Recently I wrote an article on Mardi Gras that elicited a lot of comment. Some of the remarks can be read at the end of that article on our website, at http://www.joemckeever.com/mt/archives/000091.html. Three of the responses started me on a whole new line of thought.

First, two of my good friends, Donna and Larry, more or less defended the Mardi Gras parades. While she does not approve of everything that goes on, Donna enjoys attending some of the early parades–before the tourists arrive and everything gets crazy–especially those that run near her house and on St. Charles Avenue. She and her teenage daughters join another family and stake out a spot about 5 am, and they spend the day eating Popeye’s fried chicken and biscuits and king cake while trying to catch as much “stuff” as they can. They donate the beads to a charitable organization which cleans and recycles them and makes a little money for their ministries.

Larry rode in the Endymion parade, and admits to spending $800 for the beads and paraphernalia he threw to the crowds. He wanted us to know that not everyone riding in the parades is a pervert or an alcoholic. “My float had a bunch of great guys,” he said. Larry invited a client of his to ride with him. The man professes to believe in the Lord, although his language and actions say otherwise. Larry had an opportunity to talk with him and discuss his faith. The man was receptive and even said he would like to visit Larry’s church, having grown disillusioned with the church of his youth.

Both Larry and Donna, I need to point out, are “good Baptists” and active in their respective churches here in the city.

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I’ve always thought of Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson as something of a perfectionist. I suppose that’s because no matter what problem people throw at him, he seems to have an answer. But I will tell you, the best answer I’ve ever heard from him, the one that gave me the most satisfaction when I heard it, was when the mother of a teenager posed some perplexing situation to him and asked what in the world she should do about her child in the teenage years, and the great psychologist replied, “Well, ma’am, you just try to get through it.”

That’s when I knew that James Dobson lives on the same planet and in the same world as the rest of us. He knows the frustration and the scariness of that dangerous but necessary stage all children go through, and he understands that the ultimate goal is surviving it. Just getting through it. There is life on the other side of adolescence. For parents as well as for the kids.

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I’m making some discoveries about human nature as a result of taking cancer radiation. As I write this, I’ve had 20 treatments on the head and neck area, and have 10 to go. The radiation itself is not a major problem. You just lie there for 25 minutes and don’t feel a thing. However, as the treatments accumulate, the side effects begin to show up, and that’s where the fun comes in–sunburned neck, dry mouth, and nausea. Without saliva, you can no longer eat solid foods.

One of the more surprising side effects is the loss of taste in my mouth. Or to be exact, the presence of an awful taste, one which no mouthwash or toothpaste can neutralize. The last milkshake I bought–trying to get in the requisite 2500 daily calories–tasted like paint. Or what I expect paint would taste like. That’s why head-and-neck patients all lose weight. They have no desire to eat and have to force themselves to down the various smoothies and Ensures and soups.

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Tony Merida has been my pastor only five weeks and I like him already. In fact, he grabbed me in his very first sermon with a little story he related about prayer.

“Once in a seminary class, some of us asked the professor about all these saints of old who are supposed to have risen at 4 o’clock every morning and prayed for hours. After all, we wanted to know, didn’t these people go to bed at dark? I could get up at 4 o’clock too, if I’d gone to bed at 5.” We laughed, and he continued.

“Then someone asked the professor what time he gets up in the morning. He said, ‘For the past fourteen years, I have gotten up at 4 a.m. so I can spend two hours with the Lord in prayer and the Word.'” Tony continued, “What struck me about that was that he did not work this little fact into his lecture or class notes, but the only way we found it out was by asking him.”

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One of the best parts of serving as a Director of Missions for a Baptist association is that churches in trouble call on you for assistance. That’s also one of the worst aspects of the job. Best–because you have a chance to make a difference for the Kingdom; worst–because you get to see the least attractive side of the Lord’s people.

Recently I was meeting with a congregation that is trying its best to self-destruct. They have chosen one of the hardest tasks for themselves I can imagine–to be a mixed congregation in a city where most of our churches are primarily white or mostly black. And they’re not new at this; they’ve been a racially mixed church for at least a generation. The members I talk to say they want to remain such. As one lady said, “If I want to join an all-Black church, there are plenty to choose from. But I drive 25 miles to get here.”

Is it true that the Blacks drove off the former White pastor? Is it true that the Whites are trying to control things? Since the neighborhood is 80% Black, shouldn’t the church have an all-Black leadership team? Who will be deacons? Who will control the finances? Should the interim pastor be White or Black? They are struggling with these and other issues.

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The exact words of the orthodontist, preparing me for radiation treatments in the wake of my oral cancer surgery, were: “I want you to repeat this process each night for the rest of your life.”

