wrote Gospels and Epistles didn’t seem to mind showing their human failings at all? 


     On several occasions I’ve heard Alistair Begg bring up the point that one might think that the people who were citing their experiences as some of the foundational acts in one of the most major religious movements in history, would “polish” their accounts of themselves. No, instead they honestly reported their mistakes and goof ups.  They certainly had the opportunity to “toot their own horns” so to speak, and present themselves as shining examples of piety and religious wisdom, but they were content to show themselves in light of Christ’s majesty and grace.  They didn’t mind portraying themselves as the 1st century version of the “Keystone Cops” next to Jesus their Lord. Any credit they received later in Acts, displaying their achievements as leaders of the early Church, are always described in the light of what Jesus and the Holy Spirit had done in their lives.  Not I, I, Me, Me.  It was always about Him.


     Not to go on a rant, or maybe to intentionally go on a rant, but it really galls me to hear ministers decry Peter's denial of the Lord as having been due to cowardice, or, his being afraid of a little servant girl. Not on your life.  Turning a page or two back from the event in Scripture, remember that Peter had drawn his sword and struck the first blow in what, (if Jesus had not intervened,) would have ended up a blood bath right there in the garden.  Peter’s attack was hardly the action of a coward, in light of the fact that there were trained soldiers present (in John's account) and a hostile, well-armed rabble in tow (by Matthew's and Mark's accounts.)


     None of the disciples fully understood Jesus' mission and teaching until they were filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2.  Then the light went on, and they finally "got it."  But until that time, they just didn't get it at all. 


     Messianic expectation, in Jesus' day was as high and electric in feel as it was completely misinterpreted by just about all of the folks in Israel, the disciples notwithstanding. The deal was that Jesus was supposed to be the Messiah King, David's successor, the one who in their mind would militarily dispense with their Roman oppressors, and restore the Kingdom to Israel--usher in a whole new eschatological age. 


     When Jesus mentions the forthcoming destruction of the Temple (to occur in 70 AD) to the Jewish mind, the eschaton was upon them!  In short, it signified the end of the world to them.  The "Great and Terrible Day of the LORD."  Check out Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and look at the questions the disciples asked of Jesus when He spoke of this. Even in Acts 1, just before the resurrected Jesus is taken up to Heaven, the disciples ask Him if He is going to "restore the Kingdom to Israel" at that time. They still didn't get it.


     When Jesus rode into Jerusalem (the "Triumphal Entry") to exuberant shouts of "Hosanna," (from the Hebrew, meaning "please save",) He did so on the back of a donkey's colt, a sign of humility, and even more so, a sign that He, as the true and rightful King, had come to bring a different kind of Kingdom than the one they were expecting.  The people (and the disciples) wanted Jesus to change the political structures in their world, but Jesus wanted to change hearts and lives, and to deal with man's real oppressors, sin and Satan.  Yes, there would come a day when Jesus the King would topple every human, anti-God empire, and the devil that inspired and controlled them, but in the providence and purposes of God that day was not yet.  Had Jesus ridden into Jerusalem on the back of a stallion, the crowd would have crowned Him King, and probably attacked Rome forthwith.  The disciples were right there with them.


     But Jesus didn't, at that time, present them with that sort of King or Kingdom. When Jesus stopped Peter's hand in the garden, and healed the ear of the high priest's servant, then just gave up and allowed Himself to be arrested and taken off to a certain death, it wasn't cowardice Peter was feeling; it was disillusionment.


     In my opinion, when Peter was accused of being with Jesus by the servant girl, and subsequently denied Him, he most likely did so because he was confused (because things didn't EVEN go as he expected and believed it would and should go) and sorely disgusted at the thought of THE Messiah, David's heir, God's Son, the embodiment of fulfilled prophecy, just "giving in" to His captors without a fight. In my estimation, Peter's declaration that "I never knew Him," was as honest a statement as could possibly have been uttered by him. Jesus' surrender presented to Peter an image of Jesus of which he had not and could not remotely conceive.


