Watchman in the Wilderness

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.

Conversion – Part One

Nancy and I got back from Glorietta Sunday night. We had an absolutely wonderful time.

We each came away with several signifigant requests for proposals, including sample chapters, marketing plans for the proposal, etc. We’ll see where it all goes.

I’m planning to have my first proposal out by the end of the day tomorrow.

Blogging here has been light and will continue to be so for a while till I get all the proposals out.

Until then, I’m going to start re-publishing some of my first posts, beginning with my four part series detailing my conversion to Christianity. Part one follows:

“Within the Christian community there has been a great divide between those who understand salvation in essentially private or essentially public terms. In the privatized version, salvation is essentially a matter of my getting my soul into heaven, while the rest of reality we call history can, quite literally, go to hell. This is the stereotype (my emphasis added) of a certain kind of fundamentalist and revivalistic Protestantism. In this version of the Christian message the world is condemned, and the most urgent question, indeed the only question is, “Are you saved?” Christians outside the fundamentalist camp have been generally critical of this understanding of salvation. They have insisted that the gospel is of public significance, that it provides a context of meaning that illuminates human experience within actual history. Thus it has been thought that fundamentalism, with its focus upon privatized salvation, is indifferent to history, while liberal Christianity takes history seriously but shortchanges the quest for private, or personal, salvation. This way of understanding our differences is, I believe, no longer adequate.”

Richard John Neuhaus – The Naked Public Square (page 15)

No one I’ve read in the last ten years has expressed better than John Neuhaus the tension between these two Christian camps and the political world we live in today.

On one hand you have a group (liberal Christianity) that until the 1980’s had dominated the American social landscape. On the other you have a group (Neuhaus calls them fundamental or revivalistic) who, after a long absence, have re-entered the public debate. That has meant, in turn, that one Christian camp, which was almost unchallenged in the public arena for decades since the 1925 Scopes trial, had to compete with a rival to get its message out to the public, particularly those with political power.

The debate began in earnest in the 1980’s with the ascent of the Moral Majority and other conservative Christian organizations.

Now it must be explained that the rise of the religious right was not only a response to the politics of the time, but also to the theology.

For me the debate began back in the late seventies and early eighties when I was attending seminary. I was working toward a masters degree in theology, having decided to avoid the master of divinity program the seminary offered. I did it because, as I used to tell other students, I wanted to avoid becoming smarter than God. I’d read enough theology, particularly Thomas Altizer, to know that there are times and circumstances when one can profess to be wise and actually be a fool. We used to have raging debates about the theology of the times, particularly the “God is dead” theology that was in vogue. A sample of Altizer’s wisdom follows to give you a flavor of what I mean:

“Only when God is dead can Being begin in every Now. Eternal Recurrence is neither a cosmology nor a metaphysical idea: it is Nietzsche’s symbol of the deepest affirmation of existence, of Yes-saying. Accordingly, Eternal Recurrence is a symbolic portrait of the truly contemporary man, the man who dares to live in our time, in our history, in our existence.”

Seminarians used to love to run around quoting Altizer in those days. My question to them was always, “How would explain that to a cab driver or a stevedore or a baker or a butcher or a candlestick maker?” They couldn’t (or wouldn’t) of course, but it didn’t seem to matter to them. Did the “God is dead” theology, and other theologies of the time, build their faith? Read these words from Altizer, put yourself in seminary classroom, and imagine what they would do for you:

“Another and intimately related form of Christianity’s new estrangement was posed by the historical discovery of the eschatological “scandal” of New Testament faith. Modern scholarship unveiled a Jesus who is a “stranger and enigma to our time” (Schweitzer’s words) because his whole message and ministry were grounded in an expectation of the immediate coming of the end of the world. The Jesus whom we “know” is a deluded Jewish fanatic, his message is wholly eschatological, and hence Jesus and his message are totally irrelevant to our time and situation.”

If there are any cab drivers who happen to be Christians reading this post I’ll translate briefly for you. Your faith is useless and you’re on your own in this world. Comforting words, wouldn’t you say?

The divide between the Christian camps I mentioned earlier came into focus in these classes. The long and short of what I learned was that if I wanted to be engaged in the world I’d better act like God didn’t exist at all. So, if I’d come to seminary to learn and then go out into the world and contribute meaningfully to society I had to abandon the very faith that had brought me there. I could go and call it Christianity. I just couldn’t act like it really meant anything.

But I was, as Altizer had said, a man who would “dare to live in our time.” I was a fundamentalist who, I believe, had his feet on the ground.

I hadn’t always been that way. I won’t bore you with the details right now, especially after you’ve had to muddle your way through a couple of snippets of Altizer. Perhaps in some later post I’ll fill you in. I’ll give you just enough to let you know what experiences guided my decisions in life.

It’s safe, I believe, to say that my background truly did inform my pilgrimage. My father had died when I, my brother, and sister, were very young. He died of tuberculosis which had been helped along by alcoholism and the stereotypical Irish gift of melancholy. My mother went into a deep depression and was subsequently hospitalized for years. This left us as wards of the state. We were sent to a preventorium in Mattapan, a suburb of Boston to ensure we were taken care of and to also ensure that we didn’t contract the tuberculosis that had killed my father.

While I can’t say we were treated badly there, I can say that I came to see that kindness does not always translate into caring. The kind of caring I experienced in Mattapan was one that taught me to always be grateful to my benefactors. The kindness seemed to me to have no inner life at all. It had all the outward trappings of kindness, the food, the medicine, etc. But it didn’t have any of the inward signs of caring. I never remember once having anyone ask me how I felt about wanting to go home with my mother. I never heard anyone ask me what I wanted to do.

This, for me, was lesson number one. I was state property.

Lesson number two came later. My mother was released from the hospital after about eight years of therapy, shock treatment, and God knows what else. At that time my brother was sent to a trade school, my sister to some relatives in Maynard (another suburb of Boston), and I got to go home to live with my mother in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston. One of my mother’s first tasks was to get me some religion. She started sending me to Christ Church, which still holds the distinction of being the oldest church in the city (it was established in 1759). I have very little in the way of significant memories of my first few years there. As I grew and became more thoughtful, though, things changed. In the two or three years after my mother and I moved to Cambridge my brother and sister also came back home. We were a family once again after years of separation. They were among the happiest years of my life. While my sister and I didn’t get along especially well, I still loved having her at home. But my greatest joy was being around my brother. We spent our non school time playing stickball. He was four years older than me and used the age advantage he had to the fullest. I don’t remember how many sixteen hit shutouts he pitched against me in those days, but there were a lot. He took great delight in allowing me to load the bases and then turn to his patented “pimple curve” and strike me out to end every threat. As the ball would pass my stick he’d howl with delight, “Yerrrrr ouuuuuttttt.”

I’d have a momentary fit of anger, but I really didn’t mind. Just being around him was enough for me.

It was around this time that I began to develop my own religious thinking. We became acolytes at Christ Church, read from the Book of Common Prayer, took instruction, and observed the mysterious liturgy of the Episcopal Church. I developed a real interest in matters of faith during those days. I attended classes religiously. I even started having dreams about mysterious things. One recurring dream was of me sitting at our apartment window and seeing a man being crucified on the privacy fence that surrounded our complex. After five or six episodes I asked the rector of the church what the dream meant. “I don’t know,” he responded.

