Tarantula

When I was in grade school we lived about two blocks from the hills in Eagle Rock.  We kids climbed around those hills daily during the summer months.  On occasion we saw the Occidental Cross Country team running by us.  Castor beans grew in the wild and oak trees dotted the landscape.  There were trap door spiders to observe, and/or capture.  But the most discomfort for an 11 year old boy was the tarantula.  I remember a neighbor sweeping one off his driveway into a large jar.  It's not a love/hate relationship, but rather a terror/fascination relationship I have with spiders.  And when one is as large as my hand, and black and hairy as well...it really creeps me out.

I've been told that tarantulas are really not dangerous.  Well they may not be poisonous, but the danger for me, waking up with one on my chest, would be the danger of a heart attack.  I know they are available in pet stores, of all places.  I remember reading in the paper about a boy who brought his pet tarantula to school for show and tell.  As boys are prone to do, he tried to show him off by not only handling him, but giving him a kiss!  According to the newspaper account, the spider bit his lip, but he only suffered a painful swollen lip for the prank.

One of our trips through Kings Canyon National Park encountered about four tarantulas crossing the road.  I was fascinated.  Telling the kids to stay in the car, I stepped out and approached these scary little beasts.  You will have to tell me if it was my imagination, but I'll swear that they hissed at me.  I could see the lead spider raise its head and front legs at me, and I heard a distinct hiss.  Of course I turned on one foot and headed straight back into the car.  It was a classic case of cross cultural communication.

Murder in Seal Beach

Here we go again.  Another wicked man has taken his gun and blown the life out of 8 people in the clean, friendly neighborhood of Seal Beach, CA.  I hate when this happens.  I hate it, but I'm not astonished as many seem to be.  God has told us about the moral warp that has infected the human race after the fall.  In fact it was rather early in history that God said, "Every intent of the thoughts of his heart is only evil, continually."  Or Psalm 14 that says that God looked down on the children of men to see if any did understand and seek God, only to find that they are all together become filthy, and there is no one that is good, no not one.  The events in Seal Beach on Wednesday are just another unfortunate outcome of the sinful condition of human nature.  There should be no great surprise here for a Christian. Grief, yes, but no surprise.

The irony is that our culture seems fanatically determined to believe that human nature is basically good.  This is what gives the media commentators pause when angry sinners lash out with irrational slaughter like this.  Sooner or later (for the defense attorney it will be sooner) someone will try to give a reasonable excuse for this behavior.  They seem to display a religious commitment that requires the isolation of this man from society.  He was out of his right mind because of his boating accident, or because of the threat of losing custody of his 7 yr. old son.  There has to be a reason...something other than admitting that there is a dark side in every one of us that will drive us to unspeakable deeds if left unchecked.

Then we might hear the skeptics and atheists cry out, "Where is God when things like this happen!"  I'll tell you where God is.  He is still saying that these were not worse sinners than any others, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.  Life is suddenly over for 8 people, and the lives of dozens of others have been irreparably scarred by the loss of loved ones.  Providence teaches, no, shouts at us, that life is short.  Life would be senseless if that is all there is, but when you know that after this there is a judgment, it begins to come back into perspective.

The very first message that Jesus preached was summarized by, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand."  Every man, woman and child needs to know that they could be snatched into eternity without even a moment's notice.  If that innate sense of justice is going to be satisfied, we'd better believe in the judgement seat of Christ.  Without it, the existentialists are right to say life is absurd.  But they only say that.  They do not live as though they really believe that.  When Jean Paul Sartre railed against his own government for cruel behavior against the Algerian guerrillas for their immoral behavior, he had to publicly admit that he was speaking in flat out contradiction to his philosophy.  We all know right from wrong, and when right is not rewarded or wrong is not punished in this life, there is no resolution if one stubbornly refuses to hear God speak of heaven and hell in the bible.

Proper dignified minds may belittle the belief in a "sky high heaven and red hot hell" but without the Bible's perspective on eternity, those same proper people are left with no ultimate meaning for life.

Let us morn those who were senselessly murdered.  But let us take this harsh lesson to heart.  It is appointed to men once to die, and after this: the judgment.

Little Stars

Whenever I attend a wedding (rather than conduct one), I look for the stars of the show.  That would be the flower girl and the ring bearer.  They are such cute miniature humans!  They can be so delightfully unpredictable, and therefore account for some of the most memorable moments in what occasionally becomes a tedious routine in our culture.

Barbara, the preacher's daughter, remembers the groom who fainted...twice!  They finally brought him a chair to finish the ceremony.  She also clearly remembers a wedding performed at the manse during which the ring fell, rolled along the floor and fell down the vent of the floor furnace.

