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“Have you ever given orders to the morning,

    or shown the dawn its place?”

– Job 38:12 (New International Version)

After the news of the past twenty-four hours I feel an urge to get away from the madness, to a place where I can be silent and reflect on the things that are really important in life. I need to be a place where I feel small, yet known and loved. Fortunately, I have such a place like that, even in the recesses of my imagination. It’s the Kansas Flint Hills.

I became intimately acquainted with them when I worked as a service engineer for FedEx. My wife and I were living in Emporia, Kansas at the time and my daily duties often meant a trip down the Kansas Turnpike and the Kansas Flint Hills to a large FedEx facility in Wichita, Kansas. When I first started making the trip I would tune my radio in to National Public Radio, listening to sultry New Age voices like Lakshmi, Audie, Anastasia, or the occasional male voice Kai. 

In those early days I needed those New-Age voices to break up the boredom of the 100 mile journey. I would gaze out the window as I passed through the Flint Hills. There was nothing there, or so it appeared. There few, if any trees. All I could see was a vast sea of grass, and rolling hills.  If you open the link above you’ll understand what I’m writing about.

That all changed one morning in 2002. My trip began as it normally did,with  Lakshmi and Audie and the crew accom[anying me. The dawn was about to break and my perspective was caught up in what I’ve come to see as a transcendent experience.

I stopped close to Mile Marker 109, which is a bit south of what local ranchers call “the cattle pens.” I didn’t spend a lot of time there, bus it has taken its place in heart as one of the most profound ex[eriences in my life. I’ve never felt so small, yet also so loved. I came away from it feeling that I was truly known.

I penned an essay about the experience after I returned home later that day. That essay follows. I hope it gives you, the reader,  some sense of peace we all navigate these stormy seas.

Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike

By

Phil Dillon

© 2002 Phil Dillon

It’s the cusp of dawn. I’m chasing Orion’s Belt and bull-haulers down the Kansas Turnpike. At mile marker 109, about a furlong or two south of the cattle pens, I stop.

The occasional rush of southbound traffic breaks the dawn silence. Like a general poised in his appointed place, I review the early morning parade. Saints and scoundrels, gospel singers and politicians, truckers, ranchers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, mothers, fathers, children, all pass by. Problems and opportunities wind their way down the highway with them.

I touch the highway sign. Mile marker 109. I feel the bits of rust creeping up on the metal. It’s man-made, temporal, placed on the edge of the eternal. It speaks. “This is where you are.” It speaks of commerce and progress passing by. It speaks of cattle and concept drawings on their journeys past a solitary milepost planted on the edge of eternity.

I turn, take a step, and cast my gaze across the prairie. Like the storied astronaut of my youth, that one small step transports me from one world to another. Thoughts pass by. Some pass quietly, humming like the Toyotas and Fords on the highway. Others I hear in the distance. Their low, grinding hums become roars as they draw near, like the Peterbilts and Kenworths hauling their precious cargoes from Chicago to Dallas or the Twin Cities to San Antonio.

While the darkness has not yet surrendered to the day, there are hints of color along the rim of the eastern sky. I sense that they carry the faint whisper of an announcement of the millennium to come. The ageless ritual proceeds, moment by moment. Light overcomes the darkness. The unbroken sky and the endless sea of grass now join together in a hymn of praise. The morning breeze caresses the tallgrass. The blades of grass, in turn, wave gently to and fro, worshippers caught up in the glory of this moment.

Thoughts glide effortlessly through the air, then stop to gently kiss the earth. The earth gratefully receives the kiss from above and pleads, “Maranatha…..Maranatha.”

A hawk circles above, wings outstretched, reaching for an unseen spire. As he circles, the dawn sun touches him, revealing his priestly robes and eyes of fire.

I sense that I’ve entered a great cathedral. I’m overwhelmed by my own smallness. I fear. The hawk descends slowly, gracefully and speaks. “You are indeed small. But, fear not. You’re known…..You’re known. This is where you are. Mile marker 109. This is the place where the line between now and forever is drawn. Here you own nothing, but are given the grace to be a part of everything. The language of the world you left is ownership. The language here is stewardship. This is the place where moth and rust do not corrupt.”

His appointed ministry complete, he now lays hold of the morning currents and moves effortlessly off to the east.

I feel the warmth of a tear as it drifts slowly down my cheek. My epiphany’s complete. I turn back and take another small step, returning to the world I left moments before. I take my place in line with my fellow travelers, the builders and dreamers, the movers and shakers, the commerce and the concepts. Our daily procession has taken us past this place…..mile marker 109.

“Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

My soul is downcast within me;
    therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
    the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.”

Psalm 42:5-6 (New International Version)

I originally wrote this essay in April of 2020. In was nostalgic back then, dreaming of the America that once was and hoping for a revival of that America.

It’s now four years later and the America I was dreaming for back then seems even more distant and elusive. Is the dream becoming a pipe dream, I wonder. There are fleeting moments when I find myself thinking we need a reincarnation of Howard Beale to wake us up. But I quickly realize, as tempting as it may seem, that having the “mad prophet of the airwaves” telling us to go to our windows and scream “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore” is no solution.

Things are bad now, worse than they were in 2020. Could it be that the way forward to a more hopeful future for America starts by looking back. That’s what my 2020 essay was all about. From this point on, dear reader, I’m asking you to look back with me.

I’ve been in a nostalgic mood for a few days now. I think it has a lot do with Coronavirus and the state of America right now. Like most people in America I’m not happy with the way things are. We’re divided politically. We’re divided religiously. We’re divided regionally. We’re divided nationally. We’re divided socially.