“Could it have been God talking to me?”

“Maybe.”

“What would He be saying?”

“Well, I’m not sure He was talking to you so I can’t really answer the question.”

There was really a more burning question for me, a question that had haunted me since I was a little boy. “Does God know when you’re going to die?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I just do.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“I’m afraid that’s something He doesn’t know. It’s not like He’s got a clock and says, ‘well it’s 6:00 PM, I guess I’d better go and get Phil Dillon.” It just doesn’t work that way. You wouldn’t want it that way.”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know He’s not just out there. I want to know that He’s here too.”

“I wish I could help you but I can’t.”

“Was that Jesus in my dreams?”

“Well Jesus went to sit at the right hand of God.”

“Do you mean He’s not here?”

“Well, He’s here because you’re here.”

“Why can’t He be here and there at the same time?”

I got no answer, only the silence that told me I had asked one too many questions.

The second lesson I learned in my youth was that I, as many theologians say, was on my own.

As I look back at it now I realize that I was having a dialogue with the rector about transcendence and immanence. I wanted both, but I got no answer then. It was to take years until I did.

While I felt on my own after my philosophical discussion with the rector of our church I didn’t feel totally abandoned. I still had my family; I still had my stickball in the summer and my beloved Boston Celtics in the winter. I still attended church, but something was missing. I recall often being caught up in a sense of wonder in mystery on those Sunday mornings. There were times when I just wanted to float away, hoping to find the the man who hung crucified on the privacy fence of my recurring dream. I wanted to find him and ask him who had done this done him. I wanted to find him and ask why they’d done it. But more than anything I wanted to ask why no one would help him. Praying the traditional “collects” and other “prayers and thanksgivings” seemed to heighten the sense of mystery in me. A few prayers, in particular, have stayed with me through the years. One was a prayer we often recited for our “national life:”

Prayers for National Life18.

For our Country”Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for ourheritage: We humbly beseech thee that we may always proveourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will.Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, andpure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion;from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defendour liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudesbrought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrustthe authority of government, that there may be justice andpeace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness,and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail;all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The other was a prayer we prayed on Palm Sunday:

Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

The Proper Liturgy for this day is on page 270.

“Almighty and everliving God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may both follow theexample of his patience, and also be make partakers of hisresurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

These prayers, as beautiful and rhythmic as they were, only added to the growing sense of alienation I was experiencing. God was out there, somewhere, and I wanted to find Him. Was He just a part of some recurring dream? Was He so transcendent that I would probably never find him? Was He even there at all or was all that I was going through nothing more than ritual?

My weekdays were filled with school, stickball (in season), hanging around with my brother and other kids in the neighborhood. In time I became the stickball champion of Chatham Street. None of the kids in my age group could beat me. For that I had my brother to thank. Those frustrating episodes of swinging wildly at his “pimple curve” had prepared me for better things. I can’t say that my childhood was unhappy. When I’ve spoken to people over the years, particularly liberal friends, they have a tendency to feel sorry for me. I’ve never felt that way. In fact in 1995 I expressed my feelings about my background this way:

The Romantic’s Ghetto

Some say their roots are in the land

In the strength and dignity of furrowed country rows

Mine are in the blaze of neon

Giving light and breath to the tenements lining ghetto streets.

Some say their faith was honed on cathedral glass

And sharpened by regal priestly robes

Mine was cut on jagged ghetto glass

And purified by the clatter of subway steel.

Some say they have an eye for distant landscapes

Or the refined beauty of a mountain stream.

Mine is tuned to a ragged ghetto face

Or the cloistered ghetto masses forgotten by the rush of time.

Where’s the dignity of life to be found?

In the land? In a stream?

For some it is for sure…..Where is it then for me?

It’s the romance of the Ghetto that will always fill my soul.

© 1995 Phil Dillon

Our family was poor. My mother only had a third grade education followed by a nervous breakdown, and years of hospitalization to support us. In practical terms it meant we had to live as recipients of the welfare state. One of my mother’s failings was her inability to maintain any kind of economic balance. She would shop, see something she liked, and buy it, as she often said, “On the cuff.” That was her slang for credit. The credit would be extended and the bills would mount up. In time there were a long line of creditors coming by looking for their money. Our way of dealing with the problem was to stay on the move. In one three year period we must have moved nine or ten times. In the times I’ve revisited Cambridge over the years I’ve been a great amusement to my wife. We’ve strolled and passed apartment buildings or tenements and I’ve often said as we’ve passed, “I lived there for a couple of months” or “I remember that place too.”

My first sense of anger at my station in life came when my mother would send me to city hall to get our welfare check every month. One visit is still very vividly planted in my memory. It wasn’t the visit that hurt. I’d made enough trips to city hall to swallow my pride and accept the goodness of the state. On this occasion it was a whispered conversation that cut to the quick. While looking for our check he was asked by another counselor, “Who’s this?”

“That’s one of the Dillon kids. This poor kid doesn’t have a chance. His father died a drunk and his mother’s a dolt. He just doesn’t have chance in life.”

His conversation was meant to be out of earshot, but I heard it and it hurt. When he came back to me with the check he saw that I was crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked

I didn’t have the courage to say how I felt. “Nothing,” I responded meekly.

I left, vowing that some day I would be my own man and that I would never again have to be dependent on the goodness of the state for my welfare or dignity.

This incident, along with my growing sense of alienation from God, brought me to my first major adult decision in my life. I made it when I was fifteen. I was at a friend’s apartment watching television on a Sunday night. I don’t recall who was conducting the interview, but the interviewee was J Paul Getty, who was at that time the world’s richest man. The interview was being conducted at his English estate called Sutton Place. I didn’t hear much of what Getty was saying, but I did notice all the trappings of wealth that surrounded him. Something inside of me just snapped. “How can this be?” I thought. “This man has more than he’ll ever need and I have to beg the state of Massachusetts for the little our family gets.” The internal anger hit a crescendo. “There can’t possibly be a God! There is no God! There never was, there isn’t one now, there never will be!”

As I look back on it now, the decision didn’t make sense. But it didn’t have to. Anger and alienation were to be my “guiding principles” for the next ten years.

When I got old enough I decided to leave Massachusetts. I joined the Air Force in 1961, did my boot camp at Lackland AFB, an uneventful tour in California, and some time on temporary duty in Washington D.C., and then got an assignment to Ernest Harmon AFB, Newfoundland. The assignment was, actually, quite providential. My mother was born in Newfoundland, in a little fishing village called McIvers Cove. This gave me the opportunity to meet relatives I would never have been able to if it hadn’t been for the Air Force assignment. During my time in Newfoundland I spent three leaves in McIvers, all of them wonderful. My aunts, uncles, cousins and other assorted relatives were all very kind, gentle people. I grew to love them. One uncle, in particular, captured my heart. His name was Fiander Louis Park. Fi (pronounced fye), as he liked to be called, was a tall man, almost toothless. If you’ve ever read Richard Brautigan’s “Confederate General from Big Sur” you’ll get a small glimpse of what Fi was like. The one tooth in his head seemed to float from place to place. One morning at breakfast it would appear to be in the upper right part of his mouth. The next morning it seemed to be on the bottom left. And, no dear reader, it was not my imagination. When I visited McIvers Fi was my official tour guide. He would glide down McIver’s dirt road to my Aunt Mabel’s to get breakfast each morning and then take me from place to place. Some days we’d just go up to his cabin. On others we’d go out in a dory together. If would row (he insisted on it) and I would sit and view the breathtaking cliffs of McIver’s and the other inlets in the area. On one excursion we saw a couple of whales. Fi whispered to me, “Look my son. Look I think they might’s be a couple of blues. Oh my son, have you ever seen the likes?

