My friend Jill Furr Noll reminded me on Facebook this week about her wonderful grandfather, a Baptist preacher from years back whose funeral I held in the mid-1970s. Rev. A. C. Furr was in his mid-90s when I became his pastor. He was sharper than I was (I was 60 years his junior), still drove his car everywhere, and was extremely active. Sometimes when he was heading to the nursing home to call on patients, he would tease, “I’m going to see the old people.” They were almost all younger than he.

I thought of this today while reading through two newspaper articles that mysteriously appeared on my desk at home. They are dated in and around my birthday (March 28) of 2004. Where they have been until now, I couldn’t begin to say. But I certainly can tell you why I kept them. They are both such keepers.

The first came from USA Today for March 30, 2004. Robert Lipsyte, who is identified as a journalist and author of a young-adult novel, “Warrior Angel,” is writing about the way we only realize the value of the elderly in times of crisis.

The other article comes from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal of Tupelo and is dated two days earlier. A medical doctor, Joe Bailey, is paying tribute to the M.D. who influenced his life. It’s an incredible story.

Robert Lipsyte writes, Whenever disaster strikes–from illness in the family to carnage on the evening news–I call my dad. In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was murdered, I called Dad to make sure he was OK. After all, the old man was pushing 60. I called him after 9/11 to make sure I was OK. After all, I was in my 60s. Being a frequent subway rider in New York, I even called him after the recent train bombings in Madrid, which killed 190 people. I knew he would calm me down. After all, he’s pushing 100.

Pushing 100. Lipsyte’s article, now over 6 years old, says the Census Bureau tells us this country can point to more than 50,000 citizens of that age or better. “The so-called oldest old (over 85) are the fastest growing segment of the population. If we’re lucky, the rest of us will become them.”

And then Joe Bailey’s tribute to his mentor, Dr. H. O. Leonard.

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Someone has said that good music is music which is written better than it can be sung (or played).

I’m on a “Turandot” kick right now. I’ve loved this Puccini opera for two decades after discovering how different it is from all the others, but without knowing why. I’m not a musician or a singer to speak of. I just swoon at certain kinds of music, however, and this is one of them.

What was puzzling me for years was why Turandot was never as well known as Puccini’s other more popular operas (La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly). Why fewer people had even heard of it. And today I found out why.

The liner notes on a CD of highlights from this opera explains that the soprano who sang the part of Princess Turandot was required to do things most singers cannot do. Here is critic Benjamin Folkman:

As late as the 1950s, facing two significant barriers, Turandot was a relative rarity in opera houses. First, it’s spicy harmonies was too modern for opera-devotees’ tastes. Second, the opera was (and is) too difficult to cast. Sopranos who would jump at the change to star in Puccini’s other operas all turned down the role of Princess Turandot. It requires a special type of voice. A Turandot must bring a supreme soprano’s tonal weight and thrust to a sort of unrelieved high-register writing normally comfortable only for piping soubrettes.

That’s what he said. I looked up “soubrettes.” It implies flightly, thin high-pitched voices.

What then made Turandot so popular today? After all, people today love it.

Folkman: The legendary laser-voiced Turandot with which Birgit Nilsson thrilled a whole generation of opera lovers. Also, Luciano Pavarotti brought Nessun Dorma into households and made it a favorite.

In other words, for over 30 years after his death, Puccini’s opera sat there waiting for the right singers. When they came and when they showed what could be done with that music, nothing has been the same since.

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My favorite kind of reading is that which lingers with me a day later and won’t let me go. It keeps nudging and prodding me, bobbing to the surface of my thinking, insisting that it needs to be thought through and applied and maybe passed along.

I shall now pass along several.

First, two from the op-ed page of Saturday’s Times-Picayune. Then, a moving story from the Madeleine L’Engle novel I’m reading, and a fascinating little story from the latest New Yorker magazine about how we elect our leaders. All are worth a few minutes of your time, I’m thinking.

“Creative Expression is a Lifesaver” is the title of Cecile Tebo’s colum. She’s listed as the NOPD’s Crisis Unit administrator.

Cecile tells about her post-Katrina depression. Her house had been flooded and ruined, her children placed with relatives around the country, she was living with a friend in New Orleans, and trying to hold down her job at her crisis unit. When a close friend ended his life, she about lost hers.

“For days I tossed and turned in bed unable to lift the veil that had descended upon my soul. ON the fifth night the unimaginable happened: I wrote.”

