The “Extreme Makeover” television people are in town, rebuilding a couple of homes and one of our Southern Baptist churches, Pastor Willie Walker’s Noah’s Ark Baptist Church. A call has gone out for volunteers of all types to come and help.

Willie told me the plan is to work around the clock rebuilding his church until they finish. I said, “What about the neighbors?” He said, “They bought them off.”

Karen Willoughby of our Baptist Message (state paper for Louisiana Baptists) arrived in town today to cover this event.

I’ll not belabor this, but the headline in Tuesday’s paper, upper center of the front page, reads: “New corps maps show that when the levee system is completed in 2011 the area should stay largely dry in a major hurricane–if drainage pumps work.” Underneath a huge headline reads: “The best news yet.”

The talk shows all Tuesday afternoon (on my drive back from Laurel) focused on New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, in bad trouble for consorting with prostitutes and creating a contorted money laundering scheme to camouflage where the cash was going. As I get it, Spitzer’s “crimes” were not the actual adulterous acts, but violating the Mann Act (transporting a woman across a state line for immoral purposes; the government gets this authority from the part of the constitution giving it control over interstate commerce; really, no joke) and using fake companies to launder the money (which violates something with the IRS I think).

Clearly, his problems are vastly different and much more involved than those of our Senator David Vitter who was revealed last year to have been a client of brothels here and in Washington, D.C. As far as is known at the moment, Vitter’s main problems involved the moral aspect. Spitzer’s, on the other hand, involved violations of federal law.

Two comments on that. One, as the N.Y. attorney-general, Spitzer has been one hard-nosed dude in prosecuting criminals and harassing those he suspected of criminal acts. From all reports, this man had no mercy on anyone. He was ruthless in the way he treated lawbreakers. And now, guess what? He wants mercy. We’re told he’s trying to cut a deal: I’ll resign from the governor’s office if you won’t prosecute me. Don’t expect that to happen. He has made so many enemies along the way, they’ll be lining up to throw dirt on his political grave.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” That’s from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, and it’s true, thank the Lord. However, so is its opposite: the merciless shall not receive mercy. Sorry, Eliot. Am I the only one who is reminded of our Lord’s parable of the forgiven man turning hard-hearted toward one who owes him a pittance (Matthew 18)?

Two, a columnist in New York State urging Spitzer to resign was asked why Louisiana did not demand that Vitter resign? He said something to the effect that New York had higher standards than Louisiana. That remark–and this is not an exact quote, but definitely was the point–was played and replayed on the local news throughout the day. Ugly. Also missing the point entirely.

Governor Bobby Jindal is something else. Hot off the successful special session of the state legislature to reform the state’s ethics laws, he has turned right around and called the lawmakers back to Baton Rouge. This time, they are being asked to rewrite a number of tax laws and give the citizens some relief. Among other things, he’s proposing tax credits for people who send their kids to private schools and for everyone who has to buy school uniforms for their children. He’s also got a bill exempting from state taxation the money the federal government is sending to everyone this Spring to jump-start the economy.

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I saw two widows, both lovely ladies whose husbands I helped to bury just a year ago. Neither has any children or a lot of family, and both are just now putting their houses on the market. One is still deep in her grief and we talked about where she could find a good counselor.

The other has a full-time job at a local hospital. As we talked, a lady in the church handed her a grocery bag filled with outdated Sunday School literature. She saw me taking that in and said, “I put this out in the nurses’ lounge at our hospital. And would you believe–they read it and take it. Before long, it all disappears.” What a great ministry, and so simple.

“I’m 85 years old,” a friend said. She’s the wife of a deacon and for many years served the church as wedding coordinator. “And guess what–for the second year in a row, I won first place in the Special Olympics. My area was table tennis.” I was stunned. I mean, think of the dexterity, the quick reactions, and the keen focus that game demands. And at her age.

She continued, “Of the people I beat, the oldest was 72.” She smiled and said, “My goal is to win the gold when I’m 90. Would you pray for me about that?” I promised her I would.

Interim Pastor Mark brought up to the pulpit Mary, who is serving on the church’s pastor search committee. He paid tribute to this terrific woman and her family, then led us all in prayer for her and for the work of the committee. There is no more important assignment anywhere than being charged with the responsibility of finding the next pastor of a church.

