In the previous article, part two of “Two Things for Pastors,” in which we tried to affirm pastors by saying that “they don’t understand and cannot know what it’s like to be you,” we left the matter there. However, one way the Holy Spirit teaches me is through the things I read. I am frequently amazed at how pertinent the next thing I read turns out to be.

If you recall, we spoke of the lordly women working at the POW centre in Calcutta and one in particular who so misunderstood the patients and were urging them, now that they were out of prison, to return to England and “do your bit for the country.” Eric Lomax, whose story we were relating, was dumbfounded by such profound ignorance. And we said, “They didn’t understand.”

Now I may have found out why.

The next book I picked up for my bedtime reading is a diary of the Second World War years. “To War With Whitaker: The Wartime Diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939-45” gives the story of Hermione Ranfurly whose husband Dan was a British Count and who led an incredibly busy six years while the world tried to self-destruct. She tells of hobnobbing with the likes of Churchill, Eisenhower, and other notables. (Note to Ginger: a British count is at the opposite end of the social spectrum from an Alabama no-count. In case you were wondering.)

Dan Ranfurly was a member of a British fighting group called the Sherwood Rangers. He was captured and held in an Italian prison camp for a couple of years. Lady Ranfurly’s diary gives us snippets from letters he wrote to her from the POW camp. As you read the two samples below, remember what Eric Lomax was being subjected to at the very same moment in a Japanese camp on the other side of the world. The contrast is stunning.

March 1, 1942: “A letter came from Dan:

‘Yesterday was Christmas Day. Luckily I was fairly busy preparing our rather ersatzly celebrations and didn’t have time to think too much. The YMCA has sent us a magnificent lot of games, musical instruments, etc., and two complete badminton sets so I’m hoping (to get some exercise). So many people write to us in all seriousness and say, “How nice for you to see the art galleries in Florence.” Are we indignant! I’ve only seen Florence from the railway station. This is a prison.”

May 26, 1942: “Several letters have arrived from Dan–some only five weeks old. He wrote:

‘Six letters and a photo arrived from you on our wedding anniversary. It’s been too cold to do anything these last few weeks except walk. Our tiny garden has been dug up and planted with vegetables. I saw and chop wood for our fire which is good exercise but I long for spring when we’ll be able to play badminton and deck tennis….It made us laugh that you sent General Carton a parcel because he gets twice as many parcels as anyone else. I am endlesly amused by himm…..He reads a lot and so will enjoy your books.”

Okay, it’s me now.

Musical instruments, games, gardens, letters from home, and a fire to warm by. Such appears to have been the life of a POW in an Italian prison camp, or at least in this case. The Japanese internment facilities where the British captured at Singapore languished had none of these things; the days of their prisoners were filled with torture, labor, misery, hunger, cold or heat, and neglect.

Now, there is always the possibility that Dan Ranfurly’s prison had none of these things–no games or gardens, but plenty of the misery and torture. There is the possibility that he was trying to shield his wife from worrying about him. But it’s not likely. He was, after all, receiving her letters and able to write her. He received the packages and books she sent.

In Eric Lomax’s case, he did not even learn his mother had died and that his father had remarried until he returned to Scotland. So, I think we can rule out that Dan’s letters were fictions.

And so, this clears up our little mystery as to why the British dowagers thought the ex-POWs had had an easy time of things and would surely “be eager to do your bit” for the country.

Some POWs had led precisely that kind of existence.

Information often has a way of clearing up false conceptions, doesn’t it.

I think of a deacon my church was afflicted with some years back. Jack was negative about everything we tried to do there. When I complained, a veteran deacon who had known Jack for years said, “Pastor, don’t worry about him. I served on the city council with him and he was that way there. I once asked him, ‘Jack, tell me one thing you are for’ and he couldn’t give me an answer.”

Nevertheless, I decided to pay Jack a visit and see if I might be able to win him over. His negativism was poisoning the atmosphere in deacons meetings and must not be allowed to continue.

That’s when I made a discovery.

Jack lived in awful pain. He told me about his back problems which were inoperable, or maybe had not been relieved after numerous operations, and how he lived in constant agony.

I never resented Jack again for his negativism. Who knows how we would manage if we lived in chronic pain.

Which brings us to the least likeable of our antagonists, the little delegation which interrupted Pastor Bob’s rest in the back yard to terminate him from the church.

They too have their story. I don’t know what it is and am not sure I want to know. I make no bones about my being on Pastor Bob’s side in that account. But I feel confident that if you could know the heart of each of those church leaders, you would see why he does what he does, whether you agreed with it or not.

A couple of weeks back when we reported on the funeral of New Orleans favorite character Al Copeland, I headed the article “Things the Lord Will Have to Sort Out.”

That’s why only God can judge. There are so many extenuating factors, so many underlying causes known only to the Almighty, so many acts done in secret and seen only by the Lord, that only He can sort them out and give justice.

That suits us just fine.