And now we are in the midst of a pandemic. It’s so bad enough that governmental authorities at every conceivable level are asking/ordering us to hunker down till we flatten the curve, whenever that comes. The experts are poring over spreadsheets, hoping to find the right course of action we should follow. They’re trying their dead level best, but the projections seem to be changing daily, as is the advice. “Don’t wear a mask.” “Wear a mask.” “Sanitize your mail.” “You don’t need to sanitize your mail.” And so it goes. While the information is sometimes confusing, the overwhelming majority of us are complying, which means we spend most of our time on social media, surfing for news or communicating with friends or other folks who are on our “friends” lists on Facebook. It’s quite an educational experience. A fella’ learns that not everyone who is on his friends list is a friend in the true sense of the word. A true friend is someone who mirrors what Jesus told his disciples before he was crucified – “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15 – New International Version)

There really is a difference between a true friend and someone who claims friendship, but is in reality an associate rather than a friend. A true friend is the friend who cares about you, who will do everything in his or her power to help and support you. A true friend will confront you when you’re wrong, comfort you when you are down, rejoice in your victories, agonize with you in your defeats. The associate? That’s the person who does not care about you. It’s as simple as that.

Thankfully, I am blessed. I have far more friends than I have associates.

But I digress. Nostalgia is still on my mind.

It all started a few days ago when a Facebook friend, someone I’ve never met, but still meets my criteria for being what I believe to be a true friend, posted a question on Facebook about who we thought were the best entertainers when we were growing up. My first choice was James Brown. It just seemed so natural a choice for me. I defy any living human being to try to stop their feet from moving, body swaying, or dancing as soon as one of his songs starts playing. It cannot be done. Trust me, I know. I’m one of the world’s worst dancers, but the minute I hear “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” my body just starts twisting and gyrating around.

I left my response at that and then spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing. The first person that came to mind as I did was an old troubadour with the moniker “Haywire Mac.” His real name was Harry McClintock. He was a man who bridged two centuries, having been born in the 19th century and traveled around for a good part of the 20th. He was a fascinating character. He had no formal education that I’m aware of, but oh what a broad band of interesting experiences he compiled over the years. When he was a boy he ran away to join the circus, then followed that up with railroading in Africa, a stint in the Philippines during an insurrection. He also spent the latter of part of the 19th century in China during the Boxer Rebellion. But, more than anything, Haywire Mac gained his fame as a minstrel. I became acquainted with his work in the mid fifties when I heard one of his songs titled “The Big Rock Candy Mountains.” He first recorded it in 1928. The minute I heard the song I fell in love with it and Haywire Mac. And why not. Who wouldn’t love a song with lyrics like “In the big rock candy mountains all the cops have wooden legs and the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft-boiled eggs.”

That, I submit to you, is pure genius.

Well, the hours passed and I kept reminiscing. I remembered a old blues singer named Blind Willie McTell. I think he actually did most of his work in the 30’s and 40’s. As it was with Haywire Mac, I first heard him in the mid 50’s.

Oh man, could he sing the blues. My favorite song of his was “You Was Born to Die,” which he recorded in 1933. It was gritty and down to earth. Listen to it, it’s embedded in the link above. Can you hear him strumming away on that old beat up guitar? Can you hear the mournful voice? Of course you can. And, the lyrics. Talk about a perfect way to express the pain that’s percolating in a human soul! That”s the blues as it should be.

And so it went for the afternoon. But, I knew I had to stop and ask myself some questions. Why was I looking back with such fondness? Were things really that good when I was young? Or are they worse now than when I was growing up?

I think I’ve concluded that America was a better place back then than it is now. Now, I realize that I’m rubbing against the prevailing grain, but I have my reasons, which I’m going to share with you.

First, I think there’s been a tremendous loss of creativity in America since the 60’s. I try listening to music that’s circulating around today and while I can’t say that it’s totally lacking in creativity, I can say that there’s very little of it circulating on the current scene. When I was young, creativity was exploding everywhere. It was.

What was so different about America back then? We weren’t materially richer? In fact, life wasn’t easy at all. We had problems at home and dedicated enemies on the international scene. But, there was something very special about America back then. The spark of creativity and exploration was omni-present. It’s not that way today. It’s not that there is no spark of creativity or that there’s no desire to explore these days. It’s that there’s precious little of it.

As I think back on my formative years I now realize I saw an America of unlimited possibilities. Thanks to the Russians and Sputnik we were engaged in a space race, competing with our enemy in a race to get a man to the moon and back safely. I remember the exhilaration millions of us felt when Neil Armstrong took the final step off the ladder at “Tranquility Base.” I still remember the first words Armstrong uttered – “That’s one small step for a man, that’s one giant leap for mankind.”

That first small step came 42 years after Charles Lindbergh made the first trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. Think of it. Lucky Lindy crossed the Atlantic in a flimsy light aircraft with few navigational tools and a cockpit full of grit and determination.

It’s amazing. It took us a bit more than one generation to go from crossing the ocean in a flimsy one engine plane to a landing on the moon.

There was a lot of excitement in 1969 about what was next. A manned landing on Mars, perhaps? Routine passenger travel to the moon?

Where are we today? It’s only been a bit less than 50 years since we landed on the moon. Shouldn’t we have been further along than we are? Of course we should, but we’re not. We’re stalled. But, why are we? I think it’s because we’ve lost our creative urge and the desire to explore. We lost it sometime in the 60’s.

The malaise that’s fallen on us goes beyond science and music. Our politics is stale and divisive. There’s no talk of “the New Frontier.” Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood. There are people who are doing good things

It’s this sense of loss that has me reminiscing. I want the America I’ve known and loved since I was a boy back. I want the America I was willing to fight for back. I want the America back that I was willing to die for back. I want her back, but I don’t see her.