Is it possible to take a well-known Scripture and find new insights in it? Mark Tolbert answered that in a clear affirmative Sunday. The text was Acts chapter 10, the story of the Italian centurion Cornelius and how God broke through the Apostle Peter’s preconceptions to be able to minister to Gentiles.

The three points of his message were: 1) Salvation is needed by all. Cornelius is a poster-boy for a good man–militarily he was the best of the best, personally, he was devout, God-fearing, generous, and prayerful–whose goodness was inadequate for salvation. He still needed to be saved, so the chapter tells what God did to bring him into the kingdom.

2) Salvation should be offered to all. And 3) Salvation is available to all.

Mark had a number of wonderful insights in his message. I marked up the margins of my Bible with a fine-point pen. Here are three of them….

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“Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue….'” (II Samuel 23:1-2 KJV)

That’s an interesting three-fold description of this greatest of all Israeli kings. All three are fascinating, but none moreso than “the sweet psalmist of Israel.” The “sweet” song-writer who gave us so many wonderful psalms, many of the 150 in our Old Testament book of Psalms. There is no doubt that some of the songs penned by this man are still being sung every day somewhere on this planet, and have been for most of the 3,000 years since he walked this land.

It’s worth noting that the writer of this line from II Samuel did not refer to David as the writer of the sweet songs, but the sweet songwriter for the nation. (Modern translations say “favorite.”) There was a sweetness in his soul, and had to have been, in order for him to have said some of the blessed things he did.

For a long time I carried an image in my mind of the teenage David keeping his father’s sheep on a green hillside, strumming his lyre, and composing, say, what would become the 23rd Psalm. But I don’t think that’s how it happened. The young David could not have composed such songs as this, as well as the 40th, 46th, and 91st psalms. And I’ll tell you why.

He had not lived enough, sinned enough, suffered enough, and been forgiven enough to know the incredible depths of God’s love, the infinite extent of His mercy, the healing balm of His tenderness, and the satisfying comfort of His faithfulness.

The Apostle Paul put it like this: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” (Romans 5:20) That set off a howling among his detractors. The very idea of implying that the more one sins, the more of God’s favor he receives. No wonder they bitterly retaliated, “Well, let us continue in sin that grace may really, really be showered upon us!” (Romans 6:1) They weren’t serious, but were simply taking his argument to what they saw as its logical conclusion.

You’re missing the point, Paul responded. In order to fully appreciate the forgiving, merciful side of our Lord, one has to have deserved His censure, earned His judgment, and justified His wrath, and then instead of receiving these, to have been shown only His kindness.

Only penitent sinners see this side of His nature.

And only “big” penitent sinners see the greatness of His grace, the scope of His mercy, and the bottomless supply of His lovingkindness.

Never fear, friend. You have sinned quite enough to qualify. No need to return to what Scripture calls “the flesh-pots of Egypt” (Exodus 16:3).

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The letters column on the editorial page of our newspaper regularly features gripes and complaints from redlight runners who got caught on candid camera.

What happened was that our leaders have contracted with a company that installs these high speed cameras at selected intersections around town, and they’ve been nabbing quite a few impatient drivers speeding through intersections after the light had turned crimson. Some of them are real unhappy about it, too.

What gets me is they complain about their constitutional rights being violated. Invasion of privacy, they call it, which is rather ridiculous. Hey friend, you’re on the street; nothing is private here. You are driving under the control of traffic laws with a state-issued license; your rights do not apply here. You gave them up when you pulled out of the driveway.

You have to wonder why some people think they have a right to run a traffic light.

Ron Mehl is a pastor in Portland, Oregon. In his outstanding book “The Ten(der) Commandments,” he tells a story you will enjoy.

Golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez was traveling with a friend who noticed that he was driving much too fast. As they approached an intersection, Chi Chi sped right through the red light.

The friend said, “Chi Chi! Man, what are you doing? You ran that red light!”

Rodriguez said, “My brother taught me to drive, and my brother never stops at red lights, so I don’t stop at red lights.”

A couple of blocks later, the light was red and again, they drove through the intersection at a high rate of speed. The rider said, “Chi Chi! You’re going to get us killed! What are you doing!”