For some, that would have been no big deal. But for Cecile, she was facing her greatest fear. Writing had been a huge chore going back to childhood. But now, the thought occurred to her, she needed to write down what she was feeling.

“As I lay in bed watching sun rises and sun sets, I knew that I had something to say. I could feel it burning inside. My head was filled with thoughts–anger, sadness, disbelief, grief, confusion, fear. I felt that thes were thoughts that other people needed to hear, but I had no means to share except one way: to write.”

She turned on the computer and wrote for two hours. She sent it out to her friends, and a miracle happened. Next day the Times-Picayune and CNN both called, asking if they could use her letter.

And that started it. Since then, she has written more than 30 articles, with 15 being published.

Some of our readers will remember Rudy and Rose French, who came to New Orleans from Canada after Katrina and made such a difference here. When they left, a couple of years back, I suggested Rudy write a journal on their experiences. That writing turned into a book, “You Can Learn A Lot from a Hurricane.”

Many times when a pastor is terminated or goes through some other kind of trauma in the ministry, I will suggest he get a blank book and take 30 minutes each night and write his thoughts. To me, hand-writing is better than using a computer, but whatever works for you.

It could be a lifesaver.

Second article on the op-ed page is from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker about Shirley Sherrod, the woman unjustly fired from the USDA last week due to a misrepresentation of a speech she had made.

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These days, the leadership of our Southern Baptist churches in metro New Orleans assemble on alternate months for our “Executive Committee” meeting. Under the leadership of Executive Director Duane McDaniel, we met Wednesday morning, July 21. Here are my notes from the gathering.

Those interested in where New Orleans is spiritually and/or where the Baptist work is locally will not get all your questions answered, but will find this of considerable interest, I think.

(At the conclusion, read my interviews with Pastors Dennis Watson and David Crosby.)

Pastor Eddie Painter (Barataria Baptist Church in the town of Jean Lafitte, LA) reported on his church’s involvement in cleaning up the recent disastrous oil spill. Presently 105 people are being trained for cleanup in his church. Some of them, Eddie is teaching to read. He said, “Guess what will be the first thing they will be reading!” Everyone laughed. No one answered. We knew he was referring to the Bible.

Eddie said, “For our July 4 outreach, we scheduled a barbecue for the community. The mayor asked if we could move it to Town Hall, a block down the street. Hundreds came. We gave away 4 cases of Bibles that afternoon. And when we had our VBS parents’ night, it was standing room only.”

“Agencies are serving 2500 meals a day out of Barataria Baptist Church. Some 200 are given to us to take directly into the community.”

Eddie concluded, “Want to see what Barataria Baptist Church looks like these days? Kick over an ant hill. That’s us.”

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In 1939, American journalist Virginia Cowles went to Russia. Two years later, she wrote about what she saw in “Looking For Trouble.” (Readers of this website know that one of my favorite things is to find old books with fascinating first-person accounts of life during the Second World War. This one is as good as they come.)

After a few days of trying in vain to get Russians to talk with her, Cowles found out why they were afraid. Stalin had just killed untold millions of his own people for what he called anti-Communistic actions. Some of those actions were nothing more than studying a foreign language or befriending a foreigner. Consequently, people were afraid to speak to any stranger.

Cowles then gives us her analysis of life in that sad country:

The chief distinction between man and animal is the critical faculty of the human mind. In the Soviet Union–just as in Germany–the critical faculty was carefully exterminated, so that the mass might sweat out their existence as uncomplainingly as oxen, obedient to the tyranny of the day. Truth was a lost word. Minds were doped with distorted information until they became so sluggish they had not even the power to protest against their miserable conditions. The ‘Pravda’ never tired of revealing to its readers the iniquities of the outside world, always pointing (out) how blessed were the people of the Soviet Union.

This is precisely how religous cults operate. They cannot stand for their people to think for themselves, have independent opinions, or ask troublesome questions. Dissension is treated as rebellion and rebellion gets you ousted.

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All my life, I’ve had a low threshold for boredom. I don’t like being bored (which explains why I don’t do a lot of things) and I don’t like boring people–if I know it and can help it! And that explains a lot of my preaching, I suppose.

The Lord has wonderfully blessed my life with such variety that it prevents me from being stuck in a rut. My days are never the same and endlessly full of joy.

Take this week, for instance….

