Good Morning Garden

A Spiritual Sojourn

The earliest snapshots were blessings at family meals. The next memories fly past in a blur of heroes, miracles and mysteries. There was a week of creation, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed Nego, Daniel in the lions den, David and Goliath, Lazaraus lives and Jesus walking on water and rising from the dead. How in the world could all this be true? That question has defined this spiritual sojourn. The path traveled seeking its answer has led to this destination and is the story of this faith journey.

The journey started in crisis-born fear with many of its major milestones precipitated by similar circumstances. These moments of fear and loathing were leavened by experiences of intense joy and peace. It would become the ultimate quest driven by unquenchable desire and immutable faith.

Several pivotal events and life choices constitute the major mileposts of the journey. In between were sprinkled millions of thoughts and experiences constituting life as a God-created spirit, living in a material world. One created by the Word that justifies us.

 

Jesus Loved Me

 

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to him belong. They are weak, but he is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me.

The Bible tells me so.

 

The first personal experience of God’s presence was accompanied by a simple beautiful lullaby capturing the core of Christian faith.  That song defined the birth of this faith journey, and likely presupposes its finale as well. It is a sure affirmation of pure faith, drawn from biblical truth. It fixes our nature and status while assuming God’s love and protection. It is where this journey began.

It all started as a little boy barely four years old lay shivering in his bed wracked with fear of some unseen dread creeping in the night. “Surely that monster is going to sneak into this room and eat me alive,” he concluded. Then “inspiration” struck, he would get in bed with his biggest big brother. “If he can’t save me, at least the monster will get full eating him first,” reasoned the skinny snatch of a kid. It was more desperation than inspiration and it did not work. He still could not quit shaking or go to sleep. Then the first true revelation struck him out of the blue. It was neither thought out nor thought up. It just was. “Jesus loves me, this I know,” sang time and again until the shaking ceased and the fear melted into fitful slumber. That little boy awakened at the morn, thrilled to be alive, more than a little guilt-ridden and glad that big brother had not become a midnight snack for some nameless demon. God was indeed great!

The simple act of looking up and saying His name had brought him into God’s presence and delivered him. It worked without knowledge, sophistication, wisdom, clergy or baptism. What that child learned is that “God is an ever present help in trouble”.

 

The First Attempt

 

Now fast forward to the sixth grade where the scared pre-school child had become a tough pre-teen hoodlum with good parents and bad friends. Honest but poor, these former share-cropper parents raised six boys on a shipyard worker’s pay in a cracker box house. With floors one could eat from and beds that regularly witnessed loving and painful discipline administered unsparingly and almost always deservedly. The ethics and priorities learned is this household would define this kid.

His Daddy (affectionately known by all as “The Ole Man”) was a reformed rounder and union organizer who loved John Kennedy and all people of any color. The Ole Man never forgot the poor and dispossessed for whom he fought tirelessly. He had organized the first head start program in the county and faced down the Klan with a sawed off shotgun and zero fear. He survived tuberculosis, built a plumbing company with five shovels and four of the six sons (the oldest of which became the role model and surrogate Father to the rest) and raised the money to begin one of the first “exceptional schools” in Mississippi. He was leather tough, fearless, foul-mouthed, fiercely loyal and legendarily big-hearted. These traits would be entrenched in his sons. His funeral procession, a testament to his impact, snaked two miles from the funeral home to the cemetery, an unbroken line.

His Mama, Fannie Lee was a beautiful bundle of energy who single-handedly kept the family together during Daddy’s wild days, while enduring incredible hardship in the lowest rung of delta poverty. Constituted of an indomitable will, unfailing morals and a tender heart, she simply never quit. Raising a Down’s Syndrome child the doctors had written off, she shared his Daddy’s courage, love of people and politics. She possessed an unshakeable faith born in an Assembly of God brush arbor and set the family example of color blindness. One day she announced at Sunday lunch that everyone was going to begin attending church each Sunday. It hit like a lead balloon, but she had thought it out, made up her mind and that was that. The Ole Man looked deep into her unflinching brown eyes and sighed, “You boys heard your Mama. Next week we start going church.” That was the last thing in the world the kid wanted to hear.