Chi Chi said, “My brother taught me to drive and my brother doesn’t stop for red lights, so I don’t stop for red lights.”

A few blocks down the street, they came to an intersection where the light was green. This time, Chi Chi put on the brakes and came to a stop. “Now what are you doing?” said the friend. “The light is green.”

Chi Chi said, “I know it. But my brother might be coming.”

Your brother is always coming, friend. Slow down and let him go on living.

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We throw those terms around so much, you’d think one was godly and the other evil. Which is which depends on where you stand and what you believe.

We may have found the perfect litmus test to determine which you are.

This week, police in a community just west of New Orleans arrested a woman for killing her newborn baby. She had hid her pregnancy from the family and her boyfriend, given birth by herself, and then–sorry, but this is what happened–buried the just-born baby in the backyard. Wait, it gets worse, if you can believe it.

It appeared she had pulled it off without anyone being the wiser until the family dog dug up the remains in the backyard and–again, sorry–began chewing on the body. The boyfriend found the dog and what was left of the child and, clueless concerning the facts of the situation, called the police.

The police came out, studied the situation, and arrested the woman. They charged her with two crimes: murder of her baby (she said she thought it was dead when it was born) and cruelty to her dog. The animal, it turns out, was malnourished and that’s why he was digging up and eating the poorly buried body.

Sordid tale, I grant you, and I apologize for even telling it. However, we needed to tell the story in order to pose a question.

“Which charge concerns you more–killing the baby or neglecting the dog?”

Your answer tells volumes about you.

If ending the life of the child concerns you more, you are a conservative. If neglecting to feed and care for the dog bothers you more, you are a liberal.

Diane Sawyer once spoke to the chamber of commerce’s annual banquet in the city where we were living. She gave us a memorable distinction between liberals and conservatives.

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Saturday, Northrop-Grumman’s New Orleans Shipyards dedicated the “New York,” the one billion dollar amphibious transport ship that will belong to the Marines. The front of the ship, the bow, the section that parts the waters and leads the way, is made up of 65 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center. A number of New Yorkers were on hand Saturday for the dedication.

My son Neil who works for Northrop-Grumman in Human Resources was assigned to one of the buses moving dignitaries around the area. He stood at the front, held a mike, and gave explanations and answered questions for the guests. Later, when asked if he had seen any celebrities, he said, “Charlie Daniels.”

I love the “in your face-ness” of this gesture, taking steel from the twisted girders of the collapsed skyscrapers and recycling them into a mighty vessel that will defend this nation against the Osama bin-Ladens of this world. I applaud whoever first thought of doing this, and doff my hat to everyone responsible for pulling this off.

In the crest–not sure what they call those things–on the side of the ship, its motto clearly proclaims: “Never Forget.”

Godspeed, New York, and all who go with you.

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep…. He bringeth them into their desired haven.” (Psalm 107:23-24,30)

This business of taking the ruins of life’s failures/disasters and recycling them into mighty forces for good has a long and honorable tradition. In fact, Scripture teaches us that God is always at work in our lives pulling off the same trick, turning our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

“The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” That’s Psalm 118:22 and it’s quoted again and again throughout the New Testament. The various writers of Scripture thought it summed up this divine transaction in a way that was uniquely God-like.

Divine alchemy, we might call it. Taking the mundane and turning it into precious.

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Some four or five years ago, the Sunday “Parade” magazine ran a cover article on the actress Sandra Bullock in which they quoted her with a wonderful line. “What makes you different,” she said in huge letters on the front cover, “makes you beautiful.” I thought it was a maxim for the ages and eagerly devoured the article, only to discover that the writer included the line in the final paragraph of the story and it was never elaborated on. I was disappointed, because it’s one of those lines which, if original with Sandra, surely carries a history.

A couple of times every year, I find myself talking with teenagers about their self-esteem. No segment of our society struggles more with issues of personal acceptance than American teenagers, particularly in their early teen years, and most especially, the girls. Somewhere in the presentation I never fail to drop in that line, assuring them that they should not try to look like everyone else, that “what makes you different makes you beautiful.”