Yesterday, a Facebook friend posted a folk song that best expresses the way I’m feeling. The song is titled “The Stable Song.” It was written by a young man named Gregory Alan Isakov. If you haven’t watched the YouTube video of it I posted at the beginning of this essay, I highly recommend it. The music and the grainy film clips that accompany the music are quite evocative. One moment you see a backyard aviator furiously flapping a set of wings he’s strapped to his back. Then you see a woman cranking the propeller a of a single engine plane. That’s followed by the sight of a jumbo jet landing, then an astronaut, and finally a rocket bound for outer space. Where is everyone going? To the moon, of course. Did they get there? Yes. As proof, we’re shown a prairie schooner rumbling across the crater filled lunar landscape and a symphony orchestra playing some classical masterpiece. To me, it all speaks of an America that was once imaginative and adventurous. I’ve watched it three times and every time I do I get a sense of longing for what once was, an America that has been lost.

The last verse of the song goes something like “Turn these diamonds back in to coal.” I’m not sure what Isakov was trying to convey with those words, but to me they are saying “Let’s start things all over again. Let’s get back to mining the coal and then find a way to make America the jewel she was intended to be. .

That’s the America I want. I hope it’s the America you want too.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.”  Exodus 8:1 (New International Version)

I wrote the original essay about six years ago. I wrote it at a time when the chaos we’re seeing now was in its early stages. As I watched it all unfold, I gave thought to a sermon preached by Peter Marshall years before. It was about the Exodus of the “children of Israel” from Egypt. God’s representative, Moses, had gone to Pharaoh and spoke the now famous words from the eighth chapter of Exodus – “Let my people go so that they may worship me in the wilderness.” As the contest of wills between Pharaoh and Moses and God proceeded, I could see Pharaoh’s compromises recorded in Exodus 10 clearly – “Don’t go too far.” “The men can go, but the women and children must stay in Egypt.” “The people can all go, but their worldly goods and livestock must stay in Egypt.” 

Marshall saw the similarities to the compromises offered by Pharaoh to the compromises offered by modern society to Christians. I was living in Emporia, Kansas, thinking back to my graduate school days in Kansas City, when it hit me. Peter Marshall was right about what he saw back in his time. He was even more right about what I’m seeing in the early twenty-first century.

It’s now 2024 and I’m living in Kansas City, surveying the landscape of a society that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described as “on the brink.” Young boys and girls are being groomed to become drag queens. Some are even put on stage to bump and grind in seedy nightclubs to “entertain” perverted souls. Even worse, some of our young are being programmed to convince themselves that boys can become girls  and girls can become boys with a pronouncement. And, it hasn’t ended there. Greedy medical “practioners,” if they can be called that, are recommending and performing sex change operations on children who are unablle to understand what’s being done to them. It’s obscene!

 My original essay now follows for you, fellow Christian to consider 

A few weeks ago, I went over to Haag Pharmacy to pick up a prescription for my wife. As I walked toward the entrance, I found myself caught up in the sights and sounds of children playing and laughing in the adjacent playground of Emporia Christian School. If I could have, I’d have lingered a while longer. It just felt so good, for an all too fleeting moment, to be transported away from the insanity of modern life. 

When I got inside the pharmacy, I was re-transported back into the realities of adult life in America. That’s the world where about 40 million of us are taking prescribed anti-depressants and psychotropics. It’s a world dominated by Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac, Xanax, Ativan, Ritalin, or some newly concocted chill pill. There are millions more of us taking Demerol, Oxycodone, and Percocet for our pain. Too often, the reward for using these painkillers is addiction. I’ve heard that using them for only five days can turrn a corporate executive, an undertaker, a truck driver, or a college professor into a mumbing, toothless junkie. And, wonder of wonders, it’s all approved by the Food and Drug Administration. 

Now, mind you, I don’t fault  Amber and her crew. They’ve absolutely delightful people. They’re not the ones responsible for society’s ills. They’re only doing what the doctor ordered and the doctor is only trying to fix problems that he or she didn’t create.  But, I digress. I need to move on.  

I was greeted by a smiling face as soon as I got to the counter. “How are you, Phil? It’s good to see you.  How can I help you?” “I’m good. I’m here for Nancy’s regulars,” I responded.  

With my mind still trying to wrap itself around the joy those kids were experiencing in the playground next door, I paid for the prescriptions and made a bit of small talk before I left. “The kids next door are absolutely wonderful. They’re infectious, don’t you think?” The clerk smiled and nodded in agreement. I closed the conversation on a somber note. “The sad thing is, some of these happy kids are going to grow up and become United States Senators some day. I can’t figure it out. How does something like that happen? How does it all go off the rails?” 

Realizing it wouldn’t be fair for me to expect an answer to the question, I made my way to the exit.  

The questions have been nagging at me ever since. How? How? How? One day these kids are happy and content. Then, gradually, they get pumped full of Ritalin, Prozac, or painkillers and their heads are turned inside-out. The process repeats itself over time and they’re ruined. The only thing they’re good for in the end is the United States Senate.  

I’ve been giving this thought since that brief encounter, racking my brain for solutions to the problem. I’ve concluded the only thing that makes much sense to me is for those of us who are Christian to never send our kids to  public school at all. Let them learn about life on their own. They seem to do a far better job of learning how life is supposed to work without a lot of adult interference and instruction. 

“Why, Phil,” you say. “That’s a bit too radical; it’s insane. Our children need to get an education. After all, how are they ever going to succeed in this world without an education? 

That argument might have worked well on me a few years ago, but not these days. If  what the world considers success and God considers success could be put side by side into writing, one thing would become abundantly clear. God’s ideas about success are radically different than the “world’s.”  

It’s been that way for millennia.  