But I digress.  I was reflecting on the little stars of the show.  Like little Raymond who was the ring bearer for my daughter's wedding.  At rehearsal, he balked and cried, and simply WOULD NOT walk down the aisle.  The next night, we were prepared to conduct the wedding with or without his cooperation.  But this time, sporting an adorable little tux, and now with a church full of terrifying people, he marched down the aisle like a pro.  You never know.

When my son was married in Memphis, the ring bearer DID become terrified by that great crowd.  They begged, cajoled and finally dragged him down the aisle.  And when he arrived, he anchored himself to the leg of my other son, serving as a groomsman, clinging for dear life, and never let go.

More recently when our nephew was married in the San Francisco area, the scene was outdoors at a picturesque park, seemingly made for the purpose.  Someone had thoughtfully sewed the ring to a satin pillow for the ring bearer to carry to the pledging couple.  But when he arrived, alas the pillow was there, but not the ring!  The groom's father, known to be a quick thinker, took off his own ring, and the embarrassed couple used it because of the urgency of the occasion.  I still have a snapshot of the wedding party, on their hands and knees, routing through the grass, looking for the lost ring.  They didn't find it until they brought a metal detector the next day.

The little flower girls have not left me with such dramatic recollections.  I remember a flower girl, with a basket full of flower petals, who did not drop a single one on her trek to the altar.  Some have cried all the way.  And I do remember one who shouted "No" to her mother, who was trying to tend her after she arrived up front.  The memorable part of this scenario was that she shouted right after the minister asked, "Will you take this woman to be your wedded wife?"

Hair

I heard Dennis Bartell on the radio this morning, with his little great composer quiz.  The question was which composer was vain about his hair which was blond and flowing.  He was small of stature and his face was pale of pallor, but his hair was outstanding, and he was proud of it.  The answer is Mozart.  Actually I guessed the correct answer, but it got me thinking about hair.

I remember when classical musicians were called "longhairs" with something of disdain in the voice.  But culture evolves, and at my age I can see that culture evolves all too rapidly.  So this "longhair" epithet has fallen into disuse because today it is the rock musician who has the long hair, and it is part of his shtick.  Young impressionable girls swoon over the shrieking rock star as he nearly swallows the microphone and his shoulder length hair flairs around him.  It is far more likely that it would be the fan of classical music (who is usually much older) who might use "longhair" as a derogatory epithet for the rocker.

Then I remember when men with long hair were excluded from proper Christian fellowship.  Now it is quite common.  In fact that same rocker mentioned in the last paragraph might lead a worship team on the stage of a church with "contemporary" worship style.  We are so influenced by culture.  If we are not adopting worldly standards of culture and behavior, we are at least confused by culture, and our senses become dulled.  We major in the minors.

Ray Commeret, a now deceased colleague of mine, was a bit maverick in his methods, and generous in his sense of humor.  I remember the day he drove in to French Creek Bible Conference with a full black beard, rolled down the window of his car, and said in his excellent Brooklyn Jew accent, "Is this the House of David?"  He had just returned from an extended vacation to pick up children at French Creek, and it was obvious that he had not taken a razor with him on vacation.  I understand that he hadn't used his razor yet when he first entered his pulpit after vacation, and his sermon title was, "How Long is Christian Hair?"  I have no idea what his text was, nor just how he preached Christ from it, but knowing his integrity as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm sure it was a legitimate Bible text, and I'm sure he pointed people to the Savior.  Compared to some of the dramatic antics of Old Testament prophets, this was not really far out of line.  He was a living example of how we can major in the minors.

When I look at old photos of myself, I sometimes laugh at the hair.  It wasn't that long, but it was simply old fashioned--and the sideburns!

Somebody obviously thinks that Jesus had long hair.  In fact the famous Salmon portrait of the Christ portrays a rather effeminate, western European face with long hair.  Who is this?  Are we to believe that Christ sat for the portrait?  In what museum might I find the ancient camera that captured His likeness?  And yet every "miracle" appearance of Christ in porch light shadows or burnt pancakes is identified by the same general image.  Why do we reject the rendering of the black Christ?

Scripture says that there is nothing outstanding about His physical appearance.  There is no beauty that we should desire Him.  His human nature must bear the Mediterranean Jewish coloring and bone structure.  I wonder how many westerners would be pleased with his appearance.

I love Jesus because He first loved me, and gave himself for me.  His physical looks will not even be noticed by believers when we see Him face to face.  In that day we will see perfectly, and when we see His face, we will see the lover of our souls, and that is all we will see.

Jerome, Arizona

When we visit Sedona, as we did again this Summer, we always take a day to see Jerome again.  It is a tourist trap with personality.  There are galleries, shops and restaurants that all have a glint in the eye because they know they have something few little towns have.  They have a wild and scandalous history that lingers in the air--or at least in the museum.