“No Fi, I’ve never.”

They’s beautiful, ‘eh?”

“They are.”

“Oh my son, my son.”

It was on these journeys that I would occasionally recall the mysteries of Christ Church and the man being crucified on the fence from years before, but I would try to dismiss them as soon as the thoughts came. I had decided that I would enjoy these moments for what they were. Life, as I’d come to believe, had very few of them. One had to enjoy them, endure the rest of life, then die, rot, and be forgotten. That was the sum total of life as I saw it back then.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2005

Conversion, Part THREE

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 part two.

After the accident near Corner Brook I decided to maintain a low profile. My worldview and my ego were battered and needed a rest. I did maintain my love of the stout, though, and it was that love that was to really get me in trouble.

Larry recovered from his injuries in a few months and we got right back to business, five for seven, seven for ten and so forth. It was working quite well until late January, when I happened by chance to pick up a copy of Look Magazine’s January 26, 1995 issue. I got back to the barracks and began reading, first from the cover. There beneath the cover photo of Julie Andrews was a tantalizing headline – “Four special reports on “Conspiracy USA.” I passed by a couple of the articles and got to page 28. There to my amazement was a photograph of Larry hovering over a desk, with a menacing look on his face. To the left of the photo was the title of the piece – “A Plot That Failed.” I continued reading and the more I did the more my adrenaline went wild. From this point, I’ll splice quotes from the article with my recollection of what was going on with me in Newfoundland.

There was much more to Larry than I could ever have imagined. A few years before I met him in Newfoundland, Larry had been in the Army, stationed in Germany in 1961. While he was there he became part of a right wing group called “CUSA,” which was short for “Conservatism USA.” Larry was their “security chief.”

I was absolutely stunned and it kept getting worse. Larry and his cohorts were funding their schemes and platforms using some of the same tactics he had gotten me involved in – loan sharking. From there, they graduated to “selling three day passes,” and so forth. Their eventual aim was to play a key role in “electing a Conservative president in 1969.” To further that aim, Larry’s cohorts got out of the Army and moved to Dallas. sometime in 1962. Larry “remained in Munich,” still tied to the organization. Larrie Schmidt, the organization’s founding father, spent a great deal of time trying to link up with “Young Americans for Freedom, eventually becoming the organization’s southwestern executive secretary.”

Things did not go well for Schmidt. In fact, the article put in succinctly, with just one word – “fizzle!” What impact did that have on Larry. Again, the article put it succinctly – “Jones vanished.”

As soon as I was done reading the article I went to Larry and confronted him with it. His response was immediate. He got a bunch of money from his foot locker and handed it to me. “Go over to the Base Exchange and buy every copy Look that’s available and hurry. Every last one. Do you hear me?” About twenty minutes later I came back with the magazines and sat down to complete the conversation I’d begun. “Are you in trouble? Tell me. Am I in trouble?” He laughed and reassured me that neither one of us was in trouble. He said that he had left CUSA and the Army when things fizzled, saying he never really wanted to get involved in politics. “It was about money. That’s all it was about for me.”

There were other questions I wanted to task him, questions like “How were you able to leave the Army and then join the Air Force? He never would answer them.

At this point I knew that I had to move on from Larry. I’d gotten myself in way over my head. Alcohol had done some amazing things. It lowered my inhibitions. It turned a normal human body into a poor imitation of a flopping fish. And it caused a normally sensible person to let down his guard. 

That was not my only problem. About a month or so after the accident, while Larry was recuperating, I struck up a friendship with a guy from my unit who I’ll just refer to by his first name, Steve. Steve had been assigned to Ernest Harmon about a year after me, which meant that he was going to be there, I assumed, a year after I was gone. I met him at the airman’s club one night and we struck up a conversation over a couple of beers. One thing led to another over the next couple of weeks until Steve decided to “open up.” It was on one of our almost nightly tours of duty at the airman’s club he confided in me that he wanted to get his wife up to Newfoundland but didn’t have enough money for a down payment on a trailer house he had looked at and decided would be good for him and his wife. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but after three or four drinks I let my guard down. “How much money do you need? I asked. He looked pleadingly as he answered, “About two thousand.”

“That’s some serious money and I don’t have that kind of cash. Have you tried to get a loan?”

He slumped down in his chair. “Yeah, I tried, but they told me I would need a co-signer.”

“Well,” I slurred, “Why dontcha’ just go get one. It couldn’t be that hard.”

Steve grinned back. “How about you? You’d do that for a friend, wouldn’t you?”

“I can’t man.”

“Come on, man, you know I’m good for it. I’d never leave you high and dry.”

“I really can’t.”

“Please, Phil, please. I’m really desperate to see the old woman.”

If I’d been sober that night my life would have been so different. But I wasn’t. I foolishly agreed to co-sign a loan and a couple of weeks later Steve had the cash he needed.

After he got the cash Steve seemed to be less of a friend than he had before. He didn’t come by the airman’s club and any time I saw him while we were on duty he found a way to avoid me. I did corner him once and asked if his wife had gotten to Newfoundland. “Oh yeah,” he assured me. “Things couldn’t be better.”

Something didn’t seem right. Have you ever had that internal railroad crossing go off inside you?” That’s what was happening to me. Any time I’d get around Steve after co-signing the loan that signal would go off. “Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Train coming. Don’t cross the tracks.”

I found out shortly after these brief encounters that I was in the middle of the tracks and a train was bearing down on me.

I got to my duty station one night and went to look for Steve to let him know I had some misgivings about having co-signed the loan. When I couldn’t find him I checked with one of the duty section’s NCOs. Where’s Steve?” I asked

“He got an emergency reassignment stateside.”

“You can’t be serious. What about his wife?”

“He ain’t married.”

“Yeah he is. He got me to co-sign a loan so that he could get her up here.”

“Well, if you ain’t the stupidest airman at Ernest Harmon. You’ve been conned.”

“I’m tellin’ you sarge, he’s married. He got the money to get her up here.”

“If you really believe that you’re even stupider than the stupidest airman at Ernest Harmon.”

It wasn’t long till the train hit me broadside. I got a letter, then a call from the finance company. They wanted their money. I told them to get it from Steve, but they told me that they were going to get it from me. I pleaded poverty. “I don’t have two thousand dollars.” That didn’t work either. The relationship with the finance company spiraled downward. They decided the loan was in default and they wanted all their money, immediately. Worse yet, they threatened to get the Air Force involved if I didn’t pay in full. 