When I was in graduate school, I became acquainted with the work of Peter Marshall, a Presbyterian minister who emigrated from Scotland in the 1920’s and by the 1940’s had become Chaplain of the United States Senate. He died when he was in his forties. While his life was short, his legacy was rich and full. Whatever he was given in life, he used for the glory of God and the good of mankind. That was especially evident in the way he used worldly wealth. He died nearly penniless, with just a few dollars in his accounts to pass on to posterity.  Some people thought that this was a terrible thing for him to do to his family, but his wife, Catherine, thought otherwise. She once observed that she was quite proud of the example he’d set in life. She let the critics know that he had used every resource he had been given in life to the best possible end. 

I think of a man like Peter Marshall and ask myself what he might have to say about our children and the educational system we plunge them into these days. I believe I know the answer. In fact, I’m sure I know. 

Some time during the 1940’s, Peter Marshall preached a sermon that is now best known as “The Third Compromise.”  

What, you might ask, was or is “The Third Compromise?” It was Marshall’s commentary on the contest of wills between God and Pharaoh recorded in the book of Exodus. “The Third Compromise” can be found in chapter 10 of that book. 

Prior to chapter 10, Moses outlines God’s requirements for his people, under the broad umbrella of the now famous words, “Let my people go that they may worship me.” In response, Pharaoh offers a series of compromises –  (1) the people may go, but they must worship in the land of Egypt, (2) the people may go, but they cannot go too far, (3) the men can go, but the children must stay in Egypt, and (4) All can go, but their possessions cannot go with them. 

In the end, every compromise is rejected. The first is rejected when Moses tells Pharaoh that the children of Israel are to leave Egypt and go three days into the wilderness to worship God. Pharaoh responds by telling Moses the people can go, but not too far, which was another way of saying, “Don’t get too carried away with your religion business.” It was a very twenty-first century response, but it was also rejected.  

This brings me to “The Third Compromise.” Pharaoh’s offer and Moses’ and God’s response are outlined in the 10th chapter of Exodus, which follows 

“Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. “Go, worship the Lord your God,” he  said. “But tell me who will be going.” Moses answered, “We will go with our young and our old, witth our sons and our daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the Lord.” Pharaoh said, “The Lord be with you—if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil. No! Have only the men go and worship the Lord, since that’s what you have been asking for.” Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh’s presence.” (Exodus 10:8-10, New International Version) 

It is this “Third Compromise” that far too many Christians have been willing to embrace and they have done it to the detriment of the faith they profess in. 

In his sermon on the subject, Reverend Marshall puts the peril of the compromise succinctly: 

“This was perhaps the most subtle and the most successful of all the compromises, because even the most godly parents today desire worldly prosperity and position for their children. They want their children to stay in Egypt, they want their children to find success and approval in Egypt. One of the greatest problems facing the church today is the fact that so many children and young people are still in Egypt with the approval and the consent of their parents.” 

While some Christians opt for Christian schools or homeschooling, most send their children to public schools, which are supposedly neutral on the subject of religious faith, to learn the skills they’ll need in life to become “successful.” 

In this regard, Reverend Marshall’s words from the 1940’s are prescient and powerful:  “If you give to your children an account of the world from which God is left out, you will teach them to understand the world without reference to God.” 

I see 21st America and see the results of the “Third Compromise.” I see it in the ever increasing cohort of young people who want nothing to do with Christianity and even when they do, their belief systems are based on what the “world” believes it  should be, not God’s. The current moniker for this cohort is “Nones.” How’s that for a belief system? It might just as well be Bette Midler’s famous “Whatever!” 

Does this mean that the parents who have made this compromise don’t care about their children? No, of course not. As Reverend Marshall also observed, these parents give their children the best medical and dental care. They make sure their children’s posture is perfect and their grasp of social graces are outstanding. They pay fortunes for college tuition. But while “their bodies and their minds are carefully nurtured and trained while their souls are starved and neglected.” 

I think of young children today and conclude, sadly, that this is how our children become United States Senators or anything else we deem to be important in life. Far too many of them enter the fray without much of an internal rudder to guide them other than ambition and self-interest. They are thrown into a world where that ethic prevails. It’s every man for himself. It’s do whatever ambition and self-interest tell you to do, even if it means destroying your fellow travelers. 

Peter Marshall hasn’t been the only one who has seen the peril before the Christian world. About a year ago, I read Rod Dreher’s “The Benedict Option – A Strategy for Christians in a Post Christian Nation.” Dreher has observed what Peter Marshall observed more than a half a century before him. He has seen that “Christians often talk about “reaching the culture” without realizing that, having no distinct Christian culture of their own, they have been co-opted by the secular culture they wish to evangelize.” In other words, they have fallen prey to Pharaoh’s “Third Compromise.” 

Dreher sees all to well that “American Christians are going to have to come to terms with the brute fact that we live in a culture, one in which our beliefs make increasingly little sense. We speak a language that the world more and more either cannot hear or finds offensive to its ears.”  

But how can we come to our senses? Dreher’s prescription is simple, right to the point:  

“If we are going to be for the world as Christ meant for us to be, we are going to have to spend more time away from the world, in deep prayer and substantial spiritual training—just as Jesus retreated to the desert to pray before ministering to the people. We cannot give the world what we do not have.”   

As it was in the time of Moses, I believe it’s time for Christians who truly want to live the Christian life to go into the wilderness, as it were, to worship God without the influence of the “world” to corrupt us. I don’t have a clear idea of what that life looks like. Like most people, I’ve been too caught up in the affairs of this world to see the objective clearly. But, I am convinced that it is time for us to tell the Pharaohs of our time, “Let my people go, that they may worship me.” 

Peter Marshall closed that famous sermon with a critical question. It was critical back in the 1940’s. It’s even more critical today.  

