“Those that were gain to me I counted loss….” (Philippians 3:7)

First. 

As a young pastor serving a church in the bayou country, I noticed that pentecostal church down the highway.  I admired their reputation, and their publicity looked attractive.  They were growing while the small church I pastored was struggling.  So I visited their revival service one night.

Once was enough.

The preacher was delivering some shallow, hardly biblical at all, message and was whooping up the excitement to keep the people dancing in the aisles.  When the furor died down, he would step up to the microphone and continue his tirade.  When the people returned to the uproar, he casually walked over to the piano–the player had not slowed down the constant banging at any point–and carried on a conversation.

I quickly had enough of that and never envied that church or its pastor again.

From that moment on, whenever I hear of a church that is blowin’ and goin’, I’m not envious.  “Bless ’em, Lord,” I say and tend to my sheep.

Second.  

I discovered old radio programs.

Several decades ago, I was thrilled when I found a company selling vintage radio programs.  As a child of the 1940’s, I grew up in the golden age of radio.  I was the only one in our family who would sit by the radio drinking in the stories and comedies.  So, in the late 1970s when a company was selling eight-track tapes of those old programs, I ordered several and was in heaven….for a time.

In time, I discovered that Sirius XM has a classic radio station, so I subscribed.  I still listen occasionally, but I’ve long since gotten past 95 percent of the programming.  Most of those early radio shows were dumb, shallow, and pointless and the decades have not improved them.  Very few of the programs from that era hold up today.

Got that out of my system.

Third. 

I discovered Louis L’Amour’s western novels.

It was the mid-1970s and I was beside myself with excitement.  These westerns, I felt, were the real thing. L’Amour’s publisher claimed that he wrote reality.  “If he says there is a creek there, there is a creek there.  If he says there is a mountain there, it exists.”  So, I bought his books.  And so did a few million other people.

I read them all.  My brother Charlie was a coal miner during this time and told me once that he would read two a night down inside the depths of the earth.  I have no idea what Charlie was supposed to be doing down there, but I was impressed by his reading speed.

In the late 1970s I spent two weeks in Singapore drawing an evangelistic comic book for the missionaries.  My missionary hosts were from Oklahoma and their two teenage sons were with them for the summer.  I was interested to find they were reading Louis L’Amour books.  Their parents explained, “Our sons will not know what the West used to be like in the old days.  So, this is the next best thing.”  On returning home, I wrote L’Amour to tell him that and received a long, personally typed letter in reply.  (I’m sure he typed it because it was poorly done!)

Eventually, I read all his novels.  After his death, the company kept turning out his old and recycled stuff.  But none for me, thanks.  In fact, the last few books he had produced in his lifetime were not very good.  And sometime after his death some authority said he was a faker, that he made up locations and had not done half the things his bio claimed.

But I was over him anyway.  Today, when someone tells me about a “new” Louis L’Amour book, I listen and thank them and go on to other things.  I’m over him.

Fourth. 

When I was a freshman in college, a successful businessman addressed our student body.  “You will need a hobby,” he said, then added, “I recommend politics.”  Since I was majoring in history and political science, this made sense to me.  So, for years, I read politics and was addicted to the evening news and knew my share of elected officials.  I collected books on Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Harry Truman and still enjoy them.

I walked the halls of Congress with two friends as we visited lawmakers to get a bill passed which would prevent the IRS from double-taxing our missionaries who were serving in foreign countries. So, I feel like I’ve been there and done that.

But these days, I am so tired of politics and disgusted with most of the people involved.  I keep remembering something Churchill said about truth.  In wartime, truth must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.  But more and more–war or no war, truth or no truth– lying to the American people is just how things are done.  It’s a rare politician who does not lie to his constituents.

Yes, I pray for the President and I vote.  I watch the evening news on television.  (I do miss the daily newspaper, but that’s another story.) And I am concerned about the future of this country.  It is as divided as at any time in my life.  I’ve lost friends–I  hadthought they were–because we do not agree on politics.  For the most part I try to remain silent and to pray.

Things I am not over and will never get over…

I love the Lord Jesus Christ.  I love His church and the people of God.  I love the Bible and am constantly seeing new things in Scriptures I’ve known and loved all my life.

I love my wife Bertha and my family.  I love my children, adore my grandchildren, and am enchanted by my two great-grands.  I can never get enough of them.  So many precious people I love are in Heaven.  My son Marty went to Heaven one year ago and my heart is an open wound.  My wife of 52 years died eleven years ago.  My parents, two brothers, dear friends and…well, you get the idea.

I love to read.  I read a wide variety of books and usually have several going at the same time.  These days there is a crime novel, a history book, two or three political books, some Bible study books, and a bio of a celebrity of my youth.

I love to draw.  I cartoon for several online publications and occasionally illustrate someone’s books. In recent weeks I have spent hours drawing for churches, libraries, schools, and for events of one type or other. Sometimes they pay me, sometimes it’s my gift to them.  I draw for wedding receptions and for museums when asked.  I’ll see some fascinating faces on a friend’s website or Facebook page and will sketch them and post them.  Last Christmas, I spent the entire month sketching families from photos friends sent. I drew several hundred people.

I love getting older.  (I re-read that and smiled.) I’m about to have my 86th birthday.  You will not hear me complaining about getting older.  These days I’m looking after my wife of nine years who has some health challenges. I already knew how to clean house, but now I’m learning to cook (smile please; I grew up on the farm where my two sisters worked with Mom in the kitchen while I was in the fields or pasture with Dad and my brothers, so I never learned to cook).

I hope to never get over my love affair with the life God has given me.  Thank you, Lord.