One of the infamous madams of this town served as mayor  for a while.  At least two sheriffs have had to shoot and kill the bad guys.  When the copper mine was founded, workers needed housing, and that is the beginning of Jerome.  It became a bustling settlement on the side of the mountain where the main street is a switchback that becomes narrow enough in one place that it becomes a one way street.  This is the infamous highway 89a.  T shirts and caps carry the slogan "I survived highway 89a".

At one point in its rich and varied history, the high school boasted a state champion football team.  But where you find hard working men such as these, you will probably find the provision of wild entertainment designed to help them spend their money on a "good time".  And so there grew up with this town several bars and more than one bordello.  The unique topography of the town, everythting being on a steep hillside, afforded an escape route out the back door of the brothel to the street below.  When a suspicious wife came looking for her husband, he was seldom found thank to this service.

The fortunes of the town rose and fell dramatically, depending on the need and price of copper.  At one point in her history, Jerome was the fifth largest city in the state of Arizona with fifteen thousand citizens in 1929.  But after that fateful year, copper lost it's value, the mine closed and men looked for work with the WPA.

What eventually saved the town seems to be the influx of an artisan crowd of hippies and flower children, moving to the hills and making it an artist's village, cashing in on the rich history of the town to interest visitors and keep things going as a tourist trap.  Whatever the town was, it is now a charming town above the Verde Valley where, just incidentally, the OPC is "mining" for souls with a fledgling church plant in Cottonwood.  If you are ever in the area, you must visit Jerome, and if it is a weekend, visit our little church in Cottonwood.

Memorable felines

I always had a cat, growing up.  Early blogs of mine tell of Blondie, my favorite feline of my youth.  But after we were married and had kids, we had cats adopt us.  There were many.  Open the front door and in walks an adorable cat.  It meows and rubs against your leg so affectionately that suddenly you have a cat.  Of course it is true, what they say about dogs may have masters, but cats have staff.  All those sayings about cats have at least a strong element of truth.  Thousands of years ago cats were worshipped in Egypt, and somehow they never got over it.  If this intimidates you, you become a cat hater.  If this amuses you, you become a cat lover.

We had a cat named "Mahershallelhashbaz" (which, roughly translated, is: "hasten the spoil, rush on the prey")  Now that seems a fitting name for many a hungry feline.  It has the added benefit of being a Bible name.  But alas it was not really clever for us to name it thus, because Corie ten Boom mentions her cat by that name in her famous book, "The Hiding Place".  The only remarkable thing I can remember about this cat is that it left some poop on the stairs which Barbara discovered as it came up between her bare toes.  Cats know who likes them and who doesn't.  They have this way of making a statement with a turd.  Our friends, Barry and Trisch Dorsch, had a cat who held a mutual contempt with  Barry.  One day after tossing the cat out of his desk chair, he found an exclamation poop behind that chair.  Now that's an eloquent statement!

Once we actually owned a pedigreed Persian cat.  All other experiences were with the alley cat variety that adopts it's owner, er... staff as mentioned above.  But our youngest, Jonathan, had made up his mind that he would like to have a Persian cat.  His mother bargained that if we made enough money in a coming garage sale, he could buy the advertised bargain Persian.  It worked very well, and he was a beautiful model of fluff, posing for the admiration of all.  We named him Cyrus, after the great Persian king of old (also a Bible name).  But other than laying around, looking beautiful, he did nothing.  The most boring cat we have ever owned.  He got some ailment, caused by his delicate digestive system, that cost us $180 at the vet.  Not long after this he seemed to have the same ailment, but this time he disappeared, presumably to die.  I'd rather think that some Persian admirer swiped him, but we will never know in this life, because they didn't have micro chips in those days.

I'm sure I mentioned our white cat in an early blog of mine.  The story of her chasing savvy squirrels into the trees of Wilmington, Delaware, is a favorite.  How they would jump from the end of a limb, leaving her clinging to this bobbing tree branch, was fun to repeat.

We had another white cat that moved with us from Modesto to Carson.  This one was named "Pernicious" (you know, as in "pernicious anemia").  In order for us to get her in the car to travel with a modicum of calm, we had to drug her with a powerful pill from the vet.  Wow, did she fight against the effects of that drug.  She could barely open her heavy eyelids (actually cats have a dual set, and we could see one set she was unable to open).  As I drove the VW bug down highway 99, she would occasionally emit this low feline noise, a miniature version of a lion's growl.  But she made it.  And she grew old with us.  By her 13th year the family was strongly lobbying me to put her to sleep.  When some sort of infection ate away one of her ears I finally relented to the ugly assignment.