I’ll close with that question Peter Marshall and leave it with you, the reader, to consider: 

“What is the good of your son’s phi-beta-kappa key, or your girl’s successful career in music or art or journalism, if they don’t know God, if they are not saved, if they have not entered into a saving relationship with God through Christ, if they are spiritually illiterate or spiritually dead? That’s the question you will have to answer if your children are left in Egypt.” 

“We are approaching the brink; already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble: “But what can we do to stop it? We haven’t the strength.”…But we can do—everything!—even if we comfort and lie to ourselves that this is not so. It is not “they” who are guilty of everything, but we ourselves, only we!” 

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – “Live Not by Lies” (1974) 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote the comments from the seminal essay I cited above not long before he was arrested by Soviet authorities, charged with treason, and stripped of his Soviet citizenship. The arrest came on the heels of the publication of “The Gulag Archipeligo,” which became Solzhenitsyn’s  best known work.  

The theme Sozhenitsyn outlined in the book was quite simple. While the world has always had its fair share of evildoers pass though human history. Vladimir Lenin was the architect of an ideology that justified the gulags and the brute force, its supporting bureaucracies, and the terror that were to become the building blocks of the “Soviet Utopia.” Those building blocks paved the way for the evildoers to operate freely within the system Lenin had created. Subsequent Soviet leaders, from Stalin to Krushchev, Brezhnev, etc then recruited even more evildoers like Laverntiy Berea do whatever it would take to ensure that the Communist system succeeded.  

Solzhenitsyn learned the lesson about the Soviet Union’s security apparatus the hard way.  Berea, chief of the NKVD, meant business when he said “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Solzhenitsyn had become a target of the the NKVD when he wrote letters to friends highly critical of Stalin and when he wrote books like “Cancer Ward” and “The Red Wheel.” The books prompted a few assassination attempts, but his criticism of Stalin in the letters earned him an eight year sentence at a labor camp  for counterrevolutionary activity in 1945.   That time in the prison camp, in turn, became Solzehnitsyn’s inspiration for the publication of “The Gulag Archipeligo.” in 1974. 

Solzhenitsyn lived the life of an exile in Cavendish, Vermont until 1994, when the treason charges that had prompted the “conviction” were overturned by the U.S.S.R’s Prosecutor General. He was eventually allowed to return to Russia. He spent the rest of hs life there and died on August 3, 2008. He was 89 years old. 

Solzhenitsyn never went into exile willingly. He was thoroughly Russian and it showed in his extraordinary literary gifts. Had he lived during the times of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, or Chekhov, he would have been a valued member of this prestigious fraternity.  

During his exile he wrote three books – “Between Two Millstones,” “Sketches of Exile,” and “Exile in America.” In addition to the writing, he also made many compelling speeches, including his memorable 1976 speech to the graduating class of Harvard University, which he titled “A World Split Apart.”  

Like most Americans, I knew little about Solzhenitsyn prior to his Harvard address. I’d read “Cancer Ward” and “The Red Wheel,” and his essay “Live Not By Lies.” I admired him as a writer and began to think of him not only as a writer, but also as a prophet in the mold of Hosea, who was told by the Almighty to set “the trumpet to his mouth.”. That admiration grew exponentially after I read the transcript of his Harvard address. While I wasn’t in attendance at the event, I could visualize it, thanks to having lived in Cambridge,Massachusetts during my formative years. I’d strolled through the Harvard campus many times in those years. The sights and sounds of those days have stayed with me. I remember them fondly. 

I left Cambridge in 1961 to join the Air Force so that I could “see the world.”  By 1978, the year Solzhenitsyn made that famous address, I had just started attending graduate school in Kansas City.   

As I read the transcript I was riveted by what Solzhenitsyn had to say. The more I read, the more I saw that it took a prophet’s courage to utter them. A few samples from the speech follow. I think you’ll understand  what I’m trying to say once you read them: 

“But the blindness of superiority continues in spite of all and upholds the belief that the vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present day Western systems, which in theory are the best and in practice the most attractive.” 

“However, it is a conception which develops out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick.” 

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society.“ 

The world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems, which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless Soviet society.” 

“Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?” 

You may be asking what Solzehnitsyn said at Harvard has to do with twenty-first century America. I’ll say it plainly – everything. The things Solzhenitsyn wrote about and said during his life should stand as a prophetic warning to us. As he said in his 1974 essay, “we are on the brink.” A person would have to be wilfully blind not to see it. And, the problem is, much of America, including its leaders, has become wilfully blind. 

The obscene demonstrations on our elite college campuses, including Harvard, speak to this blindness. The rampant crime in America’s cities speaks to this blindness. The insidious “cancel culture” that has developed speaks to this blindness. The insanity of pronouns and gender dysphoria that is destroying far too many of our young people speaks to this blindness. 

Even here in Kansas City we’ve been treated to an example of wilful blindness. A week or so ago, Harrison Butker, who is the field goal kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, set off a national firestorm when he made the annual commencement address at Benedictine College, which is not too far from downtown Kansas City. What did he do to set of the firestorm? He spoke about marriage, family, children, career, and faith from a Catholic/Benedictine point of view and thousands of angry Progressives, “woke” individuals, media superstars, and a sprinkling of politicians took umbrage at what he’d said. While he never said that women couldn’t have fulfilling careers, he did extol the virtues of motherhood, womanhood, faith, and careers. As the rhetorical missiles lobbed across the airwaves it became apparent that he’d been villainized by claiming that family, faith, and children should be praised rather than seen as impediments to a rewarding career.  