Now two thousand dollars may not seem like much these days, but back in 1964 it was a lot. I didn’t have the money. My mother didn’t have the money. No one I knew had the money, other than Larry, and I just knew I couldn’t ask him. In desperation I checked my options within the military. There was one. I had to take what was called a “short discharge” and re-enlist so I could get the re – enlistment bonus, which I hadn’t planned on doing. But I was so desperate that I was willing to do anything. I signed over another four years of my life and got the two thousand dollars I needed.

Toward the end of my eighteen month tour someone showed me a picture he had found in a magazine of a Montagnard tribesman. It looked to me like the pictures I had seen in geography classes when I was in school or like something out of National Geographic. “Where’s this guy live?” I asked out of curiosity. 

“Vietnam.”

“You mean Indo-China?”

“No, Vietnam.”

“We’ve got advisors over there, don’t we.”

“More than advisors. They’re lookin’ for volunteers.”

I didn’t know then what possessed me to do it, but as soon as I was finished with that conversation I went over to the orderly room and volunteered to go to Vietnam. Within a week I had shipping orders to report to the 1964th Communications Squadron at Tan son Nhut AFB, Vietnam.

A couple of months later found me on a Continental Airlines flight from Travis AFB to Saigon. I’ll never forget our approach into the airport. The flight crew played the 1944 tune “I’ll Be Seeing You”, then wished us well. As I looked out the window I thought it was ironic that someone like me would be serenaded with words like:

I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places

That this heart of mine embraces all day through

In that small café, the park across the way

The children’s carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well

I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day

In everything that’s light and gay

I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the mornin’ sunAnd when the night is new

I’ll be looking at the moon

But I’ll be seeing you

I had few familiar places, it seemed, to go back home to. There was very little that my heart embraced. No chestnut trees. No wishing wells. All that fueled me was anger and alienation.

My first on-ground recollection at Tan son Nhut was the smell. There was something ominous that just hung in the air. It reminded me of the odor of embalming fluid that lingers in the air of funeral homes. 

My tour wasn’t especially dangerous, compared to what the Marines and Army were going through. About two or three times a month there would be a brief mortar attack. They’d usually last about thirty minutes or so and every thing would get back to normal.

It didn’t take me long to settle in. There was an on base beer hall adjacent to my barracks and I spent most of my off duty time there. Once I found it my life consisted of work, rotten chow, and about four hours a day of drinking.

Some of the other troops picked up on my surly attitude and tried to befriend me. The especially vulnerable of them, the Christians I met, got it full bore. They would usually start with the obligatory, “How you doin?”

“Alright, I guess, but I’d really prefer it if you’d leave me alone.”

“Why. I’m just askin’ because I care.”

“Sure.”

“People should care about each other. I mean, God cares.”

“Let’s not go there, alright.”

“What’s wrong with you, guy, don’t you believe in God?”

“No!”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Trust me, it’s true.”

“I don’t understand. I mean, look at all the beauty in this world. Where do you think it came from?”

“About the same place as all these mangled bodies we see every day.”

“I don’t understand how you can’t believe in God.”

“Well I don’t understand how you can, so we’re even. Now leave me alone.”

The conversations with Christians would almost all end that way. There was one exception, Paul Vartenisian. Paul was an NCO assigned to my duty section. He took an interest in me about six months into my tour. He seemed like a nice man to me and it seemed he really cared about me. The casual friendship went well until he came by the barracks one day. The conversation started innocently enough, then it got religious. “Phil,” he said. You’ve got to know God loves you. You really do.”

“Come on Sarge. Leave me alone.”

“He cares, Phil. He cares.”

“Sure.”

“You’ve got to know He loves you. He died on the cross for you.”

Those words – “died on the cross” – hit home, although I wouldn’t admit it. They brought me back to my childhood and the man who was being crucified on the fence outside my apartment window. “Just leave me alone. I want nothing to do with this.”

“I can’t, Phil, I can’t. Your life is worth everything to Him.”

“Get the hell outta’ here and leave me alone.”

Fred turned to go. “I’ll go, Phil, but I won’t leave you alone. I’ll be praying for you.”

“You just go right ahead for all the good it’ll do.” I said. “Your prayers mean nothing to me.”

In the six months or so I’d been in Vietnam I’d gotten used to sleeping with helicopters constantly flying over our barracks or the sound of bombs exploding in the distance. But, after the conversation with Sergeant Vartenisian things changed. I began to toss and turn throughout the night, replaying the conversation with him over and over in my head. It really bothered me but I couldn’t make sense of it. I would lay awake at night and wonder, “What are you so worried about. He isn’t praying to anyone or anything. Just go to sleep.” But, I couldn’t. The next time I saw Fred I took him aside and told him that while I respected his rank, I would kill him if he didn’t stop what he was doing. He never flinched. “Don’t you understand, Phil, God is trying to talk to you.” He said no more.

A week after that conversation I was assigned to take care of burning our section’s classified trash. It was very unpleasant duty. I took the five or six bags we had, grabbed an M-16, and went out to the incinerator, which was about a couple of hundred feet from our building. It was a very private spot on the top of a hill covered with tropical growth. I unlocked the gate, went in, and started to work. A couple of minutes into my ordeal I heard something rustling down the hill from me. I picked up the weapon and looked into the trees. Near the bottom of the hill I saw what appeared to be an old man. He was squatting down, defecating. “Something” seemed to possess me. A thought struck me. “Why don’t you shoot him? He’s just an old man. His life is probably miserable anyway. You’ll just be putting him out of his misery. Go ahead man. Do it!”

I raised the weapon and aimed down the hill. I was about ready to squeeze on the trigger when I heard these words, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.” I stopped and wiped my face, which by now was sweating profusely. I raised the weapon again. And once more I heard the words, “The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.” I knew the second time I heard them where they came from. These words that pleaded with me to stay my hand came from William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. They were Portia’s words to Shylock, pleading against exacting a pound of flesh, pleading for mercy:

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But mercy is above this sceptred sway;It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,It is an attribute to God himself;And earthly power doth then show likest God’sWhen mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,Though justice be thy plea, consider this,That, in the course of justice, none of usShould see salvation: we do pray for mercy;And that same prayer doth teach us all to renderThe deeds of mercy.”

I dropped the weapon and fell on my face, sobbing. “I don’t even know if You’re real”, I cried. “But if you are please show me. Please, please, show me.”

I look back at that day now in wonder. There was nothing else in my frame of reference that would have prevented me from killing that old Vietnamese man that day than the words I heard. I was soon to learn that they did not come by chance, but that they had been spoken to me by the man in my dreams who was being crucified on the fence outside my window years before. 

That incident, which could have been a tragedy, became the starting place in a journey of reconciliation I had walked away from in my youth.

“As I looked,“thrones were set in place,

and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His clothing was as white as snow;

the hair of his head was white like wool.

His throne was flaming with fire,

and its wheels were all ablaze.

A river of fire was flowing,

coming out from before him.

Thousands upon thousands attended him;

ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.

The court was seated,

 and the books were opened.”