He had just outlined the nightly routine I was to follow: squeeze fluoride from a tube into the soft plastic molds he made of my teeth, place over my lower teeth for 10 minutes, then the upper for 10 minutes, and go 30 minutes without rinsing, eating, or drinking. The steps are not difficult and certainly not stressful. But every day for the rest of my life on planet Earth? What a sobering thought.

At first, it felt as if I had been sentenced to a lifetime in a prison cell. It felt confining, burdensome, depressing. Then I began to put it into perspective.

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The folks from Mobile will tell you that Mardi Gras did not originate in New Orleans, but as soon as the locals found it the perfect excuse for a prolonged party, they took it over. I’ve sometimes told people that New Orleans and Heaven have several things in common, with “loving a good party” coming toward the top of the list.

Actually, most of the citizens of metro New Orleans have a love-hate affair with this holiday. A surprisingly large number hate it and go to Breckinridge, Colorado, for a skiing vacation at this time. They tell me it’s “New Orleans west” out there right now. And others leave town for the beach or grandma’s to avoid the congestion. But, to be fair, a lot of the locals love it. They take the kiddies and line Veterans Highway in Metairie or St. Charles Avenue in uptown New Orleans and catch beads and other throws from the floats. They overflow the Quarter and Canal Street, they wear all kinds of masks and disguises, and they do things they would not want anyone back at home to know about.

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In his 1999 biography of Alastair Cooke, the Brit-turned-Yank who helped to interpret the USA for several generations of British, author Nick Clarke tells how Cooke’s father, a lay Methodist preacher, helped to found a mission for the down and out in a suburb of Manchester. The mission was built…

“…for deadbeats, drunks and derelicts, which acted as a shelter for runaways and battered wives, as well as carrying out

voluntary work amongst the very poor. Only as an old man did Samuel Cooke reveal the full seaminess of life at the Mission,

blushing as he related to his son tales of roaring drunks and whores, and children abandoned outside pubs. In Cooke’s

recollection, ‘my father never tried to convert them. They could be the foulest human beings alive, but they wouldn’t be

turned away.’ “

I confess to being puzzled by this tribute Alastair Cooke raised to his father. Samuel Cooke obviously was a man of compassion, spending his life and energy helping the needy, regardless how society treated them. The son had good reason to be proud of such a father. But learning that his “father never tried to convert them” leaves me with unanswered questions. What does Cooke mean by that? Did he see conversion as brain-washing, scalp-counting, or arm-twisting? Why does trying to convert the down and out strike Cooke as disreputable? And why does he laud his father for never attempting it?

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It surely was the ultimate irony.

It all started when the church built a new house for Marian’s family. Marian worked in the church kitchen, and her daughter Brenda did custodial work in the offices and educational building. Marian’s husband, whom they all called “Mr. Bill,” was disabled, so when their small house burned to the ground, everyone was concerned. That’s why one Sunday morning when the men of the congregation were having their monthly breakfast and someone suggested they pray for Marian and Mr. Bill’s situation, they began talking and soon decided to just build them a new house. No sense praying about something they could do something about. Within a few weeks, they had taken up $10,000 throughout the church to buy the materials. These were generous, kind-hearted people.

The project took about three months, and afterward, the women of the church furnished the house. At the dedication, they all felt pretty good about themselves, and well they should.

What happened next took the wind out of their sails. The associate pastor fired Marian from her job. “Well, she just wasn’t doing her work,” he must have explained to a hundred people, one at a time. “It looks like she felt like a privileged person the way we had done all these things for her and Mr. Bill, and we just couldn’t get anything out of her.”

After that, no one ever again talked about “the wonderful time we had putting up a new house for Mr. Bill and Miss Marian,” since she was now out looking for a job and basically embarrassing them all by her neediness.

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Ken and Barbie first, and now Jennifer and Brad have called off their marriage. At least, Mr. and Mrs. Potato-Head are still together.

The post-breakup experts have taken over the cable outlets informing us that Brad wanted a baby and Jen wanted a career, that their movie-making jobs have often separated them for months at a time, and that the pressure of celebrity-hood was just too much. It’s an old story, one we have not heard for the last time. Part of it we understand.

What I do not comprehend are the statements from their publicist that Brad and Jennifer still hold each other in high esteem and will continue to enjoy a wonderful friendship together. For most of us, that should be enough to make them continue working at the marriage.

The other day I was thinking about how marriages break down, and remembered an old book gathering dust on my shelf. “Past Forgetting: My Love Affair with Dwight Eisenhower” by Kay Summersby answered a question that celebrity-hounds were asking during the Second World War: was General Eisenhower in love with the British lady assigned to him as his personal driver? Were the rumors correct about them? Did Ike try to leave Mamie for Kay?

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