     How many times have we encountered someone who we thought we knew, and who we assumed lived and acted a certain way, only to find out later that they lived a double life, or had done something so unexpectedly out of character as to defy our reality, and prompt our saying or thinking, "I don't even know you?"  I think that was the basis of Peter's denial.  He wasn't afraid to die for his Lord, as long as Jesus was going to fulfill his (Peter's and all of Israel's) concept of what the Messiah King was "supposed" to be according to their way of thinking. But to be arrested, and perhaps killed for this one who had just flushed Peter's and all of Israel's dreams and notions of the glories of the Kingdom right down the toilet.  Not a chance.  


     All the above should in no way be construed as my endorsement or exoneration of Peter's denial.  It was a horrible, though completely understandable response in my point of view.  When the rooster crowed, Peter knew all too well just what he had done, and that only the Son of God could have made that prediction so accurately.  But even so, Peter just couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together.  He wept bitterly, the Scriptures say.  I believe he did so, partly out of guilt for his denial of Jesus, and perhaps partly because all of the events of the last evening, and the overwhelming accompaniment of lostness and confusion of that which he didn't understand, just hammered him into falling apart.


     The good news is, that Jesus, after His resurrection instructed Mary Magdalene and her companions at the [empty] tomb to go and tell His disciples "...and Peter," that He will shortly meet them in Galilee.  Whether my assessment of Peter's actions are correct or not...well, we'll just have to wait until Jesus' return to definitively find out, won't we, but Jesus certainly knew beforehand what Peter's actions on the night of His arrest would be, and He also knew Peter's true motivations for said actions. And in spite of that, He still loved, forgave, and included Peter in His plans, both immediately and in the future.  And He does so with our failures too, therefore I have hope.


     As a parting shot to this subject, let me say that Jesus, knowing Peter's future, knew that one day Peter would give his very life for Him, and if tradition is to be believed, He also knew that Peter, upon being crucified himself, would request that he be crucified upside down, because he didn't consider himself worthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord.  Was that the mark of a coward?  No, it was a combination of Christ's magnificent, all consuming grace...and the "grit" Peter had picked up "on the road" with Jesus. 


     Hey, you know what?  My off the cuff rant, might have unwittingly become one of our next blogs! How do you like that? God's something, isn't He?  Wasn't remotely aiming to write a blog at the outset of this e-mail, but if you think it might work, we could call it "Sympathy for Peter," or something like that. "True Grit" unfortunately, has already been taken. 


     I'm going to hush now,


 


     Dana      


 


 

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Post 22-Your Second Most Favorite Book


                                Stack of books            

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 12:21 AM, John Wrote

Hi Dana      

            I will be praying for you today.

            I hope you're well and you and all you love and care about are healthy. Have things improved at all for Trish?

            I read something recently that has me thinking. It was about my second most favorite book after the Bible. So I have a question for you. What is your second most favorite book after the Bible? It can be either secular or spiritual, it doesn't matter. I'm just wondering about your second most favorite book.

The Lord bless you.



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Dana Initially Responded on https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gifTue, Jan 10, 2017 at 5:01 PM

       I'm going to need to study on this one--good grist for the mill though.  My problem is that I have several second favorite books. 

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John Answered on 1/11/17

Hey Dana

            Do you remember the American author Louis L'Amour, writer of the frontier, American west- cowboys and Indians, gunslingers and outlaws, and of course the lawmen to keep the peace?  When I was writing, I kept his autobiography in my trunk of travelling books. It was titled Education of a Wandering Man. In that book, he mentioned how he kept of list of books that he read. So I decided to do that for one year. I think I read somewhere around 40 to 45 books that year.