Most of our cats were necessary to serve as pets for our famous dog, Talitha.  We discovered that during a period without a cat, our dog was moping around the house.  She was always a peppy, friendly canine, and so we noticed her poor mood.  But as soon as the next cat adopted our family, Talitha revived her interest in life.  Our eldest son, Phil, taught our dog to "get that cat."  She would catch the head of the cat in her mouth, while the acclimated cat would kick with her hind legs.  They frequently played like this and nobody was hurt.  That night we would see them curled up together to sleep.  It was only a problem when Phil took the dog for a walk and gave her the order with a neighbor cat.  Since the neighbor cat didn't know the game, she was usually treed.  So I say most of our cats were pets for Talitha.  She was not really a pet.  She was a member of the family and she grew up with our children.  We had her for more than 16 years.

Bill Cosby had it right when one of his routines, describing the difference between cats and dogs, pictured the dog as carrying master's slippers and saying, "What else do you want, Master?"  But the cat is sitting on the couch watching TV.  He says, "Hey, you, cat." 
"You're not talking to me."
"You haven't caught any mice lately."
"I'm full, man."
Yeah.  Cats have staff.

More baseball lore

When I was a kid I could play baseball all day long, and on more than one occasion I did exactly that.  My first "organized" team was in a playground league at Ladera Park, near Dorsey High School.  We were a scruffy bunch of rubes who just liked the game, even though we stank at playing baseball.  As the season progressed, and we lost every game, some of my friends lost their loyalty to the team or to me or to the institution of baseball itself.  We were not unlike Charlie Brown's team.

The team evolved and new players asked to join.  Inevitably they were an improvement.  Eventually we came to the point that I was the last player from the original ragtag group.  But I didn't want to quit.  It was my team (i.e. it was my name that was registered with the playground organizers as the contact person for this team).  So, since all the new guys were better players, it turned out that no one wanted to play catcher.  Neither did I, but I wanted to play, so I became the catcher.  When Tim McCarver refers to the catcher's gear as "the tools of ignorance", I know with intimacy just what he is talking about.  It's uncomfortable to squat for the whole game.  When the batter just nips the speeding pitch, the ball changes direction just a tad, and that is enough for it to miss my glove and hit me.  When opposing runners are trying to score, and someone pegs the ball to me, it never comes into my glove.  It frequently hits the dirt just in front of the plate, raises a cloud of dust, and I have to try to snag the ball and make the play.  It all looks so simple on TV, but it's not.  I ate a lot of dust, and took a few hits from sliding runners, and if I didn't succeed in tagging him out, my team mates would get all over my case for not making the play.  That was my introduction to organized baseball.

The playground announced that there would be a baseball clinic for us to attend, and a local celebrity would be there.  It was Billy Schuster, who played shortstop for the Cubs, and then for the triple A Pacific Coast League "Los Angeles Angels".  He was known to be a clown, as many ball players seem to be.  I went to the clinic, and learned tips on throwing, catching and batting.  It was the basics that I needed to learn.

Billy Schuster told us the following story.  There was this guy we'll call "Joe" who played for a professional team.  This team was making a tour of small communities and playing against the local men and boys all across the country.  (They did that in the old days before the Major Leagues moved west.)  Well, as the story goes, the team visited a town so bush league that the ball park didn't even have fences. When the batter hit the ball hard enough it might roll for 600 feet or more while the batter rounded the bases.  The outfield melded into desert landscape with mesquite and tumbleweed bushes dotting the landscape.  Joe played center field, and didn't want to get stuck in that position.  Joe had an idea.  Early in the morning of game day he took a bag of baseballs out to the park, and carefully hid one behind each bush he thought might be useful.

Well, game time arrived, and Joe was ready to surprise the local yokels.  And it worked very well.  Some big cowboy would drive that ball between fielders and start running.  But Joe just reached behind a bush and tossed the planted ball to the infield, holding the runner to one or two bases.  This worked without a hitch for 6 innings.  But the local cowboys were hitting well, and Joe's pitcher was not one of the club's premium players.  Finally it happened.  Joe chased another line drive to left-center, and when he reached behind the bush he found that ball had already been used.  He tried the next bush with the same disappointment.  The runner was rounding second at full speed, and Joe had to do something to stop him.  The next bush was a real surprise to Joe because when he reached behind the bush, his hand grabbed a rabbit by the ears.  Here he was looking at this little rabbit in his hand while the runner was rounding third, heading for home.  Joe thought, "What the heck.  I've got to do something."  So he tossed that little bunny into the infield.  The shortstop relayed him to the catcher, and guess what!  The runner was out by a hare!