Senior Trip, Day 2: "History is Happening in Manhattan"

     Another full day here in New York City with our crew of seniors from Greenville Christian School!  After the very long (or, as I spelled it in my journal entry, "LOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGG) day yesterday, we slept in a bit - till after 7 AM anyway - and then came downstairs and got our free breakfast, which was not bad as such things go, although it was a long shot from IHOP!  After eating and making sure everyone was ready, we headed out and boarded the New York Subway once more.  Our destination this time:  The 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

   I remember that day so vividly, a Tuesday morning when my normal routine of teaching was shattered by events two thousand miles away.  Most of these graduating seniors were babies when it happened.  The reflecting pools surrounded by the names of all the victims are a somber reminder of the cost America paid for hatred that day.  The Museum is beautiful, sobering, and catches the full extent of the grief and sorrow of that fateful day. The one thing missing, to my mind, was the righteous anger we all felt in the wake of the attacks.  This wasn't a natural disaster; it was a deliberate act by people who hated this country and all it stands for.  I'm not saying that, as a nation, we should still be consumed with anger and thoughts of vengeance, but at the same time it wouldn't hurt to memorialize what we actually felt at the time rather than some sanitized version thereof. OK, off the soap box now.  The Museum and the area around it are truly worth the time spent there, and I wish we could have stayed there a bit longer.  But there was a lot else to see in lower Manhattan, so off we went.

   As we left the Trade Center area, I was overwhelmed by just how huge "Freedom Tower" is. This is the huge skyscraper built near the site of the Twin Towers, and it dominates the NYC skyine as they once did, dwarfing every other building in the city.
Next stop was Trinity Church, a beautiful American icon that stands a few blocks from the WTC.  The current sanctuary was built in 1730. George Washington attended church there, as did many famous figures of the Revolutionary and Founding eras.  This is also the spot where Alexander Hamilton and his wife are buried.  I have a fascination with Hamilton that goes far beyond my fondness for the Broadway musical about him.  He has long been my favorite founding father, and since January I have been living inside his head as I write an alternative history novel about him.  Standing near his grave was a very moving moment for me, and I told him that I hope I am doing his memory some justice with my literary efforts.  As tradition requires, I left a penny on his grave as we departed.

   Still walking southward, we next came to Wall Street, where we posed for a picture with the famous bull statue.  At Battery Park we spread out and ate lunch and did a bit of shopping; after that we boarded the ferry for the Statue of Liberty.  That was where we encountered our only really bad weather of the day; it rained on us pretty hard for about 45 minutes.  We took a series of soggy selfies, then hopped back on the ferry and headed for Ellis Island.  There we toured the immigration museum and wandered the lovely grounds, taking many pictures of the New York skyline.  By then the sun had come out, drying our clothes and lifting our spirits.  That done, we boarded the subway and headed back up to 48th street to rest at our hotel for a bit.

   We then headed out for our first "dressy" event of the trip: Dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe followed by the Broadway musical ALLADIN.  Honestly, the food was fairly mediocre, but the atmosphere of the place was wonderful, plus it's on Broadway!  We took a ton of pictures and then walked a block or two over and went in for the show.  ALLADIN was far and away the flashiest musical I have ever attended; the stage efffects and illusions were amazing, and the acting was first-rate.  Everyone loved the villainous Jafar and his bumbling sidekick Iago, and both leads were perfectly cast.  After a wonderful evening, we headed back to the hotel, stopping at the convenience store we visited last night to get soda and snacks, then came on back here for the evening.

22,000 steps walked today. We're getting lazy.

Funny stuff?  Let's see, Jerry remains the king of the "made you look" game, although I was able to beat him at it a couple of times.  Rebekah Shreve falls for it EVERY time, though, and he teases her relentlessly.   I thought that Becca Davis was going to belt a lady who body-checked her on the sidewalk, and Sam Pitts stunned us all, especially his girlfriend Zoe, when he said that Aladdin's abs were "the most distracting thing in the show."  Mikayla said she'd seen more of "the alphabet people"  (LGBTQ) in the last two days than she has in her entire previous life, and Camden was pretty sure he saw a homeless guy snorting cocaine on the street.  (I tried explaining to him that homeless people generally snort bath salts, but you can't tell these kids anything these days!)

School may be over for these young folks, but the education continues.  More tomorrow.

DAY ONE: "In New York You Can Be a New [and very tired] Man!"

  1:30 AM.  That's when my alarm went off today.  It's now 11:00 PM, which means, allowing for the 1 hour time differential, that I have now been up for about 22 hours.  I think. I am rapidly reaching that point of fatigue where EVERYTHING is funny, so before I lapse into uncontrollable giggles at the sight of something as mundane as my socks, let me tell you about the first day of the trip.