It’s an all too familiar position today that becomes quite evident when one looks at the statistical data concerning abortion in America. According to the Guttmacher Institute, very few abortions in America are being performed to protect a mother’s health or because of a detected fetal abnormality. Women are choosing abortion for reasons like (1) Having a child would be an impediment to a lucrative, professionally rewarding career or (2) The woman considering the abortion wasn’t “ready” to have children. There were other reasons cited,but those two were the ones most often cited. Lest one think that aborting unborn children is rare in America, it must be said that there were 930,000 abortions performed in America in 2020. The total data for 2023 isn’t complete (two months worth of data is still missing), but when all the data is compiled it will almost certainly reveal that over a million abortions will have been performed. 

Some claim that abortion is rarely performed in America nowadays. Really. When one compares the number of abortions performed in 2022 (930,000) to the number of tonsillectomies (504,000), or the number of open heart surgeries (about 400,000), it’s clear that the number of abortions performed and the self-serving justifications given are astounding. In speaking about these things at Benedictine College, Harrison Butker hit a really raw nerve.  

I’m sure that Butker’s faith and philosophy of life are now considered the minority report and there are now thousands, if not millions, who are clamoring for him to be “cancelled” or for the Chiefs to terminate his contract.  

There’s a part of me that wants to just move on from the vitriol. After all,  Harrison Butker is an adult and he can handle all the hate being directed at him and folks like me, who admire Harison Butker, can lay low and just “go along to get along.” 

But, can we? Can we Christians just ignore what we see going wherever we turn?  

I’ve tried doing that, but it’s clear to me now that we’ve reached the  breaking point Aleksandr Solzhenitsin wrote about. We must speak out. We have no choice in the matter. If we don’t, we’ll be as guilty as those who are threatening, mocking, and vilifying Harrison Butker and others like him. 

This morning I read an essay penned by Rod Dreher, one of my favorite authors. I first read his book “The Benedict Option” a few years ago. In that book he described the life of Benedict of Nursia, the man who founded the Benedictine monastic order. Dreher recounted how Benedict’s father had sent him to Rome to study law. His arrival in Rome coincided with the collapse of the Empire. Benedict saw the decadence overwhelming the once great Empire and decided he did not want to be part of it. He left Rome and settled in Nursia, a small town of about 1,000 inhabitants, and started the now famous monastic order. It is still operating today and focuses on fellowship with Jesus,  prayer, and hospitality.  

Dreher was fascinated by what Benedict had accomplished and became convinced that the modern Christian church needed a new approach to the life of faith, hence the name “the Benedict Opton.” He described it this way: 

“If we are going to be for the world as Christ meant for us to be, we are going to have to spend more time away from the world, in deep prayer and substantial spiritual training.” 

Put succinctly, the Benedict Option is a way to interact as a Christian in a world that has become increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. We must share our love, hospitality, and service without compromising them. We cannot let the “world” determine” how we live our lives. We must be faithful to Jesus, not the world. 

In this morning’s essay, Dreher expressed something many of us Christians are feeling:  

“It’s not like I’m on the hunt for catastrophe porn, but more like I feel compelled to point out, Hey, look what’s happening! They’re really going to sink this ship! Let’s either storm the bridge or prepare the lifeboats!” 

It’s the same sentiment Solzhenitsyn expressed in his famous essay – “already a universal spiritual demise is upon us; a physical one is about to flare up and engulf us and our children, while we continue to smile sheepishly and babble:” 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rod Dreher, and Harrison Butker summoned up the courage to speak courageously to their respective cultures. We must honor them by setting the trumpet to our mouths! 

Conversion, Part Two

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

– John 1:14 (New International Version)

I have two essays in process right now, neither of which is completed. So, you’ll have to bear with me while I shamelessly buy time. The original piece about my conversion, part two, to Christianity, with a few edits added, now follows:

Not long after I arrived in Newfoundland I struck up a friendship with a guy named Larry Clyde Jones. He had been in the army and had left under what everyone sensed were mysterious circumstances. No one really knew, but everyone was curious. It wasn’t till months later I found out what the mysterious circumstances were. I’ll fill you in on those details in Part III.

Larry seemed to like having me around and we began to spend a lot of of our off duty time together. Most of our that time was spent in the Airman’s Club, where for the first time Larry laid out that I thought at first were outlandish plans. They came after he’d had a couple of drinks. He grinned, leaned over, and spoke slowly in his North Carolina drawl. “You know, Philip, I’m in real need of a bodyguard, I truly am.” I almost fell on the floor when he said it. “Why on earth do you need a bodyguard? Are the commies coming after you?” “Worse than that,” he responded. “I’ve been loan sharking and I’ve made some enemies around the barracks and the club. I need some protection.” I sat there like a cigar store indian, not knowing how to respond. After a minute or so of silence Larry made what turned out to be very pivota point of decision in my life. “What about you, Philip? I’d pay you.” “You’re not serious,” I responded. “Look at me. “I’m skinny. I’m not good in a fight. This is not for me.” The more I protested, the more he insisted. We went back and forth for about a half an hour and a few more drinks. By that that I felt a bit of a buzz and a surge of alcohol induced courage, which amounted to stupidity of the first order. I agreed to be his bodyguard, whatever that meant.

For the next four months or so I trailed along with Larry wherever he went. Internally, I was in absolute terror, fearing any potential encounter with a reluctant debtor. Thankfully, I masked the terror I felt inside, which I think made me believable. I also bought a straight razor and carried it with me wherever we went, just in case something were to happen. 

The loan sharking went swimmingly well. GI’s are almost always broke, looking for a few bucks to tide them over till payday and Larry was always happy to accommodate. It was five dollars for seven in return, seven for ten, 10 for fifteen, twenty for thirty, and so forth. 

Things just seemed to fall in place. Larry had plenty of money and he was paying me. What could be better? 