_ Daniel 7:9-10 (New International Version)

Yesterday was my 78th birthday. When I first woke up, I didn’t feel very different from most mornings. My body felt older, but my mind still felt as sharp as it was back in my days in graduate school. Ah, what glorious days, researching topics with my fellow students, which meant we got to pool our ignorance and come up with what we presumed to be cogent answers to life’s great mysteries. And, how I relished New and Old Testament survey classes. I learned a lot about the patriarchs, the priests, the prophets, Jesus’s first disciples, and even Jesus himself. I even learned that every student in those classes, including me, was smarter than their professors. 

Those were the days.

I started to move my legs over the edge of the bed and paused and began engaging in conversation with the Almighty. “Good morning, Lord, it’s my birthday. I’m 78 today.” 

I gave the Lord a moment to respond and He did, with what I felt was a playful wink.. “Good for you.”

I pulled my feet over the edge of the bed and an odd thought struck me. “I wonder how old God is?” So, I decided to ask. “How old are you today, Lord?” There was no immediate response, so I tried framing my question a different way. “Down here we celebrate December 25th as your birthday and believe you were born a year or two prior to our common era. I think that would make you about 2,021 or 2,022 years old. Is that right?” Once again, my question was greeted with silence. I sat on the edge of the bed, expectantly, and I felt a prompting (we neo-Pentecostals are prone to this sort of thing) to read the seventh chapter of Daniel. So, I did. I sat dumbfounded for a minute or two and tried to let it all sink in. “So you’re saying you’re the Ancient of Days, Lord. Is that right?” After another pause, I asked what I thought would be the next logical question. “But how old is that?” The answer came in a flash. “Before Abraham was, I am!” (John 8:58). It began to get very mind boggling. Abraham was born, according to historical traditions, about 2,500 years prior to the Common Era. That would make God at least 4,500 years old! What about Adam and Eve, then? According to Bishop Usher, Adam was born 4,004 years before the Common era and, startlingly, according to  Dr. Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield and  Professor Dan Grauer from the University of Houston, Adam was born 209,000 years ago! That would make God 211,000 years old. I let the numbers stir around in my head. “That’s a lot of birthday cakes and a lot of candles. 

It kept getting more and more amazing. A long, long time ago, the Psalmist wrote, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2) Think of it. God was there prior to the creation of the universe and everything in it. Scientists tell us that the universe is 13.9 billion years old. It may even be older.

I sat there in a daze, trying to visualize a birthday cake with 13.9 billion candles. It would not compute!

About an hour ago I Googled “What would a birthday with 13.9 billion candles look like?” The best answer I could find was that the Guinness Book World record for candles on a birthday cake was 72,000. It was a really big cake, but a 13.9 billion candle cake would be tens of billions of times bigger than that.

Thinking about it makes me weary. In fact, a nice nap right now might do me some good. I am 78 years old, after all.I’ve also read that some of the most creative [people who have ever lived had to take naps. Leonardo da Vinci was said to have napped for 20 minutes every four hours, which would add up to two hours every day. Nikola Tesla did the same thing. Emily Bronte, who was plagued with insomnia, used to walk around in circles until she’d fall asleep.  If I get tired and  creative geniuses like Tesla and da Vinci also got tired enough to take an occasional nap, then  surely the Almighty must be a bit tired as well. He’s been at the business of running and sustaining the universe for a long time. But, according to King David, who knew God quite well, “He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”(Psalm 121:2-4) When the prophets of Baal tried to light a sacrificial fire under a sacrifice on Mt. Carmel, the prophet Elijah taunted them as they cried out in vain to their god. “Maybe he needs a potty break or maybe he’s napping and you need to wake him up,” (I Kings 18) The process started early in the morning and by mid day the prophets of Baal were bloody and exhausted. Then Elijah took over. He had the people pour a lot of water on the sacrifice, then prayed to God. And, quicker than you can say “big bang” or “punctuated equilibrium,” fire came down from heaven and the sacrifice was consumed. 

Think of it.  The prophets of Baal, guys who were probably a bit younger than me, were worn out after half a day. God, the Creator of a 13.9 billion year old universe, consumed the sacrifice in a flash.  He didn’t even take a potty break or sneak a cat nap. 

Is your mind boggled yet? Mine is. But, we’re not done yet.

In my professional days I used to drive through the Kansas Flint Hills. I used to often stop at mile marker 109 and just gaze across what seemed to be an endless sea of grass and the open heavens above me. Every time I did I got the sense that I was just a tiny speck in a very large universe. It was a very humbling experience.

We are indeed small. Scientists tell us the observable universe we inhabit is about 46.5 billion light years in diameter. That’s big! If we could ever develop a spaceship (a really big if) that travelled at 186,000 miles per second (the speed of light), it would take us 25,000 years to get to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, the closest  known galaxy to the earth. In those 25,000 years we would have completed a 118 quadrillion mile journey. Try to calculate how long a journey would be if it were to go on for 46.5 billion years of distance.  

Do you feel small yet? I do. I hope you do too.

How did this all come together? Is the universe a creation of Bill Gates and the good folks at Microsoft. Did they do it all? Did they create applications like Microsoft Sunrise, Microsoft Gravity, or Microsoft Relativity, and others to set it all in motion? Did they create the strong and weak forces that hold atoms together? Did they do it all with a wink of the eye or the flick of a wrist? Sometimes when you hear them babble on you’d think they actually believe they’re the creative forces that put it all together.

 In the thousands of years of human history, we have managed to build a rocket that could take us from the earth to the moon and back, a half a million mile journey that took Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins a bit over eight days to complete.It was a historic mission, one that some historians tell us was the most important moment in all of recorded human history. I remember watching it all unfold in 1969 when I was stationed in Panama. I spent all my off-duty time glued to the reports. As Neil Armstrong spoke the famous words, “That’s one small step for man; that’s one giant leap for mankind,” tears streamed down my cheeks. Looking back at it now, knowing the immensity of the universe that God created and the tiny bit of knowledge I have about it, it doesn’t seem all that impressive. Think of it. If we could actually travel at the speed of light it would take us 25,000 years to make it to our closest known galaxy. How many more millenia do you think it would take us to reach the point of the universe’s origin? Apollo 11 seemed quite impressive in 1969 when I was young. It doesn’t now.

The Psalmist once asked a very pertinent question that would be good for men in all times to consider, particularly when our pride in our puny achievements overcome our good sense. “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8) It really is a question of perspective. We should be considering the works that God has lovingly created for our benefit and it should humble us. Sadly, all too often our pride and arrogance corrupt us. Like so many achievements that we take pride in, compared to the greatness and majesty of God, they’re nothing more than a few drops in the bucket.

If that isn’t the height of arrogance, I don’t know what is. 

We need to learn the lessons of humility that the universe and its vastness is trying to communicate to us. If we’re honest about it, I believe God will also ask us the same questions He asked Job millenia ago: 

“Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know Who stretched a measuring line across it. On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”

Once we answer those questions, our only wise response should be, “You asked,’Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge.’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…..Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42;3) 

Yes, I celebrated my 78th birthday yesterday. I was quite impressed with myself. But, how could I possibly compare that milestone in my life to the billions of light years of time and distance that I’m part of. Given that, it  is truly humbling to consider that God himself is even mindful of me. (from Psalm 8) and that He’s willing to “Teach me to number my days, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.” (from Psalm 92)

“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’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.

