Several weeks ago an enterprising graduate student in finances e-mailed me from some university in this hemisphere–that’s as definite as my memory can get–to ask if she could bring down a busload of her classmates to assist residents of New Orleans in handling/investing/managing all the money they’ve gotten from the government. I said, “What money?”

She said, “We hear everyone is getting 150 thousand dollars for their flooded homes.” I said, “No one has received a dime of it. It’s still clogged up in a government pipeline somewhere.”

That money is beginning to flow, at least in a trickle. The Louisiana Recovery Authority has hired people to receive applications from homeowners, and by all reports, the process is lengthy and laborious. People have been complaining that they’re being asked to reproduce all the applications for any kind of assistance they’ve received earlier, to document everything about their homes, and to produce papers most of which were ruined in the Katrina floodwaters that swallowed 200,000 homes. A few days ago, a fed up Governor Kathleen Blanco announced that the LRA’s slow pace would not get it. At that point, only a hundred or so people had received their money.

The governor said, “I want 10 thousand people to get their checks before December 1.” Well, they heard her and hired another hundred workers and decided it was all right for applicants to handle everything by telephone (not everyone has the internet, to their surprise), and they now announce they’re on track to reach the 10 thousand number by the end of this month.

Footnote: this does not mean everyone is getting up 150 thousand dollars. It’s “up to” that amount. But you have to deduct your insurance checks and a few other things. Even so, we’re thankful.

Twice this week, I received e-mails asking when the cartoons on the Winter Bible Study would be ready. I’ve been turning out a series of cartoons on whichever book of the Bible Southern Baptists focus on each January, for many years. Some of those are available at www.joemckeever. Click on “cartoons” on the right side of the page and have fun.

This January, the Epistles of John will receive our attention, so Saturday I turned out 30 cartoons on I John. Sunday evening, I’ll do a few on Second and Third John, then copy them and overnight to son Marty in North Carolina and he’ll post them on our website. Check the website in a few days and they should be there.

Years ago–when I was pastoring at FBC Kenner, across the street from the N.O. airport–we would photocopy the cartoons and mail to anyone requesting them for a 2 dollar donation to cover costs. Normally, we would mail out a couple hundred sets. But if you will go to the cartoons on the website and click on Gospel of Mark cartoons, you can see how efficient the internet is. Many of the cartoons on Mark have received several thousand visits and some have been downloaded over 1,000 times. There’s no way of knowing who is using them, but it’s highly satisfying to think of spending one weekend drawing cartoons on John’s Epistles and as a result affecting the Bible studies of a thousand or more teachers and pastors.

To repeat, they’re free of charge for anyone using them in “normal” ways. If you decide to publish any of them in your book, then contact me and we’ll agree on a small fee. It’s the usual practice.

WordSEARCH, a computer software company for preachers, is making a CD of 200 of my cartoons available. We’ll put that on our website just as soon as they notify us to begin. Last I heard they had to print up the “albums” that contain the CD. The cost will be 20 dollars for 200 ‘toons.

In the old days–that is, 20 years ago–we just printed religious cartoons in a book and sold them. (Well, Baker Book House of Grand Rapids did.) No more. These days, it’s over the net and via the little disk.

Friday afternoon, I finally saw the movie “Flags of Our Fathers.” I recommend it, but not for folks who can’t take the noise of “movie warfare.” It’s about the taking of Iwo Jima in 1945 and has lots of sadness and military brutality. Yet it’s inspiring in a sense. This Veteran’s Day weekend is a good time to remind ourselves the price a lot of good people paid so you and I can lead normal lives.

One of the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima was an American Indian named Ira Hayes. I still recall seeing a Tony Curtis movie about the sad life he lived following his military service. Anyone who knows me is aware that I usually avoid movies that leave the viewer saddened. I did not enjoy that Tony Curtis movie, but have never forgotten it. Anyone seeing “Flags of Our Fathers” will feel as I do, that while we owe much to our leaders of previous generations, many of them brought great shame upon our people by their treatment of minorities.

And no, we don’t get everything right these days. But at least we’re all learning to respect diversity and ethnicity and to look past the color of a person’s skin. Hey, I grew up in the Jim Crow days of the 40s and 50s. I remember.

The housing market in metro New Orleans is still trying to shake itself out. Down the street from my house in suburban River Ridge, some neighbors have put their little 3 bedroom house on the market. It’s 1157 square feet, one bath, and their asking price is $199,000. Pre-Katrina, that house probably sold for half that amount. Another neighbor said they’re setting the price high and hoping to get $180,000. My Vallejo, California friend Pastor Bryan Harris would probably say this price sounds about right. And Manhattanites would be glad to get that much space for three times the amount. But this ain’t California or New York.