While in Newfoundland I also developed a pretty nasty drinking habit. It was on one of these alcohol induced interludes that I had my first adult encounter with grace. It was during Newfoundland’s very brief summer. A group of us had a few days leave from Ernest Harmon, so we decided to take the time in Corner Brook, which was a few hours north of the base. Most of the guys had girlfriends they visited there. I went just for the amusement. On our first night we found a spot  a few miles outside of town,  high above the water, unloaded the beer and whiskey, and set up a bonfire. The spirits were flowing freely for a couple of hours until we ran out. By this time most of us were too drunk to do the sensible thing, which would have been to stop. I don’t know who made the decision to get more and how Larry Clyde Jones and I got nominated to go to Corner Brook to get more and we agreed to go. That’s when the wheels came off the wagon.

Larry owned a little MG Midget. Larry adored it because, as he often said, “It’ll go like a bat out of hell.” We got ready to go and were interrupted by one of the girls with us whose name was Eloise. She’d made the decision to go with us because she was concerned for our safety and insisted she was going to pray for us as we made our to and from town. She was quite homely and didn’t drink at all.  She was, as I later found out, a “Salvation Army Girl.” But, as I also later found out, she did know how to pray and had the Almighty’s undivided attention.

“I wonder how fast this thing will go with three people in it?” Larry said, as we took off. I was sitting in the passenger seat and Eloise sat between Larry and me, which made us one very compact pile of humanity cramped into a very small place. I couldn’t see how fast Larry was going, but as I looked out the window I saw the water get more distant as we made our way along the treacherous dirt roads. Larry laughed and whooped it up as we careened around the sharp curves,  going faster and faster. Suddenly, on what was apparentlya very sharp sharp turn, Larry lost control of the car and we flew off the road. We started plummeting end over end down the cliff that overlooked the water. As we did I could see the car crumpling around me. I then felt a strange sense of peace. I don’t think it was a sense that every thing was going to be alright; it was a peaceful sense of resignation. We were going to die and that was it. I’m not sure how many times the tiny car turned end over end, but we finally landed on the shore about 200 feet below the cliff that we had launched from. My first thought was curious. I was sure I was dead. But I felt alive. “Well, ain’t this about a hoot,” I said to myself. “You’re dead. You’re alive. It’s all the same thing.” I then felt the warmth of blood running down my nose. It was then I realized that I was still alive. I looked to my left and saw Eloise. She was unhurt. I heard Larry moaning. “I’m all busted up. Oh, God I’m gonna’ die.” I found a hunting knife that Larry kept in the car and cut what was left of the convertible top so that we could extricate ourselves from the car I now feared was going to explode. I got Eloise out and found that she was not hurt at all. Not even a scratch! We then tried to move Larry. But it was impossible. The clutch had somehow come down on his right foot and jammed it into the floor. We couldn’t move him at all. Our only hope was to get help. With our fellow revelers still drunkat the bonfire any hope of having them even think of us was remote at best. Eloise and I decided that our best hope lay in climbing up the cliff to see if we could find help close to us. We left Larry knowing there was a chance that the car could explode, but we figured that there was nothing we could do for him without help. As we climbed the cliff I could hear Eloise praying, “Dear, dear Jesus, help us. Dear, dear Jesus help us. Dear, dear Jesus, help us.”

The first sight I remember when we got close to the top of the cliff was a small house. The lights were on. We scrambled to the top and ran across the road and pounded on the door. “We need help real bad,” I pleaded as an old man who looked somewhat like Fi answered the door. In about a half an hour the RCMP arrived. We took them across the road to show them were the car, and Larry were. I’m not sure how long it took to get Larry out of the car, but fortunately the Mounties did. Larry had suffered two broken legs, a broken foot, collarbone, pelvis, and two ribs. I had a bloody nose and Eloise was unhurt. The Mounties were amazed. The only theory they had was that having Eloise in the car with us had compacted Eloise and me to the point where we couldn’t get buffeted around as the car made its plunge. Their other theory was that “Someone was looking out for you tonight. You should be dead.”

In order to maintain my philosophical stance I claimed the option of chance. “It was just pure luck that things happened the way they did,” I later thought. “It was just pure chance and nothing more.” 

 I’ve either been too long winded or there’s more to the story than I believed. At any rate, I’m going to have to close this part out and leave Vietnam, William Shakespeare, and my encounter with Jesus for parts three and four.

Hopefully you’ll bear with me through this. Part three to follow

Conversion, Part Four

As with the previous post, this one will make much more sense if you read part one (if you haven’t read it already), and parts two and three.

The rest of my tour in Vietnam was quiet. I never did speak to Sergeant Vartenisian about the incident at the incinerator or tell him what I was thinking. I kept it all to myself. It’s something I now regret. Once I left Vietnam I never saw him again. I guess there are a lot of people like him, who pray for others and never see an answer to the prayers they make. They’re the people of faith who go about their lives quietly, believing that it’s enough for them to intercede, believing that somehow their prayer(s) will be answered.

Sergeant Vartenisian’s were, but it was going to take some time before they were fully realized.

My “deros” (rotation day) was coming up and I put in for anything near home – Hanscom Field, Otis AFB, anything in Massachusetts. When the orders came down about a month and a half before I was due to go home, I found, strangely that I had been assigned to Lockbourne AFB, which was just outside of Columbus, Ohio. It was a shock to my system and I tried to fight the assignment. But my fighting was in vain. I was going to Lockbourne and that was it. It turned out to be providential.

I got in bad with my unit right away, particularly my duty sergeant. I became uncooperative and that made me a marked man. After about eight months at Lockbourne I was assigned to a leadership school. It was the Air Force’s last ditch attempt to retrieve me before I destroyed myself.