I wrote this originally in November of 2008, right after Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States. There was a lot of speculation at that time about whether or not the Christian Church in America was going to face massive persecution under his administration.

In retrospect, eight years later, I see that  the Church wasn’t persecuted. Inconvenienced, adversarial, unpleasant  was more like it. 

I wrote what follows then as my attempt to inject some perspective into the situation. I’m not sure I succeeded, but I tried my best.

It’s now 2020 and I’m sensing that the Church may be on the brink of a different kind of persecution, one where we are no longer the American majority, our worldly wealth has been stripped,  and the dynamics of the persecution will be altogether different than what we thought it was going to be.

The words written in 2008 follow:

“While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

There are frail forms fainting at the door.

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say.

Oh, hard times come again no more.

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary.

Hard times, hard times, come again no more.

Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door.

Oh, hard times, come again no more.”

– Bob Dylan – “Hard Times” (Stephen Foster) – 1992

The election is over. In keeping with American tradition, rampant speculation has become the order of the day. Will President Obama govern from the left? The center? Will America become a socialist state? Will the Democrats start sending out the goon squads to squelch any signs of dissent? What will Obama’s agenda be? Not to be outdone, some Evangelicals are speculating far into the future. In a letter that’s making the internet rounds, a  future Christian, circa 2012, laments the impact Barack Obama’s presidency has had on people of faith, particularly Evangelical Christians. A few samples follow”

“I can hardly sing “The Star Spangled Banner” any more. When I hear the words,

“O say, does that star spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

I get tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. Now in October of 2012, after seeing what has happened in the last four years, I don’t think I can still answer, “Yes,” to that question. We are not “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Many of our freedoms have been taken away by a liberal Supreme Court and a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate, and hardly any brave citizen dares to resist the new government policies any more.”

“Personally, I don’t know how we are going to get through tomorrow, for these are difficult times. But my faith in the Lord remains strong.”

Heart wrenching, wouldn’t you say? Well, be strong my brother…be strong!

I don’t know whether the author of the letter was prompted by some special prophetic insight or was projecting his/her fears for the future. I profess no special insight into the future, nor do I harbor an overwhelming sense of dread. I can say that as I walked the dogs this morning the sun still rose in the east. I can also say that my wife, Nancy, still loves me. She even told me so before she left for Topeka at 6:30. It’s now about 11:00 A.M. and no one from the thought police has descended on my home to confiscate my Bible. I’d even read from it a couple of hours ago, from Paul’s second letter to the Church in Corinth, in which the apostle provides some valuable insight into what one of his average days looked like.

“Are they servants of Christ? I know I sound like a madman, but I have served him far more! I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger? If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.”

Who really had the tougher road to hoe, the first century apostle or our hypothetical Christian in 2012?

Do we really believe we’re being persecuted? Can we really convince ourselves that a three percent hike in taxes rises to the level of being beaten with rods? If our hypothetical Christian is to be believed, apparently so.

Well, I guess if our future Christian can engage in flights of fancy, I can too.

I wonder what things might look like in an imaginary meeting room for martyrs in heaven designed so that new arrivals can get a taste of what things are like just beyond the pearly gates. The year is 2009, a short time after the election of Barack Obama, liberal Democrat. Several new American arrivals have been ushered into the meeting room. There, seated before them, are men and women dressed in garb from the first century all the way to the 21st. They are an amalgamation of nations, ethnicities, races, and ages. There are even children.

Once the new arrivals are seated, a short, balding man comes to the podium. He clears his throat and announces, “It’s good to meet you new arrivals. Make yourselves at home. I’m Paul. I’m told I’ve been here a couple of thousand years now, but, to be honest with you, I’ve lost all track of time.” After a moment or two of polite laughter, Paul goes on. “I’m going to begin by telling you how I got here, then letting a few others describe their entry. Once they’re done, we’ll open the floor to you new arrivals to acquaint us with the circumstances surrounding their arrivals. Does that seem good to you all?” Everyone nods in agreement. “Good, then. I’m Paul. I spent a good part of my life getting whacked around like a piñata for professing my faith in Jesus. Why, once I got thrown on a pile of garbage and left for dead. The Romans finally got me and lopped off my head.” The new arrivals begin to feel lumps forming in their throats. Paul goes on. “I’m going to ask young Mary to describe her circumstances for you.” A young woman, circa fifteenth century, stands. “Hi, I’m Mary. I lived a quiet life of faith and contemplation in Spain until Torquemada got a hold of me and thousands of others like me. He had me ripped from limb to limb and here I am.” The new arrivals feel the lumps in their throats getting bigger. Paul then introduces a couple of young children, a boy and a girl. “We were thrown to wild beasts.” The lumps in the throats now seem to inhibit the breathing of the new arrivals. But, on and on it goes. One martyr recalls being covered with grease and lit up as a torch to light the Appian Way for Nero. Another describes being burned at the stake for reading an unauthorized translation of the Bible in the 16th century. A recent arrival, a 20th century North Korean woman, recounts how she and hundreds of her fellow Christian villagers were run over and flattened by tanks and bulldozers. Paul caps it all off by reminding the new arrivals that there is Someone with nail pierced hands in heaven who’s suffered more than all those assembled.

By now the new arrivals can hardly breathe. Paul encourages them to calm down so that they can tell their tales of woe. It takes a few minutes, but the testimonies begin. A fortyish man, dressed in an Armani suit, describes, in lurid detail, being taxed to death. “Early in 2008 my marginal rate was 36%. By 2009 it was 39%. The minute the first deduction hit my paycheck I had a heart attack and keeled over, dead.” The testimony is greeted with stunned silence. Next, a man dressed in bib overalls, apparently a farmer, defiantly declares, “I tried my best to live life under “librull” rule, but I could only hold out for a few months thinking of life without a gun before I blew my brains out. Yup, the librulls got me.” Icy silence follows. A woman, dressed to the nines, Ann Taylor, I think, tearfully describes how the interruption in her life of conspicuous consumption led to her untimely death. “Why, money was so tight I could only shop at Bloomingdale’s three or four times a week. I died of a broken heart.” By now, Paul and the others have heard enough. “Do you mean to tell me that you believe that a three percent jump in taxes, a liberal Democrat, and a shortage of money for high-end consumer goods got you here?” Knowing now that they have no good reason to be in a room full of martyrs, the lumps in the throats of the new arrivals now appear to be the size of softballs. They are gasping for breath. All they have to say, in muffled tones, at this point is, “Get us outta’ here, things are feeling very uncomfortable.”

I don’t know what things are going to be like in this country four years from now, but I can’t work myself into a state of hysteria because of a change in political administrations. I just can’t do it. I don’t believe that Barack Obama is the end of the world. I’m no candidate for martyrdom, but neither am I in any frame of mind to embrace a persecution complex for what seem to me to be trivial reasons. History has shown that we Christians can be a pretty hardy lot if we put our minds and hearts to it. Why, on our collective paths to heaven we’ve been burned at the stake, bludgeoned, torn into pieces, flattened like pancakes, sawn in two, thrown to wild beasts, drowned, beheaded, hanged by the neck, drawn and quartered, cooked in boiling oil, suffocated, and stretched on the rack. Knowing this, I find it less than amusing to think that having a liberal Democrat and his family occupying the White House will undo our faith in Jesus Christ. I’d like to think our faith is made of better stuff than that.