When I remarked to a friend that New Orleans is about to face a housing glut when many of the flooded homes are rebuilt and put on the market, she responded that what makes these special is our neighborhood is high ground. Meanwhile, the vacant lots up and down our street are being bought up and new homes built. I paid a lot less for this house in 1994, but it makes this old farm boy feel wealthy to think he might be sleeping in a $250,000 house! Jed Clampett, move over!

I worshiped Sunday morning with Williams Boulevard Baptist Church in Kenner. Pastor John Faull and Minister of Music Wayne Bridges are carrying on in a highly effective way these days, although it’s obvious the post-Katrina move-out has affected WBBC also, however not to the extent of some congregations. Wayne’s wife Stacy has joined their staff as children’s director, coming from nearby Riverside Baptist Church where she was pastor’s secretary for many years. Stacy is also the pianist for Williams Boulevard.

John Faull preached from II Kings 22, the story of young King Josiah and the rediscovery of the Book of the Law in the Temple. “The Book of God was lost in the House of God,” he pointed out. Some churches today are in danger of losing God’s Book through neglect. As a college student, John sold Bibles one summer in West Virginia, and told of going into people’s homes asking if they owned a Bible. “They would assure me they did, then turn the house upside down looking for it. Sometimes it would be laying on the mantel in plain sight, but they had not used it in so long that they couldn’t find it.”

Williams Boulevard is one of our strongest Baptist churches in the New Orleans area. Their choir loft was filled, the orchestra was large and excellent, and the hundreds of worshipers were enthusiastically involved in the worship service and sermon.

At noon, I attended Highland Baptist Church in Metairie where Scott Smith is pastor. They were having a senior adult luncheon and I’d been invited to speak and to do some drawing for them. I set up the easel while they were eating, then did caricatures of Scott and some of the youth and a few seniors. After lunch, I spoke to them on “how to preserve your sanity in these crazy times.” Using the acrostic H-E-L-P, I suggested they put in their daily lives the Holy Bible, some Exercise, a lot of Laughter, and much Prayer.

I’ll not go into detail on the stories and illustrations I brought out under each point, most of them having been shared here in this blog in one way or the other. I will, however, make one observation about senior adults that a lot of younger people might find surprising: the seniors are the sharpest group in any church. They have lived longer, have a broader experience, and therefore get a joke quicker, and respond to good insights more promptly. If you look at their wrinkles, focus on their arthritic bodies that move with great difficulty, and get distracted by their age, you will make a serious error. These are sharp, sharp people.

“Ageism” is the prejudice younger people exhibit toward the older ones among us. I had a person illustration of it one night when the phone rang.

“I’m taking a poll of the television-watching practices of the population,” the young man said. “It will only take 3 minutes.”

Normally I would have begged off, but it’s only 3 minutes, so I said, “All right, go ahead.”

“First off,” he said, “what age group are you in? 25 to 35? 35 to 45? 45 to 55? or 55 and up?”

I said, “That one.” He said, “Which one?”

I said, “55 and up.”

He said, “All right. Thank you very much.” And hung up.

I sat there stunned for a long moment. What an eloquent way he had of conveying that he had not the slightest interest in anything I had to say for his poll.

Most seniors who have dwelled in that category for very long have long since adjusted to the benign neglect our society directs toward old folks. Not hostility, and not antagonism, just a kind of quiet, passive intolerance which masks the discomfort of the younger generation with having to live on the same planet among the white-haired and the infirmed.

I plan to spend some time the latter part of this week with a group of these beloved octogenarians. The National World War II Conference takes place in New Orleans Thursday through Saturday, November 16 through 19, and I’m a volunteer. They tell us veterans of W.W.II are dying at a rate of 1200 a day. The “greatest generation” is rapidly fading from view.

When they are gone, the rest of us will be forever poorer.

Monday and Tuesday, the annual Louisiana Baptist Convention meets in Lake Charles at Trinity Baptist Church. You who live in that area are welcome to attend. You don’t need a ticket or a reservation or an invitation. Just walk in like you owned the place. You’ll hear some excellent singing, some great preaching, and some fascinating reports. And if you’re really lucky, you might get in on a fuss or two. Hey, we’re Baptists; it’s what we do best.

Our pastors will meet Wednesday morning November 15 at the New Orleans Chinese Baptist Church for the final time, at 10 am. Pastor Hong Fu Liu and his members prepared so much food last week, they were sending attendees home with take-out boxes filled with pasta and shrimp and sweet/sour chicken. Good food, great people.

Thursday morning, November 16, I’ll be preaching in chapel at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, at 11 o’clock. My subject: “Sense and Nonsense About Prayer.” It’s in the huge Leavell Chapel, the most obvious building on campus, and again, you are invited.

Now, go out and hug a senior citizen. Or better yet, talk to one. Pull up a chair and stay awhile, because they have lots to say, and it’s all worth hearing.