Sunday, I took a friend to church with me. He’s a new believer, even though he’s only a few years younger than me. I’m more or less introducing him to various churches. We talk about what to expect before we get there, I whisper to him a few times in the service (“That’s the visitor’s attendance slip; fill it out if you want to, but you don’t have to”), and I introduce him to people. When the pastor baptized last Sunday, I leaned over and remarked that “this is how we baptize, although every pastor does it pretty much his own way.”

We stood in the parking lot after church and talked about the sermon. The pastor had spoken on having a heart for God. My friend said it had really spoken to him. I said, “You know you can come back here any time you wish. You don’t need me with you.” He laughed. “Joe, going to church with you is like attending a baseball game with George Steinbrenner. You know everyone.”

I’ve smiled at that ever since.

Two days later, Steinbrenner made the front pages of the nation’s papers. A heart attack took him at the age of 80. People were falling all over themselves to praise him. Which is all right, of course. There’s little to be gained from saying that in addition to all those great things he did, Steinbrenner was brutal on those who worked for him.

One fellow said Steinbrenner fired him one night. “The secretary called me later and told me I was not fired, to come to work the next day. I came in at 9 o’clock instead of 8. George saw me and said, ‘This office starts work at 8 o’clock. Come in late again and you’re fired.'” Johnny One-note. It seems the only way he knew to motivate people was to threaten to terminate them. That’s sad, if you ask me.

That was Sunday. Then, on Monday….

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The hottest book in town these days is not about vampires or witchcraft in an English boarding school. It’s a testimony of a Christian man who has the full attention of the football world at the moment.

The title of Saints quarterback Drew Brees’ just-off-the-press book is “Coming Back Stronger: Unleashing the hidden power of adversity.” (His co-author is well-known Christian author and speaker Chris Fabry.)

All this morning, Drew Brees signed books at the local Barnes & Noble store. When someone asked me Friday if I intended to join the crowd for an autograph, I laughed at the idea.

This morning’s Times-Picayune says people started lining up last night at 4 pm to be first in line this morning at 9. The man has achieved rock star status, it would seem.

The title “Coming Back Stronger” carries a dual meaning. Primarily it refers to his near-career-ending surgery after the 2005 football season and his comeback to win the Super Bowl on February 7 of this year. But almost as strongly, it refers to the city of New Orleans which has come back (and is still returning) from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Odd that in the same week we have books hitting the stands from Coach Sean Payton (“Home Team”) and from Brees, his star quarterback.

If Payton’s book made us laugh and want to stand up and cheer, Brees’ book touches our hearts and strengthens our faith. Oddly, Brees’ book has more of the inside football dope on what plays were run and how they are called than the coach’s book does. But mostly, Brees writes about his love for the Lord and how God uses adversity in our lives to make us stronger and better and more effective.

Drew Brees is one of those natural athletes who even from childhood was the first one chosen for any team he played on–softball, baseball, basketball, volleyball, soccer. As a senior in high school, he led his team to the first state championship in their history. At Purdue University, he took the team to the Rose Bowl. In the pros, he was the Super Bowl MVP and star quarterback of the champion New Orleans Saints. A winner.

It’s all come easily for him, right? Ha. Not even close. The story of Drew Brees is one of adversity after adversity. Setbacks, disappointments, betrayals. And each time, getting back up and getting into the game and learning from what just happened.

Here is a short list.

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This July 4th weekend, I’m burdened for America. We are so divided by every issue.

At no time since I’ve been on earth–and I arrived in the Spring of 1940–was this country more divided than the decade of the 1960s. Americans were trying to figure out what to do in Vietnam, racial marches and sit-ins took over the front pages of big-city newspapers, two prominent leaders were assassinated (Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy), Communism was on the march internationally, and no one could agree on anything.

On October 22, 1968, during the presidential campaign, Richard Nixon and his entourage traveled through the little town of Deshler, Ohio. Sign-bearing crowds lined the streets. In the mob, 13-year-old Vickie Lynn Cole was holding a sign which made her famous, if only for a few days.

“Bring Us Together,” her sign read.

After he was elected, Nixon mentioned the message of that sign, adopted it as his administration’s theme, and invited Vickie and her family to the inauguration. (Thereafter, she faded into obscurity. Wikipedia says she’s now a school principal in Ohio. When interviewed, she said she had dropped the sign she originally held, then picked one up off the ground. She had no idea what the sign said and tossed it away after the rally. So much for Vickie Lynn’s politics!)

I’ll leave you to decide how well Mr. Nixon did in bringing the country together.