I’ll never forget the day I arrived at the school. When I opened the door to the room that was to be mine for eight weeks I saw an eight ball sitting on the desk starting at me. That dreaded eight ball was the squadron’s way of saying, “Straighten up or ship out. This is your last chance.” I sat, somewhat amused, for a while until my assigned roommate came in. “Hey, I’m Vic Edwards.”

“Dillon…Phil Dillon.”

Vic was a round faced man, African-American. He had the proud look of a leader. I wondered if he had been assigned as my roommate to straighten me out.

“You’re the man who’s come to fix me? I asked

“Not me, Bubba. You and I are in the same boat.”

“I’m here because the Air Force is trying to purge a rebel from the flock. How about you? What’s your great sin?”

Vic laughed a bit. “I’m not exactly sure. I think it might be because I married a French woman.”

“So I’m the rebel and you’re the non-conformist. Does that about cover it?”

“That does a pretty good job of it.”

I doubled over laughing on my bunk, pulling the pillow over my head as I did. “Geeze, if this isn’t a real recipe for success.”

My cynical laughter was contagious. Vic fell back on his bunk and began to laugh along with me. “Well, Dillon, if you and I aren’t a marriage made in heaven. We are just one big roaring success waiting to spring ourselves on the U. S. Air Force.”

After about ten minutes our laughter subsided. The room became still as we privately contemplated our fates.

I don’t know why I asked the following question. Maybe it was desperation. I don’t know, but I did. “Do you pray much, Edwards?”

“No, once in a while, but that’s about it. How about you?”

“I can’t really say that I have. I’ve had a couple of strange religious experiences if you could call that praying, but other than that, no.”

Vic had been laying on his bunk until I mentioned the strange religious experiences. When he heard those words he sat up. “Strange? What kind of strange experiences, Dillon?”

I told him about the dreams I had had when I was young and about my experience in Vietnam. He listened intently. “That is strange,” he answered.

“Look, Vic, I don’t wanna’ change the subject but how are we gonna’ get through these eight weeks?”

Vic’s answer was almost in the form of a plea or a prayer. “It’ll take a miracle for sure.”

The word miracle struck a chord with me. I knew that it was going to keep me from getting drummed out of my unit. I was just too far gone. I was at the end of my rope.

My first step of faith was tentative and feeble, but I made it. “Well, then Vic, we’re just gonna’ have to pray our way through this thing. Don’t you think?” 

“I’m not sure I know how to,” Vic answered quizzically.

“I don’t either, but we’re desperate, man; we’ve got to do something or we’re cooked.”

“You’re right, we really don’t have much to lose. I’ll pray for you and you’ll pray for me and we’ll see what happens.”

As roll call for the first day at the leadership school began to ring out through the barracks I looked straight at Vic and said, “Let’s do it!”

For the next eight weeks Vic and I were faithful to our agreement. Where one of us had a weakness, the other prayed and supported in practical ways. When one of us was discouraged the other prayed for strength. And so it went. For my part I wasn’t sure exactly who I was praying to, but it did seem to help. Vic and I seemed to get stronger as the days passed. Vic excelled in drill and leadership. My strength was in classroom activity and public speaking. There was never a time that either of us felt jealous of the other. In fact, we took great pride in supporting one another. What had started as a possible disaster was turning into a life-changing event. 

The real epiphany in my life came when I was selected to as a finalist in a public speaking contest held by the school. Our subject was to be “the greatest leader who has ever lived.” When I first thought about it I thought of Hannibal, who I had considered to be a military genius in spite of his failures. I also gave thought to Alexander the Great, who had conquered the known world as a young man. But the more I thought about it I knew there had to be someone greater than these two men. I spoke to Vic about it and suggested, casually, that I consider Jesus as the greatest leader. “I don’t know anything about him, Vic, I mean not a thing,” I answered

Vic’s answer was right to the point. “Read the Bible. A lot of it is about him.”

Over the next week I read the New Testament gospels twice. I could hardly believe what I was reading. How could this one man, without an alternate plan, take a group of twelve men and change the world forever? How did he hold them together? How could he succeed without an army? The more I read the more fascinated I became. Hannibal and Alexander were great leaders, but as I read I saw that there was truly no one who had ever lived like Jesus. 

Over that same period I called the chaplain several times. “Was Jesus really the Son of God like he claimed to be? I asked over and over. The answer was always the same – Yes!

When the competition came I spoke about Jesus as the greatest leader who had ever lived. I’ve spoken publicly many times since that day, but none have ever compared to that speech. I won the award!

I came during that week to see that it was true and that the Jesus of the gospels was the same Jesus who had been crucified in my young dreams and the same Jesus who had spoken to me in Vietnam. And he was the same Jesus who had prompted Vic and me to join in a compact of prayer for one another for those eight weeks. I came to a place where I knew he was who he said he was. I came to a place where I would be willing to not only live, but also to die for him. It was all very private, real, and intensely personal.

At the end of the eight week school Vic and I won every award that was given at the graduation banquet. There were six in all. The miracle we had needed had come!

Not long after I graduated from the leadership school I began attending a Lincoln Baptist Church in Columbus. I listened for a few weeks and one Sunday, to the surprise of the preacher I came forward to profess faith in Jesus. Most of my friends assumed it was a spur of the moment thing, that this response to the altar call was nothing more than an emotional experience. But I knew better. It was a moment that was twenty five years in the making. In fact, as I look back at it I realize that all those moments in my life that led to that day are really a part of that moment. There are people I know who point to a date and time for their salvation, and I guess they’re right. But there was more to it for me. The dreams of my youth were a part of it. My experience as a young man rejecting faith was part of it. My experiences in Vietnam were part of it. And my experiences at Lockbourne were part of it. In temporal terms it was a long moment. In the scope of eternity it was linked to the beginning of time and to a cross where the man who had revealed himself to me in my youth reconciled my life.