Friday Afternoon, the movie “Australia”

I don’t usually recommend movies for lots of reasons, and I am not suggesting you get the DVD of this one and play it for your Sunday School class, but it was two and a half hours well-invested, I felt. The scenery was incredible — I’m ready to visit Australia — the history lesson was disturbing, the story was powerful, and the background music was excellent. About the latter, when have you ever heard a movie build the background music around “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze”?

Some 25 years ago, James Allen will remember my returning to Columbus, Mississippi, from the funeral of Barbara Hardy’s father in Ripley, Tennessee, and asking him, “What is this music? Ta-da-da-ta-da-dah etc etc?” And he said, “That’s Johann Sebastian Bach’s ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.'” I thought then and think now, “What an odd name for a classical piece!” And have loved it ever since.

Friday night, Christmas dinner with the Operation NOAH team

David and Wanda Maxwell invited their co-workers and some of their extended friends and supporters to a wonderful sit-down dinner at Zea’s restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. It was excellent in every way — I brought home some of the leftover bread pudding! — but left me feeling oddly frustrated. I mean, I need to be looking for ways to thank these wonderful people for the work they’re doing in rebuilding this city and rescuing the broken lives of our people — and here they are thanking me for the privilege. What are you going to do with folks like this!

Most of the NOAH workers are people from outside the Deep South who put their “other lives” on hold and journeyed here to help us. Most have been here two years or more. We are forever in their debt.

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I used to be a deli worker but couldn’t cut the mustard!

I used to be a musician but wasn’t noteworthy.

I wanted to be an evangelist, but they put me out to pasture.

I tried being a dentist, but hated living hand to mouth.

I looked into working at a hydroelectric plant, but there it was just one dammed thing after another. (Sorry, Mom.)

Being a math teacher looked good, but that had too many problems.

So, I became a pastor where there are no problems and everyone loves everybody else.

“That fish I caught weighed 20 pounds!” “Twenty pounds! Were there any witnesses?” “Of course. Otherwise, it would have weighed 30 pounds.”

After the Marx Brothers came out with their movie “A Night in Casablanca,” Warner Brothers studio threatened to sue them. The title was too much like their movie “Casablanca.” Groucho Marx ended the nonsense by threatening to sue Warner Brothers for plagiarizing the name “Brothers.”

The Statler Brothers singing group (remember them? They were so terrific. Are they still around?) enjoyed telling how they chose their name. They were sitting around a hotel room trying to find a suitable name for a quartet. Someone spotted the box of Statler tissues on a table and suggested Statler would be a classy name. And that’s how it happened. In telling that story, they would always add, “Just think—we could have been the Kleenex Brothers!”

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It would have been almost funny had it not been so serious.

In a session with the leadership of a troubled church, I gave them examples of congregations I’ve seen over nearly a half-century of ministry that dealt with similar divisive situations as they were facing, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

I told of one church where the new pastor was discovered to be a homosexual and was making overtures to a student in the congregation. When the deacon leadership found out, they dealt with it promptly and firmly. All the congregation knew was that the pastor resigned suddenly and was moved back to South Carolina. Because the members supported their leadership, no one left the church. Six months later, I came as pastor of that wonderful church and stayed over a dozen years.

I told of a church where the new pastor’s girlfriend’s father came to town and confronted him. “Tell these people what you’ve been doing or I’ll tell them for you!” The pastor called a quick meeting of the deacons and informed them of this sordid business in his “distant past which the Lord has forgiven.” The deacons had no clue what to do but within days, the congregation began unraveling at the seams. Seven months later, they finally voted that pastor out, but not before half the congregation had departed. A year later, I came as pastor of that damaged church and stayed nearly fourteen years.

One church handled its problem well, the other did not.

Then, a week after our meeting, the chairman of deacons of the church I was trying to help called. “One of our former pastors was talking to some of our members this week. He told them you were the preacher who tore up that church. He said you were the culprit.” Furthermore, he said, that rumor was being circulated throughout the congregation.

I said, “Can you give me that pastor’s phone number?”

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First.

William Perkins, editor of Mississippi Baptist’s weekly “The Baptist Record,” reports in the December 11 issue of a creative Christmas gift that Planned Parenthood has concocted: a gift certificate for an abortion.

“From the folks who gave us ‘Choice on Earth’ Christmas cards last year in a twisted effort to commemorate this country’s modern-day Slaughter of the Innocents that has claimed more than 50 million babies, the Indiana state affiliate of Planned Parenthood is offering gift certificates that can be redeemed for any of their ‘services.'”

The come-on promises that by giving a friend this certificate you will “contribute to their health throughout the year.” They don’t tell how such a gift will contribute to the health of the aborted babies, William notes.

He quotes Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “The word inappropriate hardly describes Planned Parenthood’s scheme. To give someone a gift card from the nation’s largest abortion business is to give death for Christmas.”

She continues, “Planned Parenthood really should call these ‘King Herod’ certificates after the Roman ruler who slaughtered tiny babies in his vain attempt to kill the baby Jesus. Better yet, it should just leave Christmas, a celebration of birth, hope, and life, completely alone.”

Amen, sister. And Brother Perkins.

Second.

We in the New Orleans area have just been treated to the most ghastly display of the flesh, a nightmarish picture of what happens when one’s ego goes unchecked.

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“Whose woods these are I think I know,

His house is in the village though.

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.”

Every time we get a snow of any degree, I pull out my volume of Robert Frost poems and walk into the woods and read that one titled something like “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Even those not familiar with it know the last part…

“…but I have miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”

We woke up granddaughter Leah Peters, our first-born, now 19 years old, down from New Hampshire for a week, and said, “Thank you for bringing the snow!” She sleepily came to the front door and looked out at a world all too familiar to every New Englander, rubbed the nighttime out of her eyes and said, “You’re welcome,” then went back to bed.

The complication for me is that I’m trying to drive north to Jackson, Mississippi today for the memorial service for Dr. Frank Pollard, scheduled for 2 pm at the First Baptist Church. I’ve assured Margaret if the roads get too bad, I’ll turn around. And I’ve given my cell phone number to Mary Glass in Jackson and asked her to let me know if she learns the service has been postponed. I don’t want to miss this opportunity to express my deep appreciation for such a dear brother in Christ.

In the daily call to my nearly 93-year-old mom on the Alabama farm, I was exulting about the snow. She said, “West Virginia ruined you!” We laughed at that.

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