            Perhaps you’re asking yourself, what is that “trunk of travelling books” he mentioned? Well, after I began writing, for a number of years, I was homeless. I moved from place to place: several months here, more or less time there, periodically a year plus someplace else. A very kind lady in my church stored my things in her basement all that time, with the exception of a few clothes, and a trunk that held my old IBM, moveable carriage typewriter, and a number of books that I felt were very important to me. The books were an eclectic mix. Several dictionaries. Webster’s Instant Word Guide—containing 35,000 words spelled and divided. This was before the internet and one had to actually get a book, and look something up. I used this one so often (as I used to say, ‘I’m a writer, not a speller,’ but of course we know that writers must spell correctly and this book helped me do it) that I actually wore a hole in the pages in the front.

            And there were others. Kenneth Roberts, a one-time well known writer of the genre known as American historical novels, wrote his autobiography and titled it I Wanted to Write. That became my text book. A couple of World War II sea novels, one by Nicholas Monsarrat titled The Cruel Sea, about British corvettes fighting German U Boats for seven years on the cruel Atlantic, and The Good Shepherd by the king of nautical fiction C. S. Forester who is best known for his Captain Horatio Hornblower series, but this book was about an American destroyer captain. And speaking of WWII, I always carried David Nichols’ book Ernie's War: The Best of Ernie Pyle's World War II Dispatches. Pyle knew how to write and wrote about the everyday soldier and what he was going through.

            You probably remember in our introductory blog post, how I talked about Margery Williams children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real. Surprisingly, I would get this out and read it often.  http://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/introduction-1.html  

            Another of my travelling trunk favorites was The Man Who Planted Trees, a story by Jean Giono. This is a story about a widowed man who moves to a desolate part of France after WW I, who daily plants acorns. Many years later, because of his steadfast, unwavering focus of planting acorns, this lifeless and desiccated region brims with life and hope and humanity. For the longest time, I thought this was a true account of the shepherd, Elzeard Bouffier, but it is an allegorical tale of what the human spirit can accomplish through never ceasing selfless deeds.

            Do you remember old Brother Robert E. Tourville, professor and author from Valley Forge Christian College? Remember how he took the sabbatical to write the first Pentecostal commentary on the Book of Acts?  I always carried my autographed copy (To John Calsin, my friend and a dear Christian brother I appreciate very much. Signed and dated, with this reference John 1:4) Unfortunately, I believe this is out of print but I have read it and referred to it so often I’ve had to duct tape the spine to keep it from falling apart. It is a verse by verse commentary from the classical Pentecostal point of view in plain English.  (Sometime we’ll have to address Pentecost, being not only for today, but absolutely necessary for the church to grow and be what it can only be through Pentecost. Why do you think God included it in the New Testament? There wouldn’t be a New Testament church without Pentecost.)

            And of course, there was my paperback Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, Student Edition.

            Now many years later, there is a book that was not in my travelling trunk. For each of many of the past twenty winters, I’ve read the book When the Water Smokes: Tides and Seasons on a Wooden Boat by Bob Simpson. (Carol’s daughter Elizabeth, who is an on-line book seller, sent it to me.) The author, Bob, and his wife Mary, buy a sunken wooden boat, fix it up and then explore the “sounds, creeks, waterways, and inlets of the Carolina coast.....” They live simply, cooking on a tiny boat stove and have oil lamps for light at night. They wander, loving each other and life and boats and the natural world around them. Each chapter is a story, or an experience, and after all these years I never tire of reading it. This ritual is always in the winter when the snow often coves the ground and there are freezing temperatures and cold winds blowing. It is then that I dream of summer and boating and years gone by. Sometimes I remember old girlfriends and old boats I’ve owned or sailed on. Pleasant dreams before I turn the light off next to the bed. (Carol and I have dreamed of winning the lottery and chartering boats on the Chesapeake and on Puget Sound. It’s fun to dream....)