   We met at GCS at 2:30 AM and boarded the bus at 3 to journey to Love Field, where our Southwest flight would take off for New York LaGuardia Airport at 6.  There are 17 seniors making the trip this year - Nick Bahm, Ryan Blazier, Jon Bleier, Becca Davis, Hannah Evans, Lucero Limones, Bekah Shreve, Mikayla Pierson, Hannah Packer, Jillian Fifeld, Jerry Rosenbalm, Zoe Pittsinger, Sam Pitts, Camden McBride, Brenna Weaver, Sadie Feezel, and Elissia Harris.  To accompany this amazing crew of Texas youth, there are four adult sponsors - myself, Jennifer Fifeld, the indefatigable Elizabeth Hyatt, and Doc Bleier, my roommate (poor man) and Jon's Dad.

   After a three hour flight, which landed a bit ahead of time and in which I went back and forth between reading William Shirer's RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH and falling asleep (which made for some odd dreams during those brief snippets of sleep!), we got to NYC around 10 in the morning local time.  I told the kids there is really nothing to this flying thing, as long as you don't think about the fact that you are in a fragile aluminum tube forty thousand feet in the air traveling at six hundred miles an hour with two full tanks of highly combustible jet fuel on either side of you.  I think they appreciated my trying to make it less worrisome for them. 

   We got on a bus and inched our way across the congested New York City streets to our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express on 48th street.  We only had time to drop our bags off and then we headed out to eat lunch (it was nearly noon by then and we were all starving).  We headed to an area a couple blocks off of Times Square and ate at several different spots; my group ducked into a pizzeria/deli and I had two large slices of the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life!  After that we met up for our first excursion of the day, taking the subway uptown and touring the amazing Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  Words can't convey how magnificent this church is; you can see some of the pictures I took of it on my FB feed or on the Greenville Christian School FB page.

   Oh, and on the subway we saw a rather interesting personals ad, written out on a piece of paper and taped to the overhead bar on the train, which sparked a lively discussion as to whether the guy who posted it was desperate, or a pure genius. I'll let someone else explain the details.

    After the Cathedral, we hiked through the north end of Central Park - a huge stretch of woods, greenlands, and ponds that covers some eight hundred acres in the middle of New York City. We climbed rocks and trees, chased squirrels, ambushed other groups from our school that had split off from us, and took lots of beautiful pictures.  We met in front of the  New York Museum of Natural History, where I took a picture of the statue of my hero, America's coolest President, Theodore Roosevelt, before we headed back to the hotel to freshen up and wash up.

   Then it was back to the subway to head up to Yankee Stadium for a baseball game!  I will be honest; it was very chilly (about 52 degrees with a stout North wind!) and the game was one of those low-scoring, long-lasting pitching duels, so we left in the 8th inning and rode the trains back to our hotel, getting here around 9:30 local time. We were all pretty punchy and silly by then:  I am not sure which one of us told the worst joke on the train.  My entry was:"How many chickens does it take to cross the road at the center of a Tootsie Pop?"  (The answer is "None!  There isn't a road at the center of a Tootsie Pop!")  Jerry, on the other hand, had this utter groaner of a knock-knock joke:  "Knock knock!"  "Who's there?"  "JOseph!"  "Joseph Who?"  "Joseph Mama!"  (I didn't think it was funny, but I kept laughing harder the more he told it! Fatigue, I tell you!)

   So after a quick stop at a convenience store to buy some bottled water and sundries, we got back here and headed to our rooms.

According to my Fitness App, I walked over 25,000 paces today,

Goodnight!  And check out my pictures from the trip on FB and Instagram!

SENIOR TRIP 2019 - PACKING UP!!!!

   Earlier this year, our GCS graduating class stunned me when they asked me if I was willing to be a chaperon on their Senior Trip to New York City and Washington, DC.  I've taught at Greenville Christian School for 23 years now; other than my daughter's class, which I was an official sponsor of, no group of seniors has ever asked me to go with them.  So, after a quick conference with my beloved spouse, I agreed to do it!  Our flight leaves at 6 AM tomorrow.

   So for the last few days I've been trying to get everything ready, from finishing up my annual chore of writing a personal letter to each graduating senior to preparing four class days worth of lesson planes for all my other classes to finally packing up my suitcase tonight.  Now I sit back, draw a breath, and reflect on the fact that it is 8 PM and I have to get up at 1:30 in the morning!!!