Then a miracle occurred. He actually liked the church thing and for the second time this youngster felt the presence of God. He thirsted for the knowledge, the communion with “good people” who were nice, did not fight, cuss, read Playboy magazines or smoke cigarettes his buddies stole from their parents. These people really cared about him and his spiritual welfare. They baptized him and called him their brother. For three years it was Sunday School, Training Union, Prayer Meeting, Royal Ambassadors and Lottie Moon Festivals. Then the kid just had to start asking impertinent questions in Sunday School about things they taught that bothered him. That didn’t work and the now-saved ex-hoodlum decided to take his own path to find God. He would soon learn that “All things happen for the best good for those who love the Lord.”

 

If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road Will Get You There

 

Then it was high school, more cussing, chasing girls and fraternity life. There was little thought of the spiritual commitment consummated with baptism and soured by the hypocrisy, bigotry and ignorance in his once beloved church. College came roaring in with sex, drugs and rock and roll. During this period the fun-loving college kid would experience an explosion of religious experimentation, mind-altering mystical experiences and the beginnings of true spiritual understanding. There were comparative religious studies of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Atheism, and Transcendental Meditationism. It was love, peace, brotherhood, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and being stoned. It was wonderful, and crazy, and beautiful, and profoundly mystical.

Then suddenly, he was in another crisis-born moment of fear experiencing the presence of God. Once again he was the quaking little boy facing his doom. It took one illegal turn down the wrong road and then it was red lights, hand cuffs and multiple charges. This time it was not the beautiful and simple song that saved him. It was an anguished cry from the depth of a terrified soul repeating over and over, “God help me, God help me, God help me!” The questions flew through his head, “What can I tell my Mama, how could I ruin my life, how could this possibly be?” There were no answers. Just the repeated phrase uttered from the mouth and mind of a shivering, guilt-soaked soul, hopelessly lost due to his own foolish actions.

Then it happened. The young man made his second commitment to give himself to God. “Take this burden from me and I will be yours. I will follow you wherever you lead and will give my life to you for your use. Just don’t make me have to break my Mama’s heart.” Police stations, interrogations, self-recriminations and horrible imaginations filled the night through the blur of tears. Then the Sheriff, who had never before sounded like an angel, spoke the miracle in a slow drawl. “Son, I know your Mama and Daddy are fine folks and this will probably kill ‘em both. They ain’t done nothing to deserve what you puttin’ on ‘em. I know you a smart young man with a bright future. But the road you’re on leads to a dead end. Now I’m just gonna’ hold on to this here evidence, and if you ever get into any more trouble, I’m gonna’ personally kick your butt and take you to Parchman myself.”  Who knew that angels wore cowboy hats and talked like that?

Through many long a winding road this spiritual trek would lead, but the young man would never forget the promise he made that cold black night. From that day on, the young man would seek God’s will and follow it. He had learned first hand the hard way that, “God works in strange and mysterious ways his wonders to perform.”

Let Go And Let God

Over time the fun-loving college kid evolved into an earnest young man. The wisdom beyond his years had been learned from life’s adventures, loves, mistakes and heartbreaks.  Loves lost, error’s cost, judgments tossed and stars crossed.

Life had become a mission, no a hundred missions. “Save the youth,” “No Nuclear Dump,” “Vote for my candidate” were some of the slogans that filled his life for the next fifteen years. Influences flew, competing like fighting cocks for his energy and attention. Light and love, knowledge and intuition blended into a marvelous tapestry woven from the threads of experience and revelation. Great causes and lazy pauses whizzed by at the speed of life.

Teachers, preachers, poets and gurus;

Philosophers, presidents, hard rockers and trouble makers.