            And for the past few years, (again, a book not in my travelling trunk, but it also should have been) my winter reading includes The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod  by Henry Beston. It is one of the classics of American nature writing. For a year, back in the 1920s Beston lived alone in his 20 x 16 beach cottage and watched and studied nature from the porch of his little cottage. He was almost within spitting distance of the beach and rolling Atlantic Ocean. Susan, my first wife, and I spent time on that 20 plus mile strand of Cape Cod beach. We had been exploring the Cape and were on our way back, when the fiery orange-red sunset turned the dunes and lighthouse into a breathtaking scene.

            But after all the above books, many of which I still cherish and read periodically, or often, what is my second most favorite book after the Bible? It was always in my travelling trunk of books. For many years I read it almost daily, sometimes in place of whatever Bible I was reading that year. Once, in a conversation was a pastor acquaintance, I think I surprised him when I told him that I had a copy. I have often told people that if I could take only one other book besides a Bible if I were to be marooned on a desert island, it would be this book. The cover is faded and worn, so much so that with the current state of my eyes, I can’t hardly make out the words on the back cover. It is A Modern Study in the Book of Proverbs. Or, as many refer to it as Bridges Book of Proverbs. This is Charles Bridges classic edition revised for the modern reader.

            My copy of Bridges is the poster child of what parents tell their children not to do to a book. It is underlined. I didn’t use just one color. The inks are reds, blues, and blacks. Yellow highlighter (and even orange periodically) is used throughout the book. Some of the lines are ruler straight, and others are wavy freehand. If something is really important, there are even multiple underlines to help me get the point. And I have notes, comments, warnings and prayers written on the pages in the margins, at the top, at the bottom and even scrunched into the middle of a page. Things are circled, marked VIP or marked with a hand drawn asterisk.  I have devoured this book.

            Bridges Proverbs book has been around for more than 100 years. He wrote it because many people who read the Bible don’t find Proverbs “spiritual” enough, like other Biblical books. He wanted to make it practical to men and women and boys and girls—everyone. Bridges felt that “the life-changing truths of Proverbs should be presented so meaningfully as to become practical in the lives and walks of his readers.”

            One of the sins I continue to struggle with is laziness. Proverbs both condemns this and gives the lazy person the scriptures to help overcome this.  For example, Prov 12:23 is The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.  Bridges writes concerning this Proverb that it is the “royal road to advancement” but a “lazy spirit brings a man under bondage.”

            I know that as a Southerner, you don’t have a problem with anger. J  But I do. In Bridges’ book, people can read and meditate on multiple scriptures that deal with this sin, thereby saving a ton of money otherwise spent with a counselor, psychologist or psychiatrist and let the Word change their lives. For example, take Prov 16:32, “He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.” Lest someone think I am against outside help—e.g. counseling—we contribute regularly to the ministry of New Life http://newlife.com/ , and since I was first saved over 39 years ago and heard Dr. Richard Dobbins, the founder of Emerge Ministries, now Emerge Counseling Services, https://www.emerge.org/ I have regularly contributed to it. So I also know there are times, when outside help is necessary, and I have used it.

            Does Proverbs talk about an honest life? Proverbs might help keep us out of jail. I’m thinking of Prov 28:20 A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished. Bridges writes how a faithful man “would rather be poor by God’s design than rich by sin. This is the man of faithfulness.”

            Or finally, would you like your life to count in light of eternity? I would. Proverbs 4:18 is  But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter the full day. For this verse, Bridges chapter heading are: “Your choice candle, meteor, or sun?” “Walk in the clearer light.” “Expanding light—increasing love.” “No setting sun.”  Bridges develops the idea that as we walk with God we’ll be more than a candle or even a meteor, which flashes bright  and is gone. But our influence through God and with Him will be like the sun, which slowly rises and brings light, but then continues to burn brighter and hotter all day, “widening his circle.”

            I want to touch more lives for Christ and a frequent reading of the Proverbs can help me do this.

