Here are the opening words of the obituary for Mr. Jamal El Dine Abyad who was buried today, Saturday, in Alexandria, Louisiana from the Cen-La Church of Christ….

“Biblical Plan for Man’s Salvation

Hear God’s Word…Romans 10:17, Mt. 7:24-27

Believe that Jesus is the Christ…Jn 8:24, Mrk 16:15=16, Heb 11:6

Repent of your sins…Acts 2:38, 17:30, Lk 13:3-5

Confess your faith in Christ…Mt 10:32-33, Rom 10:9-10

Be baptized for the remission of sins…Mark 16:15=16, Acts 2:38

Remain Faithful…Rev 2:10, Mt 7:21, Heb 5:8-9”

The article said about Mr. Abyad, age 57, “He wanted only to be recognized and remembered as a humble servant of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

That’s what it said.

You don’t get those kind of obituaries in the city paper. Or almost anywhere else, I suppose. I just thought it was fascinating that the family would do that. I suppose it was Mr. Abyad’s idea.

Bible students will recognize that the last two points of that “plan of salvation” incorporate the understanding of the Church of Christ denomination into the message. Most Christians–certainly the ones I know–say that being baptized and remaining faithful are the results of salvation, not the means to it.

I was in Alexandria Friday and Saturday for the annual writers conference our state denominational paper, the Baptist Message, conducts. The lineup of teachers was outstanding, and included Art Toalston, the editor of the Baptist Press, our national communications office (and a longtime friend; Art used to be religion editor for the Jackson, Mississippi, Daily News and as early as 1980 started running my cartoons on the Saturday religion page; now he runs them at www.bpnews.net), and John Van Diest, the now retired but longtime publisher of great (read: bestselling) Christian books such as “The Prayer of Jabez” and the “Left Behind” series.

I took along the first three chapters of my intended-book on the “Leadership Lessons” we’ve posted on this website, then had a quarter-hour conference with Van Diest while he looked it over and told me what he thought. He thinks I need to aim for a wider audience than just “pastors and church leaders.” I told him I don’t care to water it down, that “this is my group and I intend to write something that will help them.”

“Did I discourage you?” he asked. I said, “Twenty years ago, you might have. But I’ve gone into this figuring I’d end up self-publishing.” He took the partial manuscript along and asked for some samples of my cartoons. I delivered three colored ones to him this morning.

My approach in situations like this is to lower my expectations. Curt Iles, who self-publishes his books and was one of our teachers, showed on the screen a display of some of the rejection slips he has received over the years. Not a pretty sight nor pleasant thought.

One way to keep from being rejected is not to attempt anything, I’m well aware of that. At this point, since I’m exactly one year away from retirement, my plans for that time are to intensify my writing and begin publishing my stuff in a serious way.

Curt Iles showed a photo of him at work writing. He was out in the woods, sitting before a blazing fire, typing away on his laptop. I said, “Who took the picture–a bear?” He said, “I took it myself. Sat the camera down on a stump and ran back to my chair.”

Curt is writing fiction these days and had lots of good pointers on that as well as self-publishing. He reminded us of some of the basic elements of effective writing–avoiding passive verbs, avoiding adverbs altogether, watching out for the overuse of certain words, and using active verbs (in place of variations of the ‘to be’ verb).

The only formal training I’ve had on this kind of writing was a cassette course from Word Books in Waco, over 20 years ago, presented by Floyd Thatcher and Charlie Shedd. It was exactly what I needed at the time, but I confess I’ve forgotten most of that stuff. Today’s little brush-up was good.

Back to the Alexandria newspaper, The Town Talk. On the second page of the religious section, there was an article about a young believer, titled “Faith Journey: A Profile in Worship.” Jordan Price is a vivacious senior at Alexandria High School whose “faith role model” was her great-grandmother, a preacher who started Lakeview Pentecostal Church in Pineville. Jordan says she’s working on “becoming a stronger Christian and working on my relationship with God. She worships at “Calvary Baptist Church with the youth.”

Small town stuff, I suppose, but I like it. Even the Baton Rouge paper, The Advocate, has a bigger religious section than ours. (When I’ve mentioned this to our local editor, he replied that the Times-Picayune covers religion all the time, not just on Saturdays. Well, I suppose.)

Okay, back to the big city now.

Driving across the Mississippi River, you look down and are struck by how much higher the water level stands above the surrounding countryside (or in our case, city streets and neighborhoods). Were it not for the levees, we would all be neck deep and treading water. That’s the good news, that the levees are protecting us.

The bad news is that the same levees guarantee that the rich topsoil from the nation’s heartland will flow right out into the Gulf of Mexico. Before the levees were built, the annual overflow was nature’s way of replenishing the soil in the Delta. But no more. We have boxed the river in and turned it into a pipeline straight into the Gulf. Then we wonder why the water table is dropping around here and the wetlands are disappearing.

Humans. This world would be so much better without any of us.

The travel writer for the Knoxville News-Sentinel said she was standing at Woldenburg Park (the part of the French Quarter that borders the river) recently and heard a tourist say to a friend, “Now, what river is this?”

Folks who follow these things around here say we should be glad that President Bush has appointed Steven Preston as the new head of U. S. Housing & Urban Development because he has “Katrina credentials.” Specifically, he is credited with “breaking a logjam of stalled federal loans after Hurricane Katrina.” Don’t anyone tell him he’ll only hold the job until January.

Friday, some 350 volunteers from the tourism industry of all 50 states converged on the city to clean up Louis Armstrong Park downtown. This park bordering Rampart Street encloses the ancient Congo Square, famous as the only place in New Orleans where slaves could congregation on Sundays. They would don their finest clothes and meet there, socialize, develop romances, have dances, and conduct a little business.

And then on to the big, big city….

Did you see in the news that a homeless man found in a trash can near Ground Zero the top-secret blueprints for the new 102-story “Freedom Center” to be built on that site? The papers gave the details on each floor’s layout, the thickness of the walls, as well as the location of the elevators and support columns.

Is anyone in charge up there, you have to wonder.

One of our speakers this morning–Kathy Howard–brought a Bible study from the Old Testament book of Ezra. She particularly emphasized the passion of this man of God, and suggested we give attention to our zeal for whatever God is calling us to do. Later, Curt Iles showed us a picture of passion. He came upon a wooded area where a fire had swept through and noticed one tree with an unusual fire blazing on one side. “Lightning had struck it previously,” Curt said, “making the sap run down the side of the tree and then dry up.” When the fire raced through, it spared the tree except for the sap. The result was a lovely fire on the side of the tree.

“That’s passion,” Curt said. “A fire in your soul for what God has called you to do.”

All right, Mr. Iles. I went back over this article and changed most of the “to be” verbs to something stronger, eliminated most of the adverbs, and culled some of the “thats” and “whos.”

I hope you’re happy. It would be a lot better if I had some woods and a bonfire where I could write on my laptop. If I had a laptop.