Buddha, Gibran, Vishnu and Ghandi;

Siddhartha, Mohamed, Confucious and Maharishi;

Herbert Armstrong, Robert Shuller, Ralph Nader and Buckminster Fuller;

Martin Luther King, JFK and Bobby;

Caesar Chavez and Jimmy Carter;

Woody Guthrie, Peter Paul and Mary;

Bob Dylan and the Wind Cried Mary;

Leary, Beatles, Hendrix and the Moody Blues;

Jackson Brown, Crosby, Stills Nash and Young, Bono and U2

It was during this period that another pivotal event took place. The earnest young man became a business associate with a man who would reintroduce him to the Christian God and a positive biblical theology. Mixed in with that were a few good doses of visualization techniques, auto-suggestion and good old fashioned faith. We called it “I Believe” and we taught it to USM’s football players, local realtors, fraternities and anyone else who would listen. My friend was part preacher, part salesman and part motivator. But he was and is all heart. His guide was Robert Schuller and his credo was “God wants us to be happy”. That was what the young man had always felt, and he was at home with this notion. During this time he came to believe that God gave us an Eden in which to live, and that the obstacles to living in it were human perception, human nature and disobedience to God. He decided once and for all that Christianity was the spiritual path he would follow. It is the theology that guides him to this day. All he had to do was to follow Shuller’s advice so he Let go and let God.

And A Child Shall Lead Them

Then the earnest young man met the person God sent to be his mate. He became a husband, a father and a man. The wife and family of his prayers had come to him, the ultimate proof of God’s mighty blessings. Now, the time had come to deliver on all his promises to God for over three and a half decades of blessings, miracles and protection.

When the couple vowed by biblical standards to become one before God and man, he for the first time became a whole person. That day they pledged their troth and their lives to living together in God’s way, FOREVER. That word, etched in their wedding rings and in their hearts, remains a sacred eternal pledge. He was now a We, and the best of life in Eden was sprouting around them. Two precious angels were sent to fill their garden with love, laughter and joy. They learned prayers, ethics, spirituality, metaphysics and bible-based wisdom in their home as they learned to practice those principals in the world.

At age nine, the eldest angel perched on her Daddy’s lap asking to attend church with a friend. “Sure,” he said hearkening back to his own spiritual awakening and estrangement at the same age. Unlike his experience, no parent had to lay the law down to make her go and no disappointments would drive her away. As her Daddy had found, she liked it and asked if the whole family could start going and he said, “Sure”. The family soon found themselves on the steps of the place that would become their spiritual home. He knew instantly this was the right place because in all his years he had never been in the presence of so many kind and smiling eyes. Then it was catacumenate, confirmation, new baptisms, church every week and huge Sunday lunches wrapped in the aromas of Sundays long ago. It was like being nine years old at the old family home again. And as beautiful as this was, it was not perfect.

As with all families they had their ups and downs, ins and outs and faced all the challenges life brings. As one crisis after another blew into their lives, they clung to God and each other through them all. Like Katrina survivors clutching a tree in the storm they weathered each gust. Each squall was a miracle being born on the wings of a crisis. It was during this time that he came to understand his first true purpose in life.

This now weathered and wizened family man once again faced his own weakness and brokenness. Again, he bore the guilty yoke forged of disobedience to God’s will. Crumpled and sobbing, he again called on the name of God for refuge. Again, God answered him calming the chaos and the pain. Then it came to him as a thought broadcast on his heart’s public address system. “You’ve got a job to do, Son. Stand up and take care of your family. This is your flock. You are to protect them and ensure their spiritual safety. They depend upon you to lead them, not to lead them astray. You are not to endanger them or let them stray afar. Your priorities for the last fifty years will not get them through the next fifty years.”  That night, he embraced the mission of guiding his family’s spiritual path. It remains his principle ministry for them. The ministry to his larger family of his brothers and sisters is what led him here. And he knows that “a child did lead them.” The journey continues.