Yours for the Harvest

John

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Then Dana Answered John’s Question on Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 11:05 AM

Hi John

     Attached is my response to the second favorite book e-mail question. I had fun with it, and could have turned it into a small book of its own...but didn't.  Even though I couldn't hold it to one second favorite book, still with all the books you and I mentioned, readers may get some ideas for reading books to which they are not acquainted.

     Years ago, I remember on NBC’s The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson used to play a game with the audience called “Stump the Band.”  If my memory serves me well, Doc Severinsen, master trumpeter and the show’s band leader would field obscure song titles from the audience, and he or one of his band members would try to come up with, and then play the tune—something like that.  Well with your question about my “second favorite book after the Bible,” you’ve successfully…”stumped the band,” as it were.

     In my previous response, I mentioned that I had several second favorite books, which, and upon much reflection, that “several”seems to have grown in number.  I guess I must conclude that my second favorite book is the one I’m reading at the time.  OK, I realize that’s a cop out, of course, but whether for edification, education, or enjoyment, there are many author’s and their books that have impacted me to a great degree over the course of my life, and to narrow it down to one favorite, would woefully be excluding so many equally worthy.

     So, I’ll take a hike down book memory lane, and list several books that I’ve greatly enjoyed, or that have positively affected my life, which, in a sense, they all have.  Here goes, and please keep in mind that these are in no particular order or rank.

     Along with you, I greatly enjoyed Louis L’Amour’s “Education of a Wandering Man.” One of the things that made his fiction so compelling, was that he had “lived the life” before he wrote.  Now he hadn’t lived in the old west, obviously, but his many travels and adventures in the world certainly provided some of the necessary “grit” that enabled him to write convincingly about the characters that populated his landscapes.  You gave me a copy of that book, and it’s one for which I’ve always been grateful…. 

     …which leads me to this thought concerning that book and the underlying thought, that L’Amour’s adventures provided a certain reality or authenticity, evident in his writing.  In 1977 I graduated from film school, you know, with stars in my eyes, and a burning desire to turn Hollywood upside down with my blazing artistic presence…not!

     True I did graduate from film school, and initially it was my desire to make movies professionally, but I hit a major life snag.  Bear in mind, that I wasn’t living for the Lord in those days.  In 1967 I had been saved and baptized in a Christian church, and had been raised in a Christian home by Christian parents, but the combination of some extremely disillusioning events (within the church I attended) and my overwhelming lack of Biblical knowledge and any semblance of Christian theology by which to parse or give meaning to those events, I left the Church, and consequently Christianity. 

     It wasn’t that I had officially or declaratively renounced my belief in God or Jesus; it’s that, in reality, I didn’t know enough about Them or the Scriptures to have an iron clad belief system.  In my teenage angst, all I could think was, after what I witnessed going down in my church, that Nazis treated each other better than Christians did, and that being the case (to my immature mind,) I didn’t want to have anything further to do with Christianity.  So I strayed from all expressions of Christianity until my early to mid 20’s, when God mercifully drew me back into the fold.

     So, back then, while away from any religious endeavors, I pursued living the hippy dream, and looking back now, much of those years were like a dream—profoundly “colorful” and exciting at the time, but not making much sense the next day.  Being that “colorful” experiences were the coin of the realm in those “daze,” it only seemed appropriate that music should provide much of the background score for my life—remember, I was in film school, so a great deal of life I envisioned as having a theme song.  Good movies have good musical scores.  Having played much classical music in my high school band, I had an appreciation for good music.  And honestly I cannot ever remember a time in my life where music wasn’t in the picture for me. I listened to music all the time.

     My musical tastes were eclectic, ranging all over the map.  One thing that got me was that much of the rock or folk music to which I listened, featured artists who got paid more money than the Rockefellers, and yet sung about all the hard times they had to endure.  Then I ran into Woodie Guthrie.  