   Watch this space for the next few days, I will be chronicling this trip as I did my journey to Israel three years ago.  I'll try to work in an entry every single day (although, if I have to type them on my phone, brace yourselves for a LOT of typos!).  We will see lots of cool stuff and have a great deal of fun; I'll give you all the juicy details here and in my social media feeds.
   Now to try and get a little rest . . . tomorrow is going to be a LONG day!!! LOL

Enjoy the journey with me, three other adults,  and 17 rambunctious 18 year olds on the brink of graduating high school!

An all-new short story . . . THE SACRIFICE

  One of the assignments I gave the kids during my creative writing class for Enrichment Week this year was to write a fantasy or science fiction story.  Mine was a mashup of both genres.  I hope that you enjoy it:

THE SACRIFICE by Lewis Smith 

 

Bandar was seventeen when he was chosen as the annual sacrifice.  He had always known there was a possibility he might be taken; but like most children in his village, he had lived his life presuming that the lot would fall to someone else.  The Old Ones demanded that one young man and one girl, between sixteen and twenty years of age, be offered up each year in exchange for their protection and blessings during the coming year.  What became of the victims, no one knew.  They were left on top of the Ritual Stone every year at the vernal equinox, and the next morning they were gone.  Some whispered that the Old Ones ate them; others said that they were transfigured to a magical kingdom where they would be servants, or concubines, to the Old Ones for the rest of their natural lives. 

No one knew exactly who the Old Ones were, for that matter, or how long they had existed.  They appeared once each year, during the shortest, coldest day of the winter, and then they were shrouded in robes of light that obscured their features and rendered them both terrifying and glorious in appearance.  They would summon the villagers, and then hand out a golden goblet filled with sweet, amber colored fluid.  Each villager drank deeply; even the smallest infants were forced to swallow a few sips. The goblet refilled itself after each person partook, no matter how many there were.  What was in it was just as unknown as everything else about the Old Ones, but whatever it was, it kept the village free from disease and healed any and all injuries the villagers might have suffered.  The year before Bandar had seen his friend Harlan fully restored after he had broken his back falling from a cliff he was climbing.  Six months of paralysis vanished after he sipped the Old One’s nectar, and the next day he was on his feet, helping Bandar chase down wild nartho-hares for dinner. 

But their magic elixir came with a price, and had done so for many generations.  Each year two youths were taken, never to be seen again.  According to the elders, the exchange had lasted for six centuries or longer.  The words spoken at the choosing of the sacrifice had not changed in all that time: 

“In the days of darkness, the Old Ones came to us.  In that time, disease and death stalked our people, and not one man in a hundred lived to the age of fifty.  The Old Ones promised us health and long life, and such they delivered.  They offered their powerful elixir to spare us from disease, and heal all hurts and injuries, but in return they asked that each year, we give them two of our own.  Reluctant we were at first to give them our children which we prize above all things, and refused. But then two brave youths, Elena and Ramon, both agreed to sacrifice themselves after a failed harvest left the whole village sick and weak.  So they were taken, and vanished from the very ritual stone where the Old Ones had appeared to us, and the next day the Old Ones came, and promised us that the two had not given their lives in vain. They gave us the elixir, and the village was restored.  So every year we cast lots among ourselves, and choose the two who shall depart from us, and with their lives purchase our health, happiness, and prosperity for the year to come. 

Over time, Bandar’s village had grown to a thousand souls, and then the Old Ones had appeared and offered to take a third of that number to establish a second village in a nearby valley.  That village had likewise grown, and now there were four villages that had all grown from the first, each one less than a thousand souls strong.  Bandar’s people were not terribly fertile, although they were strong and healthy and often lived to the century mark.  Most couples would only welcome two children into the world; maybe three on rare occasion.  In recent years, it seemed fertility was on the rise; two women in Bandar’s village had given birth to four children, something unheard of in living memory.  But still, the annual sacrifice was keenly felt among the youths. 

Bandar had drawn his lot two days before – the drawing was always held a week before the equinox, so that the Chosen would have a chance to say their goodbyes and mentally prepare themselves.  Rarely, one would try to run away and avoid his fate; they seldom succeeded.  The villagers knew that one boy and one girl were required by the Old Ones, and after the lots were drawn, everyone kept an eye on the Chosen. But most did not even try; the villagers were a close-knit group, and the ethic of sacrifice was taught from childhood.  Bandar had no intention of running away; he knew he would not succeed, and if he did, one of his friends would be compelled to take his place on the ritual stone. 

“Bandar!” a voice said.  “Wait up a minute!” 

He turned and saw the other Chosen, Kita, coming up behind him.  He had been both grieved and glad when the lot fell to her; grieved, because she was his chosen mate, but glad, because whatever befell the Chosen, they would face it together. 