Now comes a movie which uses that line in its advertisements. My wife and I took our eleven-year-old granddaughters Abby and Erin to see “Penelope” Saturday afternoon. Margaret said the girls chose the movie; I was drawn to it by the desire to see what the movie did with this truism which had imbedded itself in my mind ever since Sandra Bullock coined it. Assuming she did.

“Penelope” is the story of a girl born with a pig’s snout and ears, the result, we’re told, of a curse on the family by a witch from a couple of centuries back. Only when the child thus cursed is successfully wed to a blue-blood “for better or for worse, til death do they part,” will the curse be lifted. When the child is born, the parents are mortified and hide her inside their mansion until she is of marriageable age. They are revolted by her appearance and so is every suitor whom they parade by her as a possible mate. We the viewers never quite see what all the excitement is about. She has a wide turned-up nose, but is not the monster they all make her out to be.

Eventually, the curse disappears–not as a result of a wedding, but simply when Penelope quits hiding and says, “I like myself the way I am”–and she becomes “normal,” whatever that means. In this case, it means she gets the nose of actress Christina Ricci who plays her. A child in a class Penelope tells the story to suggests that the moral of the story is that a curse has only the power we grant it. It’s true, but too profound to come from the mouth of a seven-year-old.

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In the weeks and months following Katrina–next August 29 will mark the third anniversary of this hurricane–we all said something like the following to one another around here:

“We’d better do all we can while we still have the nation’s attention. People are notorious for short attention spans. The next major hurricane will draw the focus and resources in that direction, and we’ll be deserted.”

The remarkable thing is that two-and-a-half years later, that still has not happened. First and foremost, no hurricane of any size has hit the U.S. mainland during this period, so no great disaster has supplanted New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to siphon away the focus and resources.

Secondly, our nation’s leaders–many of them at any rate–are determined to make the federal government keep its promises to this region. And thirdly, the churches of America still have us on their hearts and continue to send teams of volunteers this way to rebuild homes, restore communities, and revive dashed hopes.

We’re grateful, make no mistake.

The glamour has gone off by now, however. And that’s not all bad.

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Saturday, March 1, at 9 am, I’m teaching leadership at Suburban Baptist Church in New Orleans.

Sunday, March 2, at 11 am, preaching for “Home Missions Sunday” at Bethel Baptist Church on Prine Road in Citronelle, Alabama.

Tuesday, March 11, 9 am to noon, speaking twice at the Senior Adult Rally at First Baptist Church of Laurel, Mississippi.

Wednesday, March 12, meeting of the board of New Orleans Baptist Missions, which administers the work of the various SBC mission centers in our city.

Friday night/Saturday morning, attending the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary Foundation Board meeting.

Sunday night, March 23 at 6 pm, preaching at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Gordo, Alabama.

Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday mornings (March 24-26) speaking at the Senior Adult Revival for the Baptists of Pickens County, Alabama. (Did not make a note of the name of the church where we’ll be meeting. My host is Dr. Tommy Winders of Carrollton FBC.)

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Tuesday morning, on the interstate heading toward Alexandria, I reached for my glasses to read a line on something and as I was opening them up, the right earpiece broke in two. No stress on it or anything. It was just time, I reckon.

At the Wal-Mart in Opelousas, I bought a pair of reading glasses to get me through the next couple of days, and made a mistake. I chose the cheapest things they had, which turned out to be inadequate. That night, when I got home, I used the reading glasses usually parked beside the computer. I’ve had them several years and they work just fine.

Russell, my deacon friend who runs the optical shop at Ochsners, has ordered another earpiece for my regular glasses, but it’s not in yet.

Then, today, while buying groceries, I glanced at the reading glasses I was holding in my hand, and the right earpiece was missing. While I stood there, the left one fell off. This was not my day.

I drove to Wal-Mart and paid 20 bucks for another pair. That’s why I’m able to see what’s going on the computer screen at this moment.

Walking around without my glasses feels for all the world like I’m missing my pants or shoes. Undressed.

Hurry up, Russell.

“Philanthropist follows his heart, opens his wallet” read the front-page headline in Wednesday’s paper. Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes and Noble, announced Tuesday that he is devoting 20 million dollars from his family’s charitable foundation to erecting 120 homes in the Gentilly neighborhood. The paper says, “Those involved in Project Home Again believe it is the largest philanthropic project launched in New Orleans since the storm.”

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