My point here is that division is the order of our day in this country. We are torn asunder by every issue you can name—from immigration to drilling for oil to the Gulf disaster to what to do about the economy. We are divided over the national debt, bailouts for companies that get in trouble, and healthcare. We are splintered over the role of the Constitution and the Supreme Court, over the role of religion in American life and whether to have a Day of Prayer.

We are at odds over a hundred major matters and 10,000 little issues.

It would be funny if it were not so sad. After 8 years of the Bush administration, one year into the Obama White House, all a lot of people can suggest is: Vote Republican. I want to respond, “Hey, friend, they don’t have the answer either! Remember–we have just spent 8 years there!”

Neither group has a clue. Our nation is lost. “Dear God, come find us.”

The Prophet Jeremiah said of his day and perfectly described our own as well: “It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.”(Jer.10:23).

I posted a note on Facebook Friday night that is drawing a fair amount of comment. It begins: “Excuse the French.”

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No one is more surprised than I am to find I’m now 70 years old. I reached that lofty plateau last March 28 and am still getting adjusted to the thought. Not sure if I will ever quite adjust to the fact that the old fellow staring back at me from the mirror is myself.

People often take pictures of me when I’m preaching or drawing, but it’s a rare photograph I want to look at twice. They just don’t look like me!

I’m still the 15-year-old I was in 1955 when life began to get more interesting. (That’s when I discovered girls and cars and adult work on the farm!)

Age 70. That’s 7 years more than Martin Luther lived. It’s 39 more than David Brainerd was given and 13 more than Jonathan Edwards.

You’d think I would have accomplished more than I have, given all that extra time. To my everlasting shame, I haven’t.

Looking back a few years, I know now that I fully expected some things to be true at this age than are the case.

–I would have thought I’d feel more like an adult than I do, and less like a teen. No one told me how septuagenarians are supposed to feel, but I’m betting it’s not like this.

–That I would be able to look back on 7 decades, including 48 years in the ministry, with a greater sense of accomplishment than I do.

–If you had asked me years ago, I would have told you that by now I should fully expect to have under control all my appetites, my strange sense of humor, my delight in a new car or new clothes, and my preference for a good novel over a book on Christian theology. But I don’t, not nearly enough.

–To have more inner peace. Mostly, I do have peace. But sometimes when I wake up in the small hours of the morning, the anxieties are raging for no reason that I can think of. Everything inside me says, “It shouldn’t be this way.”

I would have expected to be an adult by now. To be mature, settled, satisfied, and Christlike. Instead, I’m not even close…

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My friend Walt Grayson started this.

Walt is a character if Mississippi ever had one. Living in the Jackson area, he does features on people and places all over the Magnolia State for a television station. He writes books on the people he has met, places he has found, pictures he has taken. (Find his impressive work on amazon.com.)

I was the Grayson family’s pastor in my first church following seminary, in Greenville, Mississippi, in the late 1960s. Walt was a teenager, his father was a deacon, and his mom a mainstay in the church. Precious people.

“Joe,” Walt messaged me last night, “you need to get to know Gordon Cotton, retired curator of the Old Capitol Museum, Vicksburg.”

Walt knows of my interest in Civil War stuff. I had just told of my son Neil giving me “Seen the Glory” by Hough, a novel on Gettysburg.

The Old Capitol Museum is in Jackson, so I assume he means Mr. Cotton has retired to Vicksburg. Which is not a bad place for anyone interested in the War Between the States to dwell.

“You remember Daniel Pearl? Reporter for the Wall Street Journal who was killed in Pakistan following 9/11.” I do indeed.

“Pearl was researching something and he and Gordon spent a lot of time talking on the phone. They talked about everything, not just history. Including religion. And one day, Daniel Pearl told Gordon he did not believe in hell.”

“Gordon Cotton said, ‘If you don’t believe in hell, then where is Sherman?'”

Walt said, “That became the headline for Pearl’s article in the Wall Street Journal the next day.”

That is a reference to General William Tecumseh Sherman whose “March to the Sea” helped to bring the war to a close by killing untold numbers of southerners. When he said, “War is hell,” Sherman spoke as a practitioner of the art.

If there is no hell, then Sherman got off scot-free, seems to be Cotton’s point. Debatable, I suppose, since it was war-time and God alone can sort out who is responsible for what during those times of mass killings and pandemic cruelties.

If there is no hell, then a lot of people have worked the system.

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