     Growing up in Mayberry (Mt. Airy, NC—the real Mayberry,) while in elementary school, we sang Woodie Guthrie songs in class, and the words and feel of what the words conveyed have never left me. There I was, a dorky kid in the back of the class, spitting dust from vicarious years of riding the rails with Woodie, while my poor, frustrated teachers lamented that I could have made better use of my time in the application of reading, writing and arithmetic. Like it was said of Woodie Guthrie, “He could never be cured of just wandering off….” I was similarly inclined.  But then, once upon a time in my early 20’s, I managed to get hold of a Woodie Guthrie record, and a copy of his book, “Bound For Glory.”  And can you say “ZAP!”?

     Woodie, who was one of Bob Dylan’s (another of my favorites) inspirations, was the real deal.  He never made much money to speak of.  Rather than being a rock star of his day, he hoboed on the railroad, lived with migrant workers in labor camps, and ate more road dust than solid food.  He wrote a song, titled “Hard Travelling,” that was, in my estimation, his musical autobiography, along with his official written one, “Bound for Glory” (another influential book at the time).

     One day it just came to me that I was listening to all these pampered, self-indulgent, over paid, prima donna musicians who made millions singing about how rotten their lives were.  They sang about living on the road, and being in jail, and being down and out, while in reality, their lives were the exact opposite.  Woodie was the real deal.  He probably wrote his hard scrabble songs (several of which he actually traded for food) while riding in a boxcar. 

     Suddenly I had a life crisis.  My loathing for hypocritical rock stars writing about their tough lives from a window seat in their private jets, ended up pointing the finger back at me.  Here I was ready to go off to Hollywood and make movies about subjects and people who I knew absolutely nothing about.  No doubt, I could have made gritty Westerns (they still made Westerns back then), but the truth was, I didn’t have the grit myself. It seemed everything I had been doing was a sham, and I was no better than those who I criticized.

     So the day I graduated from college, I put my degree under the dog’s bowl for a blotter, stuffed a well-worn copy of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” in my knapsack, and hopped a freight train to who knows where…but that’s a story for another time.  I never made it into the world of the cinema, and looking back on that, knowing that the Hollywood has to do more with Babylon than the Bible, God, in His mercy, spared me from a potentially terrible end by so directing my paths during that time, even though unbeknownst to me. 

     All that to say that when you gave me “The Education of a Wandering Man,” it was oh so much more meaningful than you could have known.  But then again, as you so painfully know, I’m one of those guys who if you ask what time it is, I’ll tell you how to build a watch.  And I used to wonder what my English professors meant when they wrote, “WORDY” in red on my returned essays.  But, I digress….

     Talbot Mundy’s writing always amazed and enthralled me.  He was an English author who had spent time in India and Africa, and the Mid-East, before and after World War 1. Perhaps it’s legend (if it is don’t tell me), but he was reported to have walked the length and breadth of India, Africa and Mexico. While his wordsmith abilities with the English language were just phenomenal, his adventure stories had a sort of gritty authority that echoed his life and experiences abroad.  “King of the Khyber Rifles” is probably his best known work, but all of his books and short stories had something to say to me, and had the effect of translating me (in my imagination) to sweeping Himalayan vistas and putting me  (the reader) in desperate and dangerous situations not easily overcome.  He reads well, and is lots of fun.  I wish I had met him.

     Dr. Brown, of whom we have oft spoken, turned me onto a book that was influential to me in my early ministerial days.  In a class on preaching, or some such, I don’t remember, he mentioned a book “The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright.”  The good Rev. Cartwright was a circuit riding preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church, traversing the hostile hills and hollers of the Kentucky frontier in the early 1800’s.  His relating of his own experiences and adventures was as stark as it was humorous—he had an entertaining style to be sure, and he was ever as much a “character,” as were the people of whom he wrote.  I wish I had met him too.

