Memories

One of my earliest memories of the old country church in which I grew up, built in 1874 by both my mother and father's grandparents, was a boot scraper at the bottom of the first door step, such as pictured above. Public buildings like homes, 100 years ago, did not have cement walkways and in fact there were very few paved roads or streets. The country church house was just that. A large house in the country. This was before the time of electric power lines. There was no electricity in the church, no place to plug in a vacuum cleaner even if the vacuum cleaner had been invented. Our church was one of the few churches in the county that had gas lighting. A carbide system whereby gas pellets was mixed with water in an outside container and gas was piped inside the building to overhead lamps. I can still remember my cousin, standing on pews, lighting these beautiful gas lamps. Ours was one of the few churches with such lighting. Most had the old kerosene lamps, like those used in homes.

My grandparent's home, without electric power (few power lines into the countryside until 1935), had a Delco lighting system. Late every afternoon a gasoline powered generator would go putt-putt-putt and large glass enclosed batteries, in series, would generate enough electricity to have light from bulbs in the house and in outside barn areas at night. This power was not used for anything else - refrigerators, stoves, and radios. It was a real luxury, and like tractors, trucks, and even automobiles, only the wealthier families had them. But small bulbs gave more light than the old-fashioned kerosene lamp. Over the dining room table in my other grandparent's home, hung a copper shaded kerosene lamp. Magnificent beauty as you ate and some of my fine-feathered, country club nauseatingly elitist friends think they are living high on the hog when they eat by candlelight. I'm sure many of our early ancestors ate by candlelight, or even light from the fire place, but it was because they had nothing better.

The first place the power company ran the electric power lines in the country was to the school houses. One large light bulb hung down in each class room. But, back then, most of the children who started school graduated from school. I did not know of one third grade or high school graduate who could read or write. In the historic churches, as in the historic schools, there was heat from wood stoves. My father would get up early on Sunday morning, go to the church, and start fires in all the church stoves so the church and the classrooms, would be warm when the others arrived. In the early public schools, boys in the school and men in the community cut wood for the school's wood stoves. Our ancestors had a passion for worship and a yearning for learning. I have little patience with today's school children and less for college students who are not willing to take advantage of the marvelous education opportunities because of the blood, sweat, and tears, not only of the veterans, but of the greatest heroes I know, parents who have made sacrifices to keep their children in school.

At the church, I can still remember the singing of hymns with gusto. The smiles of my cousins, uncles, and aunts who sat in the amen corner. Through hard times, and good times, and they were mostly hard times, those in the churches knew the truth of joy. Seventeen times in Paul's love letter to the Church at Phillipi, even from his prison cell, he wrote of joy. The reason most Christians do not have joy in their life, is because they are trying to walk down the median of the highway, trying to hold onto the world with one hand, and God with the other. There is no longer a mud scraper at the front door, anywhere. The sticky mud of sin and unconcern is tracked into every building, every life. There is no more dangerous place on the highway than the median. Make up your mind, you cannot serve two masters, you will learn to love one and hate the other, and “you cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

The great writer, converted Christian from atheism, C.S. Lewis said, “you do not have a soul, you are a soul.” Every non-believer I have ever known, could recognize hypocrisy, the muck and mud of sin, if nothing else. They might not give you credit for any of the good you do, but can condemn you for any inconsistency. If Christians lived their faith, the world be converted, so desirable would be the committed Christian life. The problem with most of us who bear the name of Christ, we are consistently inconsistent. The world is so attractive, Satan so desires us, and Satan will do anything possible to taint and damage our Christian testimony, particularly before others, especially before members of our own family. If one can be a real Christian at home, with all the tattered problems we face on a daily basis, if one can be a Christian before his employees with all the unexpecteds of business, if one can be a Christian before his neighbors, with all the trials of climate and government, if one can be a Christian in his given, with all the demands from his pocket book, he is truly a Christian.

My father's youngest brother was a soldier in World War II. He and his young wife so desired children. He went to the war, she worked many jobs - matron in an orphanage, dietician in a hospital, clerk in a department store. When they returned, finally, after so many years, at an advanced age, they had a baby girl. The baby was born with erythroblastosis fetalis (blue baby), a blood and heart defect. Later in life, I knew the pediatrician, and the fact he was a drunk. She had called him about the baby's persistent crying and he told her to double all medication, which killed her child instantly. She told me that my uncle went to the funeral home and purchased a small casket. She dressed her child and before she put the child in the casket, sat by her child's bed and prayed all night for God to restore life. I was away in the military at the time, but I understand there was a graveside service the next day. Thankfully, she did have another child, but how do you account for these disappointments? Whereby Rabbi Cushing tried to answer this question in his book “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.” You can spend the rest of your life asking “why”. Why were millions killed in the great flood, surely there were some innocent children, why have millions been killed in recent wars... more wars in the 20th century, more people killed in the 20th century, than any other time in history. Why was it necessary for a perfect man to take the sins of the world, the sicknesses of the world, to the cross. God is in charge. He is Boss. It is up to us to have memories of good in spite of bad.

Two men built houses, one on a rock, one in sand. The storms came, the house built on the rock stood (Matthew 7:24-27). Joy comes in knowing you are firmly attached to solid rock. There are 11,000 animals on the endangered species list. The Christian home, the Christian church, the committed Christian, all are on the endangered list. A family sitting around the table is something of the past. There is not much love among Christians anymore, even in the church, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35). Churches multiply by dividing. Along with the fried chicken for lunch, there is more fried preacher than prayers for the preacher. News media thrives on exploiting weaknesses of Christians and even Christian churches. They love to promote the Islamic mosque. Why does not some enterprising reporter investigate how much good Muslims have done for the world, feeding the hungry, building hospitals, building colleges, making life easier for women and children. How many of the world's great inventions and products of research has come from Muslim minds or Muslim money. I have traveled to forty predominant Muslim countries in the world, the most desolate, desperate ,deprived places on earth.

Western civilization, America, has its warts. God, who created the Universe, who put on a tent of human flesh, and came to earth to dwell among us, has shown us how to live and how to die.