Psalm 104:31-32 (King James Version)

“The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.

He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: he toucheth the hills, and they smoke.”

We’re hearing that this Coronavirus crisis may be with us until late summer or early fall. Like just about everyone else we know, Nancy and I are hunkered down. We’ve been out a few times since March 16th to walk with Ranger and get a bit of fresh air and I did go to our pharmacy this morning to pick up a few of Nancy’s prescriptions. While I was only going to go through the drive-through, I could tell when I left Nancy was a bit worried about me. “”Don’t forget to bring hand sanitizer with you and don’t forget to wipe off the phone after they scan the pick-up barcode I texted you.” I tried to reassure her by lifting the tube of Clorox wipes for her to see as I left. I even thought of telling her that, according to Clorox, the wipes kill 99.9% of Coronaviruses, but felt that would be a bit of overkill. 

When I got back home I let Nancy know that the phone, the bags that held the prescriptions, my hands, and the steering wheel had all been sanitized and I felt fine, no wheezing, no fever. 

Overkill? Probably, but these are our times. After all, Solomon himself, who has been reported to be the wisest man who ever lived, once said there is “a time to kill.” Given a bit of interpretive wiggle room, I think I can find room for  overkill in his wisdom. 

It’s a different world than we’ve been accustomed to and it seems things changed overnight. I haven’t seen a sense of foreboding in the air like this since October of 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’d been home in Boston on leave from the Air Force when word came that my leave had been cancelled and was told to report back to Bolling Air Force Base, right outside of Washington, D.C. By the time I got back to the base, President Kennedy had already made his speech. His language was direct and ominous. “It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.” 

In order for the United States to ensure that we would not need to avail ourselves of our full nuclear arsenal, the President also declared that a “strict quarantine” (interesting choice of words, wouldn’t you say?) of all military equipment destined for Cuba would be initiated and enforced.

For the next thirteen days, the world lived on the brink of nuclear annihilation. I didn’t know from day to day whether the end of the world was hours, possibly minutes, away. I remember the chill that came over me when I saw the flash messages coming over the teletype that the U.S. military was placed on Defcon 2 alert, just one step below Defcon 1, which was euphemistically called “Cocked Pistol.”

Looking back at it, it seemed to me at the time that those thirteen agonizing days felt like eons. 

Thankfully, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. The “quarantine” worked.

Now the world is dealing with another quarantine, a microscopic virus of Biblical proportions. The fear in the air is palpable. I don’t know what Defcon level we’re at now, but I suspect it’s creeping up by the day.

But, for me, this quarantine has a much different feel than the one I was part of back in 1962. In 1962, I had no belief system to undergird me. I was adrift in the world. I was a small cog in a very big machine and I was powerless. There was nothing I could do but transmit, encode, and decode messages. If the end came I was going to be vaporized along with everyone else. It was strange, really. I shouldn’t have been concerned, but I was. While I rejected the idea of an afterlife, I believed this life was all I had. I should have been stoic about it, but I see now that I didn’t have a death wish. I wanted to live. But, today, things are different. I do have hope. There is an afterlife of joy and peace that Jesus himself opened for me. Therefore, I am at peace. I still don’t have a death wish, but I don’t find myself clinging so desperately to this life as if it were all I ever had or will have. I live now with the assurance that there is a place that’s being prepared for me when I pass from this life to the next.

One of the great benefits of my station in life now is that I’ve gained a healthy perspective over the years. There are so many things I have no control over. Events like Coronavirus make me feel small and insignificant.  It’s at times like that a voice creeps through a crack in the pit. “You’re just a small speck in a very big universe, nothing more.”

Thankfully, there’s another voice that responds and lets me know, that while I am indeed small, I am also known and loved.

I was considering these things this morning and looked back in my mind’s eye to being with fellow Christian pilgrims with whom I’ve shared moments of joy, sorrow, anticipation, and even smallness . To that end, what follows is the patching together a couple of essays I wrote years ago, one in 2002 when I dabbled with a bit of free verse as I wrestled with my own smallness and another in 2006 when I gave thought to a Christian friend who had made that same journey as I had many, many times. The title of the piece is “Reflections at Mile Marker 109, Kansas Turnpike.”

If you do by chance read it, I hope it brings you comfort in your journey:

Part One – 2005

Coach and I took another trip to Wichita today. The part the Volvo dealer had ordered a week or so ago was in and so we headed out at about seven-thirty to get it attached to the rest of the car.

As we started out I remembered how things were just before I retired. I’d made the trip south on the turnpike through the Kansas Flint Hills so many times it had become too common to me. If I had to put a number to it I’ll bet I missed the glory of the Flint Hills ninety-nine times out of a hundred  back then. It had just become humdrum, a drudgery.

Ah, but now I look forward to these little day trips. So it was this morning, June 2nd, 2005.

The hills are especially beautiful this year. The late rain and early spring rains, along with the burning, have produced the most incredible green that I’ve ever seen. It is a sight to behold!

I think it was right about my favorite spot, mile marker 109, that Nancy mentioned something Curtis McCauley said the other night when he and his wife were over for some barbeque. Doctor Mac, as I know him, says he’s retired, but he does more work these days than most of the young bucks I’ve met in the corporate world. One of the things he’s currently doing is providing transportation for young people who have somehow made it into the “system.” I think that most are products of broken homes. At any rate, Doc spends a good part of his time taking them to doctor’s appointments, counselors, or an absentee parent. Not too long ago he was taking a young boy from Emporia to some sort of appointment. Their course took them through the Flint Hills, and somewhere along the turnpike he asked the boy a question. “Did you know that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills?” The boy seemed a bit puzzled, so Doc continued with an explanation. “Some of them are black, and some of them are brown, but none of them are green.” The boy seemed even more puzzled with this. Curtis, who finds it almost impossible to avoid mischief, then decided to add more puzzlement yet. “Why do you think that God doesn’t make them green?” he asked. Now I wasn’t there, but I can almost see the gleam in Doc’s eyes as he parried with the lad. I think he might have been thinking “I’ve got this kid stumped.” But, after a minute or so of reflection the boy offered this wonderful piece of youthful wisdom. “If they were all green,” he replied. “God wouldn’t be able to see them from “up there.”

I’d have to say that the boy won this little battle of wits, and I also think that Curtis was delighted to have been the boy’s foil. Curtis has one of those gruff exteriors, but inside is lurking a universe of kindness and love. I don’t think he does all this driving around for the money. I think he does it because he cares about these kids; I think he loves them and wants to give them a little bit of caring that they would otherwise never get. Absentee parents and the “system” just can’t do those things.

The thought of this wonderful little exchange did something for me. As we passed south of that treasured marker on the turnpike, I felt the recapturing of the awe and the wonder I had felt before the trip seemed like drudgery. To that end, I’m going to re-post a bit of free verse I penned one morning as I stopped a bit south of mile marker 109.

The things I felt then I felt this morning. I felt that wonderful sense of my own smallness. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being “known. I felt that wonderful inner sense of being loved.”

It now follows. I hope you find it edifying.

Part one – 2002

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.