     While in Bible College, I had another life crisis.  This isn’t a criticism, as I understand that every one of God’s people have to follow their own calling as He reveals it and directs them.  But the big push in the school in that day and time was to get a degree, then scurry off to some big city church of thousands of people, and get in with some bigshot preacher, become said preacher’s clone, and then go off and start your own mega-church in hopes of making huge financial contributions to the denomination HQ.  And while several of my colleagues set their course to do just that, I realized that just wasn’t for me.  I have never been good at “lockstep,” no matter who was calling the tune or beating the cadence. Old Brother Grazier, my greatly missed Professor, mentor, and friend, used to often say in reference to Christian life and ministry, “The way up is down.” And to that, I paid particular attention.

     That became my life slogan, so instead of emulating the renowned Right Reverend So and So, and his church of 5,000 with a budget the size of a small country, I headed off to the Bowery Mission. Got paid all of $15.00 a week with room, board, and all the coffee I could drink...and I loved it!  Had I gone the way in which I was being groomed, I could, right now, be looking at a comfortable retirement, having a framed portrait of myself adorning the wall in some church hall or district office, and a lot less aches and pains from hard physical work.

     But, while I don’t have anything in my bank account to brag about, and I don’t have much to put on a resume, or my in my memoir by way of professional accomplishments, one thing I do have, is that by the grace of God I can look at myself in the mirror, without seeing a wealthy rock star who sang about hard times, looking back at me.  Peter Cartwright’s autobiography showed me that God could use me, just like I was (and am) whether it met with someone’s ideal of what I should be or not.  God made us individuals, and He uses us as individuals.  Sometimes it takes a good book other than the Bible to drive home a Biblical point that you may have missed the first time around.  God is not limited in what He can use to get one’s attention.

     Switching gears, a decade or so ago, facing the ever intense grape harvest, I went to the book store (yes, dear friends, there really used to be book stores) to find some books of short stories.  A novel or lengthy non-fiction at harvest time is about as much use as a screen door on a submarine. Good intentions notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is, that for at least three months out of the year, the most reading one can do is during a lunch break, or while in the bathroom—oh come on now, you do it too.

     So that said, short stories really fit the bill as they do not require the investment of time and energy that a more involved book requires.  As I was perusing the aisles of the book store, I found two volumes of short stories, one about hauntings at sea, and the other of pulp adventure tales from famous writers of days gone by.  Being an “Indiana Jones” junkie, and the fact that Brother Grazier shared many of his pirate and sea story books with me, these two books really promised to fit the bill.

     In the intro to and acknowledgements of the adventure book, the editor shared some of his own personal real life adventure favorites, which he said inspired his love for the “Indiana Jones” character.  One of those was the book “Lost Trails, Lost Cities” by Percival Fawcett.  Fawcett was an English military man who went to the Amazon at the behest of the Royal Geographical Society to map the disputed border regions of several adjoining South American countries.  He briefly ceased his duties to return to Europe to fight in World War 1, and then resumed them once again when the war was over. 

     From his experiences, Fawcett became convinced that there was an advanced civilization living (hidden) in the jungle whose technological advancements were something akin to being out of this world for that day and time.  Several prominent English fantasy, science-fiction, and adventure novelists of the day borrowed heavily from the fantastic, but true adventures that Fawcett meticulously noted in his journals, which became the book mentioned above. 

     Later, when in his 50’s, Fawcett and his son, and his son’s friend made one last excursion to the Amazon region to try and locate this lost city, which he called “Z.” They went into the jungle and…just disappeared, never to be heard from again.  Mystics and military men, notables and ne’er do wells of all stripes launched numerous missions over the years into the regions mentioned in his book, to try to find Fawcett, or find out something regarding Fawcett’s disappearance, and all of them ultimately ended in failure. David Grann authored the more modern, exhaustively researched, and quite engaging book on the Fawcett’s mystery entitled, “The Lost City of Z,” which along with Fawcett’s writings are the inspirations of an upcoming motion picture scheduled for release later this year—which I absolutely have to see.  Like Talbot Mundy, Fawcett’s writings have thoroughly captivated my imagination.

