“Thus the debates were scheduled. The verbal flint was at the ready. Lincoln and Douglas were about to set words on fire.” (from “A Companion to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates” by John Splaine and quoted in Brian Lamb’s “Lincoln.” Page 47.)

Words on fire. Sounds like Jeremiah 20:9, doesn’t it. And Luke 24:32. And you, pastor, when you stand in the pulpit with Heaven’s message for God’s children.

“Do you read yourself to sleep?” they asked President Harry Truman. “No,” he said. “I read myself awake.”

Novelist Rex Stout’s mother did not want her reading interrupted. She kept a bowl of cold water and a washcloth beside her chair. Any child who interrupted her reading got his face washed.

Ben Franklin said the person most to be pitied is the lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read.

Writer Elmore Leonard was asked how he managed to keep the action moving in his stories so well. He said, “I leave out the parts people skip.”

It’s always fascinating to watch people struggle to find the balance between liberty and responsibility….

During the Summer Olympics, we heard repeatedly that because of his lifelong focus on swimming, Michael Phelps had missed many of the experiences and teaching moments of other young people his age. Well, he’s just gotten one. Being photographed smoking pot last week has cost him one of his sponsorships, perhaps worth millions. Did he have the freedom to smoke pot? Yep, so long as he was willing to pay the price.

I’m betting he never thought that puff or two came with such a heavy price tag.

A news report the other day told of a fellow at a Valparaiso, Indiana, basketball game who came out of the stands and attacked a referee whose calls he took issue with. He grabbed hold of the whistle chain around the ref’s neck and began choking. What he did not know was that the referee was a highway patrolman who called high school basketball games in his spare time. As they led the guy away in handcuffs, he could be heard to yell, “Hey, no fair! No fair!”

Can you say, “Idiot”?

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports today, Friday, February 6, 2009, that a semi-famous comedian (whom I’ve never heard of) has just been disinvited to be a celebrity on a float in an upcoming Mardi Gras parade. Krewe members learned in the last 24 hours that after Hurricane Katrina, that comedian said a lot of unflattering things about New Orleans and its citizens. In announcing the decision, the krewe chief said, “We’re cancelling him for his own protection.” Funny way of putting it.

To my knowledge there is no money involved in a celebrity riding a float, just the honor associated with it. But people seem to want to do it. Go figure.

Speaking of “real” celebrities, the kind making a difference….

Beth Moore is coming to New Orleans again. April 3 and 4, a Friday night and Saturday morning, she will speak at the New Orleans Arena, the venue next door to the Louisiana Superdome. Called “Living Proof Live,” this event is being sponsored by Lifeway, the SBC publisher in Nashville. The cost for tickets is 60 dollars. (Hey, that’s an expensive building to rent!) Amy Cato of Lifeway is the contact person there if you want more information. Her email is amy.cato@lifeway.com. I’m told the only way to purchase tickets is by email www.lifeway.com/women.

Some of our ladies have decided to raise money to help women subsidize that 60 dollars cost by having a — you ready for this now? — “GiggleFest” on March 20 in the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans (5290 Canal Boulevard). The cost at the door is 10 dollars. Not sure what all is going on there except that everyone’s favorite funny-lady Kathy Frady is doing a takeoff on Beth Moore, one she calls “Beth Moreso.” I may slip in. Kathy is a scream.

A couple of notes from last Friday’s memorial service for longtime Pastor G. Avery Lee, held at St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church. “Another regrettable thing about death is the ceasing of your own brand of magic.” (I like that. It’s from some poet.) “The death of a parent dislodges things deep inside us.”

They said “Living in the Meantime” is Dr. Lee’s book which tells his personal story. Available from online used book sources, I’m sure.

Recently, when son Neil and I went to see “Frost/Nixon,” the movie about David Frost’s interviews with former President Richard Nixon in the late 1970s, as we left the theater, we discussed which of director Ron Howard’s family members we had recognized. His brother Clint was some kind of official go-fer. Neil said, “And his father Rance was in it. He was the photographer named Ollie.”

I said, “Ollie? Ollie Atkins!” Neil said, “You say that like you knew him.” I said, “Pop did.”

In the late 1940s Ollie Atkins (maybe it was Adkins) was a photographer for the Saturday Evening Post and came into the coal mines near Beckley,West Virginia, to take photos for a series the Post was running called “The Bloody Cost of Coal.” The story highlighted the hazardous occupation of coal-mining and the need for greater safety. One photo took up half a page and showed two miners on their knees in a cramped place, digging coal. My dad, Carl McKeever, was the one on the left. (Not that you could tell it due to their blackened faces, and no names accompanied the photos.)

Mr. Atkins had given Dad a copy of the photo which he framed and displayed in the living room of our home until it burned early in 1954. Ollie Atkins went on to become Nixon’s White House photographer, which is how he came to be played by Rance Howard in the movie.

The “rest of that story,” as they say, is this. Sometime in the mid-1990s our ministerial staff at FBC Kenner located a copy of that issue of the Saturday Evening Post (I’m never sure of the date, sometime early in 1949, I think) with the story and the photo, and presented it as a surprise gift for me. There it was, that beautiful photograph of my dad, then 36 years old. I called a reporter at our local newspaper, the Jasper, Alabama “Daily Mountain Eagle,” and he met us at the farmhouse when I handed it to Dad. You should have seen his face. It was like rediscovering an old friend after a long absence.

The reporter turned this little story into a front-page article for his newspaper. There in the center of the front page was a full-color picture of my terrific dad, then in his 80s, holding that prized issue of the Saturday Evening Post.

Later, Pop took the pertinent pages out of that magazine and had them framed. They still hang on the wall of his bedroom, just above his favorite chair, although he is no longer there.

You can tell I take pleasure in telling that little story. I am glad to report to you that in the last quarter century of our parents’ lives, my five siblings (and to a lesser extent, I) turned honoring them into a career. (Thankfully, Mom is still with us, pushing 93 now. Every night of her life, one of the men in the family — a son, son-in-law, or grandson — stays with her. Every day at noon, daughter Patricia prepares lunch for her and any family members around. Several times a week, daughter Carolyn brings groceries and supplies she has bought. We often think of the line from Proverbs 31:28, “Her children rise up and call her blessed….”)

MY PREACHING/SPEAKING SCHEDULE

February 15, both morning services at the First Baptist Church of Moss Bluff, Louisiana where Shawn Thomas is pastor. This is a suburb of Lake Charles, LA.

March 14, Saturday, a deacon-training session for the New Testament First Baptist Church of Harvey, LA, from 8:30 to 10:30.

April 22-25, the National Assn of Southern Baptist Secretaries at Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, NC.

Monday, April 27, the Spring meeting of the Baptist Assn of Greater New Orleans — which will be my official retirement.

May 3-6, revival at North Greenwood Baptist Church, Greenwood, MS. Jim Phillips is pastor.

June 21-24, Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, Kentucky

June 26-26, Children’s camp (for FBC Double Springs, AL) at Camp ToKnowHim near Pisgah, AL.

A friend from Jackson, Mississippi, asked yesterday what my calendar looks like for later in the year (concerning speaking in his church). I laughed, “It is mostly blank spaces!” Of course, the plan after retiring is to work on getting three books finished and published, so that will be my main occupation for most of the rest of 2009, but I’m still hoping to stay busy speaking and teaching on the weekends.