August was, and is, the month of water and sand. There were many of them spent in Sea Isle City, and Avalon in New Jersey. Then some were enjoyed at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina. Looking back over the years we note, it is the month of Mary MacDonald, Paul and Dan McSorley and Mary McS Yake, birthdays. But before their birthdays had a life we celebrated Sister Mary’s, and brothers’ John’s and Frank’s (on the same day ten years apart). It is the month of our wedding day, which happily is in its 22nd year. All of that makes the month called ‘August’ bring back some august moments and times in my life.
We remember too with sadness and love that August 1st marks the day Annie went to heaven two years ago. I have her smiling at me in a picture on my piano. All I need do is look and I can hear her cackling laughter and the blurting of her words “Isn’t God good!” She is missed and remembered as one who loved with all her heart and all her soul.
Please note that the picture of the water above, with waves rushing to shore in the wind, is not what you see in the Gulf except when there’s a hurricane coming. My limited supply of graphics made this one my choice for its color and not the visual effects. We, June and I , often have noted the great difference between the Atlantic and the Gulf when it comes to waves. In the Gulf they are really nonexistent until a storm is brewing, except up along the Panhandle, in places like Panama City Beach, there are waves somewhat like you might see in Avalon or Myrtle Beach.
July ended with a miracle. The story of the Pennsylvania miners being saved after three days and being nearly washed away. It has all the earmarks of a miracle. The men praying together for the Lord to help them certainly will upset many Americans who will now insist on keeping prayer out of the work place. It reminded me of a popular saying during Second World War, “There are no atheist in foxholes”. It can now be updated to say there are none in mineshafts either.
As August begins it is like a New Year, a new beginning. The street is paved, the sod has been replaced, and we took the hottest day of the year (we learned later) to hose down the mud covered porch. The additional outside work now has raised my rank from a mere lawn keeper to a ‘grounds’ keeper. There is no increase in pay with the promotion. It is like one of those Bank promotions, you are now a “Vice President of”-whatever, but the pay remains the same.
Another surprise to begin the month was the publication of a story I wrote about my call committee duties. It was published in the Church’s monthly newsletter, called “Cross Currents”. I had written it some time ago and shared it with the other members of the committee. One of them suggested I submit it to the Cross Currents staff. I did so but never heard anything of it until Sunday July 28th when the Editor stopped me in church to tell me it was to be published and would I please go and see if the editing was acceptable. I did so and was flattered that it was being published. It had some humor that was diluted in the editing but over all it was the same. The story is how tough it was for us on the committee when visiting a prospect’s church to remain incognito. I have had no training in being a spy or a mole, and found myself as the title suggested “Lost in Baptist Country”. A part of it is about my wandering around a Lutheran church campus looking for a bible class and ending up almost entering a Baptist church.
It a New Year at the Church too. It appears that the Call Committee’s job is done. The prospect, David Swenson, a pastor from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Madison, Wisconsin met with our congregation Wednesday evening July 31st . After a presentation in the Sanctuary where he was a big hit, there was a social. As one of the committee members noted there appeared to me no one who did not think highly of him. The vote on August 4 was over 90% for him as our Pastor and his compensation package. The call will be now relayed to him and he technically has 30 days in which to decide, but I understand he conditionally agreed if the vote for his coming was substantial, he would accept the call. It was, and come October we will have a new senior Pastor. It is another cause for celebrating this August 2002.
Last month I mentioned that I traveled via books from Mesopotamia to Egypt and then to Israel. I did that in a book entitled, “Walking the Bible”. The book was given to me to read some part of it by a friend, a retired Marine Colonel and now High School teacher, who attends with me the Faith Covenant Bible class on Thursday mornings. I put it aside and months went by. When I was assembling things to take on our venture north, I thought why not take it since I can scan it at times. I will have more reading time up there than here. I hadn’t planned on reading it precisely just maybe a ‘look-see’. The Bible, as one raised in the Catholic Church, was not one of the tools of learning. The formal religious education I had from grammar school through a Catholic seminary prep school and College was bible-less. My education occurred before Vatican II and in Philadelphia archdiocese at least, the Bible was not a part of any religious curriculum. This I understand has since changed. So even though I was enjoying round table discussion of various parts of the bible, the book about it was not one I thought would be of interest. In addition, it was concerned with the Old Testament, the first five books called the Torah. It was even more remote from my religious education since at least the New Testament and the Gospels were part of the Sunday Mass. All of which lead to the book remaining unread on my bookshelf. Well, did I get a surprise! It was very readable. It was an adventure in travel. The author grew in his beliefs as he made the journey. He progressed from a cynic to a man of beliefs. It was, I leaned later, a New York Times best seller, nevertheless it qualified for me as a good book since it was well written, easy to read, and full of illuminating observations. He may have started out using the Bible as a tool since it was a classic but he didn’t buy it as he went forward. It became history at its best for him. He traveled with an archeologist of renown from Israel. He even reported him as saying, “Yes I am a scientist but I can still believe”. It was such a best seller that I see he has now written a new book entitled “Abraham”.
My trip to Plains and Archery, Georgia was done with the help of former President Carter. It was an autobiography of his boyhood in Archery. It was called “An Hour Before Daylight”. He covers the time up to his leaving for the Navy. He decided after his father’s death to give up a career in the Navy. He returned home to become a farmer and an active politician, and the rest as they say “is history”. I particularly liked his telling about his Negro friends (they were not yet called ‘Afro-Americans’) whom he played with, went fishing with, and rode to town with but then they went to their theater and he went to his. He went to his church and they went to theirs.He became a friend to a very popular Negro minister who was highly regarded in the entire community. It never occurred to him as a boy that that was not they way it should be. He changed his view later when he learned how forced and unfair that separation was. He had a comment about his Dad that I could have made about my Dad. I suppose a number of contemporaries could say the same about their Dads too.
“I thought about my father often when I left home. It was not easy for me to put into words, even to my wife, Rosalyn how my early years with Dad had affected my life. I had strongly mixed feelings about him: of love, admiration, and pride, but also at least retrospective concern about his aloofness from me. I never remembered him saying, “Good job, Hut (his nickname)” or thanking me when I had done my best to fulfill one of his quiet suggestions that had the impact of orders. I used to hunger for one of his all too rare demonstrations of affection.”
It was just not the way to be a ‘good’ father in those days. I had the advantage of working in the law office with my Dad and yet it did not change his ability to display any affection but I was able to disagree with him. Even later when he lived with us the year before he died we had some real shouting matches. Anyone hearing them would think we would be unable to even talk to one another again for some time, but it wasn’t that way at all. We both got it out of our system and then went on living, and that included talking.
I was off to Panama thanks to David McCullough’s “A Path Between the Seas”. Last summer he had me enthralled with “John Adams” and he did his magic again. I got anxious as we traveled the roads of politics and engineering, medical research and mudslides as to how it would end, yet I knew the canal was there and in business. The needle of a good writer, even with what are seemingly mundane-statistical subjects, weaves a carpet of fancy and interest. Mr. Mc Cullough sure has it, and his best seller, John Adams, was just a confirmation of it. He covered the period from 1870 to 1914, from the French’s attempt to build it to when the canal was opened. He gives Theodore Roosevelt the credit for moving us to action after the French and Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal failed. The expected big opening in August 1914 was destroyed by the “Guns of August” the beginning of World War I.
Schools are open in Florida. The summer is over! So it is a good time and place for me to end this. So until next time, Pax Tecum!