     I would be remiss at this point, if I didn’t mention the writings of Jack London, another sort of larger than life guy who wrote great and noteworthy fiction, mostly based on his own experiences as a sea farer in the South Pacific, a prospector for gold in the Yukon, and a railroad hobo.  Again, he had the gift of hard-earned “grit.”

     Another interesting mention, might be Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”  While on a camping trip out west, I sort of followed the path he wrote about taking in his book.  The book was about his motorcycle trip across the west with his young son, on one hand, and on the other hand, the literally maddening philosophical pursuit of the definition of the word “quality.”  At that time of my life I wasn’t interested in Buddhist esoteric thought, but I had my own personal struggles with the whole idea of what “quality” meant, and how I thought it should apply to my life and work.  The answer at the end of the book, I won’t give away [NO SPOILERS HERE] but it has stuck with me for a l-o-n-g time, and whatever else one may think of Pirsig’s work, in that instance he was spot on, and no one that I’ve read has come up with a better definition.

     William Hendrickson’s “More than Conquerors” really spoke to me at a time when I was in theological turmoil during my early ministry.  While he made a very reasoned case for his particular views on the subject, he did so in a way that to me, gave me a glimpse into his heart.  He was neither dry in his approach, nor condescending to those who may have differed with him.  He was a true believer, a gentleman and a scholar, who genuinely loved his Lord, and the subject matter about which he wrote.  A worthy successor to Dr. Hendrickson’s legacy, who I am reading presently, is Dennis Johnson, and his book “Triumph of the Lamb.” Highly recommended.

     My love for the writings of the Reformers of the Protestant Reformation could fill a book in and of itself.  While there are too many to present an exhaustive list, let me say that when I read Martin Luther’s “The Bondage of the Will,” I had my own private little Pentecostal experience, in a manner of speaking. It truly is a Christian classic that it wouldn’t hurt any believer to read.  J.I. Packer’s translation is quite readable, among all the editions available.  While a brilliant Augustinian scholar, Luther’s humanity and proclivity towards being quite a “character” adds a lot of “color” to the writings of that period, which many avoid as being too laborious. Gold is of great worth, no doubt, but you have to dig it out.

     While not a Reformer of old, the Reverend Dr. Sinclair Ferguson’s writings are as beautiful in style as they are profound in thought.  This Scottish Theologian, Professor, Pastor, Preacher, and Author both possesses and shares a wealth of depth and warmth in his insights into the Bible that few accomplish.  His writings are a blessing.

     Elizabeth Elliot’s “Shadow of the Almighty” and “Through Gates of Splendor” are a must, both for this amalgamation of books I love, and, in my opinion, for every Christian who can read. Her husband Jim’s martyrdom, along with that of his brave and committed missionary colleagues in the Ecuadoran jungle is an inspiring story in and of itself.  The fact that Mrs. Elliot went to the same people who murdered her husband, and saw the man who killed Jim converted to Christianity…well if that doesn’t inspire you, then you better have someone call the funeral home, and cart you away, because you’re dead, and no one has had the heart to tell you.  One of the most famous Christian lines outside of the Bible was written by Jim Elliot, and I paraphrase, “He is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”  Can I get an “Amen” somebody?

     Of late, the writings of Dr. Michael Heiser have been some of the most intriguing subject matter I’ve come across.  He is a scholar’s scholar, who has the rare gift of making the benefits of his scholarship imminently accessible, enjoyable and profitable to any of us not holding PhD’s in ancient languages.  It is said, and he might have even said of his book, “The Unseen Realm,” that reading it will cause you to “read your Bible again for the first time.”  I’m finding that to be true.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog a new trick? He’ll rock your comfort zone, to be sure, but then again, as I’ve so often found, so will God.

     What an engaging topic John!  I could go on and on. After reading all of this, you’re probably sorry you presented the topic to me, but I’ve had fun.  Thanks!

Dana