On, then, to part two.

While in Newfoundland I developed a pretty nasty drinking habit. I’d struck up a friendship with a guy named Larry Clyde Jones. He was a southerner, with a pronounced southern accent. In the course of our early conversations I deduced that he was grifter. He’d developed a reputation around the barracks of being a go-to guy for anyone who needed a short term loan. If someone wanted five dollars till payday, he would give it to them with a requirement to pay back seven dollars. As the amounts increased, so did the payback – ten for fourteen, fifteen for twenty, and so forth. It was a high demand, high reward sideline. I was fortunate that I didn’t have to avail myself of his services. He noticed this and asked me why I was never broke. I told him I just didn’t spend much money and left it at that. Then, a while after that he asked me if I’d be interested in a business proposition. “I need someone to watch out for me. I’ve got a few people who don’t like me and I need to be seen as someone who has a friend who will protect him.” I went over my head at first. “I don’t know what you want,” I responded. “Protection,” he said emphatically. “I’ll share my proceeds with you if you look after me.” It didn’t take me long to agree to his offer. I honestly thought it was a joke. I’d have been the last person someone would have wanted to protect him, but if Larry Clyde Jones was willing to share his ill-gotten gains, it seemed good to me. So began the “business relationship” that was to be the doorway for God’s grace to enter my life.

For the next several months, Larry’s business boomed, which meant I could afford to buy expensive clothing, consume booze at the airman’s club every night, and roam  around Ernest Harmon and Stephenville, the small off-base town, living under the delusion that I was important and powerful. 

I was drunk so often here were times I couldn’t tell whether or not I was drunk or sober. Life became a daily routine of work, followed by hours of prodigious drinking. It seemed that everything blurred together. The alcohol had an effect on my work performance. I developed a well deserved reputation for being a marginal soldier. But, I didn’t mind. The alcohol and the profits from Larry’s business were insulators. And so it was. The important thing in life became going from one alcohol induced interlude to another.

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 amusement. On our first night we found a spot near 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. But we got nominated and agreed to go.

Larry owned a little MG Midget, something like the one pictured in the link. 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 wanted to pray for us wherever we went. Lrry didn’t seem to mind and I thought the idea of someone praying while a couple of drunks were driving around looking for more booze was hilarious.  She was, as I later found out, a “Salvation Army Girl.”

“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 climbed the steep hill that overlooked our bonfire. Larry laughed and whooped it up as we careened around the winding road, going higher and higher. Suddenly, on a 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 crumbling around me. I then felt a strange sense of peace. I don’t think it was a sense that everything 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 drunk on the beach 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 my uncle  Fi answered the door. In about a half an hour the RCMP arrived. We took them across the road to show them where the car, and Larry had been. 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 us 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.” As far as I was concerned there was no God and in the end we all just die and rot. It’s all like turning on a television show and turning it off when it’s no longer amusing.

After the accident near Corner Brook I decided to maintain a low profile. My worldview and my ego were battered and needed a rest. I did maintain my love of the stout, though, and it was that love that was to really get me in trouble.

Alcohol can do amazing things. It can lower inhibitions. It can turn a normal human body into a poor imitation of a flopping fish. And it can cause a normally sensible person to let down their guard.

That was my problem. About a month or so after the accident I struck up another friendship with a guy from my unit who I’ll just refer to by his first name, Steve. Steve had been assigned to Ernest Harmon about a year after me, which meant that he was going to be there, I assumed, a year after I was gone. I met him at the airman’s club one night and we struck up a conversation over a couple of beers. One thing led to another over the next couple of weeks until Steve decided to “open up.” It was on one of our almost nightly tours of duty at the airman’s club he confided in me that he wanted to get his wife up to Newfoundland but didn’t have enough money for a down payment on a trailer house he had looked at and decided would be good for him and his wife. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but after three or four drinks I let my guard down. “How much money do you need? I asked. He looked pleadingly as he answered, “About two thousand.”

“That’s some serious money and I don’t have that kind of cash. Have you tried to get a loan?”

He slumped down in his chair. “Yeah, I tried, but they told me I would need a co-signer.”

“Well,” I slurred, “Why dontcha’ just go get one. It couldn’t be that hard.”

Steve grinned back. “How about you? You’d do that for a friend, wouldn’t you?”

“I can’t man.”

“Come on, man, you know I’m good for it. I’d never leave you high and dry.”

“I really can’t.”

“Please, Phil, please. I’m really desperate to see the old woman.”

If I’d been sober that night my life would have been so different. But I wasn’t. I foolishly agreed to co-sign a loan and a couple of weeks later Steve had the cash he needed.

Something didn’t seem right. Have you ever had that internal railroad crossing go off inside you?” That’s what was happening to me. Any time I’d get around Steve after co-signing the loan that signal would go off. “Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. Train coming. Don’t cross the tracks.”

I found out shortly after these brief encounters that I was in the middle of the tracks and a train was bearing down on me.

I got to my duty station one night and went to look for Steve to let him know I had some misgivings about having co-signed the loan. When I couldn’t find him I checked with one of the duty section’s NCOs. Where’s Steve?” I asked

“He got an emergency reassignment stateside.”

“You can’t be serious. What about his wife?”

“He ain’t married.”

“Yeah he is. He got me to co-sign a loan so that he could get her up here.”

“Well, if you ain’t the stupidest airman at Ernest Harmon. You’ve been conned.”

“I’m tellin’ you sarge, he’s married. He got the money to get her up here.”

“If you really believe that you’re even stupider than the stupidest airman at Ernest Harmon.”

It wasn’t long till the train hit me broadside. I got a letter, then a call from the finance company. They wanted their money. I told them to get it from Steve, but they told me that they were going to get it from me. I pleaded poverty. “I don’t have two thousand dollars.” That didn’t work either. The relationship with the finance company spiraled downward. They decided the loan was in default and they wanted all their money, immediately. Worse yet, they threatened to get the Air Force involved if I didn’t pay in full.

Now two thousand dollars may not seem like much these days, but back in 1964 it was a lot. I didn’t have the money. My mother didn’t have the money. No one I knew had the money other than Larry and there was no way I would ever ask him, knowing I’d be in hock to him for the rest of my life if he did give me the money. In desperation I checked my options within the military. There was one. I had to take what was called a short discharge, then re-enlist, which I hadn’t planned on doing. But I was so desperate that I was willing to do anything. I signed over another four years of my life and got the two thousand dollars I needed in the form of the reenlistment bonus.

Toward the end of my eighteen month tour someone showed me a picture he had found in a magazine of a Montagnard tribesman. It looked to me like the pictures I had seen in geography classes when I was in school or like something out of National Geographic. “Where’s this guy live?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Vietnam.”

“You mean Indo-China?”

“No, Vietnam.”

“We’ve got advisors over there, don’t we.”

“More than advisors. They’re lookin’ for volunteers.”

I didn’t know then what possessed me to do it. I just felt the need to get away from Ernest Harmon and Larry.  As soon as I was finished with that conversation I went over to the orderly room and volunteered to go to Vietnam. Within a week I had shipping orders to report to the 1964th Communications Squadron at Tan son Nhut AFB, Vietnam.

Stay tuned. Part three will follow in a few days.