“Hail, my almost husband,” she said.  The villagers could choose their prospective mates as young as fifteen, but it was forbidden for them to lie together until they were past the age when they could become Chosen.  No one wanted children to be left without father or mother, and the thought of a pregnant woman vanishing into the clutches of the Old Ones was horrifying to this people who treasured each birth.  Bandar had grown up with Kita, and even when they were children he knew that she was the one he would choose to be his wife. 

“Would you like to go and swim together?” she said.  “The water is warm enough now; I went with my sister yesterday.” 

“I would like that very much,” he said with a smile, and they walked on hand in hand to the deep hole in the river, upstream from the village.  They dove in and swam for an hour or more; the water was chilly, but they stayed warm by diving and splashing each other and racing across the river and back.  When they were done, they climbed out and sprawled on the flat rock overlooking the deep bend, where the sun could warm them and dry their clothes. 

“I am sorry that you were Chosen,” Bandar finally said.  “I would rather have left with the thought that you would continue without me and find another whose children you could bear.” 

“I am not sorry,” she said.  “I would rather neither of us had drawn the lot, but when I saw that you were going to be Chosen, I wanted nothing more than for the girls’ lot to fall on my name.  There is none other I would wed, and none other I would rather leave this world with.” 

He kissed her deeply, and they embraced and caressed each other for a while.  He wanted her so badly that it was a physical ache, but they had decided to honor the tradition and part the world as virgins.  It was nowhere openly stated that the Chosen must be free of sexual congress, but it had become conventional wisdom that they must be virgin sacrifices.  So before things could go too far, he pulled away from her and pulled his tunic and breeches back on.  They made their way back to the village together, and then went to their respective homes. 

Two days later, the entire village gathered at sunset at the base of the ritual stone. It was tall and jet black, glistening in a way that none of the natural stones of the valley did.  It towered thirty feet high, and was twelve feet in diameter at the base.  A crude spiral staircase was cut into the side, and strange runes were set deep in its surface.  Bandar and Kita had donned the white robes of the Chosen, and with Ghoram, the village elder, they climbed to the flat platform at the top. 

“Twelve generations ago, our Fathers, the Elders of this village, entered a covenant with the powerful Old Ones, sealing it with the life blood of Elena and Ramon,” he intoned.  “The Old Ones promised us health and long life, and they delivered. . .” 

As the familiar words of The Ritual echoed across the valley, Bandar took Kita’s hand.  Night would fall soon, and by dawn they would be gone from this world forever.  She looked at him, a nervous tear trailing down her cheek.  He smiled for her, and whispered his love as The Ritual concluded and the villagers returned to their huts, to shut and lock all their doors and windows until the Old Ones had come and gone, taking the Chosen with them. 

The light of day faded, and the stars came out overhead.  They sat there, side by side, recalling memories of childhood, dreading the unspoken fate that awaited them.  Shortly before midnight, a brilliant light flooded the Ritual Stone as the air cracked open like a door behind them, and a figure clad in light stepped out. 

“Are you the Chosen?” the shining Old One asked them. 

They scrambled to their feet and faced him.  He wore a single, tight-fitting suit that covered his whole body, and his face was a shining mirror of silver lit from within. 

“We are,” said Bandar.  “I am Bandar, son of Baron, and this is Kita, daughter of Katrina.” 

“You are known to us,” the Old One said.  “Fear not; you are not marked for death.  Follow me through the portal.” 

The Chosen stepped into the light, following the old one, and the hole in the air snapped shut behind them with an audible click.  Once they were on the other side, the shining figure reached up and removed the mirrored mask that he wore. 

His hair was white, his face deeply seamed with wrinkles and lines, but Bandar recognized him instantly. 

“Kando?” he said.  “How can this be?  You were only a few years older than me!” 

His boyhood friend smiled, and Bandar knew it was he beyond a shadow of a doubt.   

“A bit of a shock, isn’t it?” Kando said. 

“But you look at least sixty years old!” Bandar exclaimed. 

“Behold the price of knowledge!” his friend said sardonically.  “Ironic, isn’t it, that you call us the Old Ones, yet those who remain in the village live to be ten times as old as we do, once we become Chosen.” 

“I don’t understand,” Kita said.  “I remember when you were Chosen – you were only seventeen!  You are now, what, twenty?” 

“Indeed,” said Kando.  “I turned twenty last week.  You see, my friends, we preserve the knowledge and technology of the ancient world.  Three thousand years ago, our kind had reached beyond the circle of the world and ventured to explore the nearest planets.  We were filled with inventiveness and a restless curiosity, but also with a self-destructive urge that compelled us to wage war on our own kind.  In the end, we were so eager to destroy each other that we poisoned our world, and had to flee to space in order to survive.” 

They were walking down a steel corridor, and when they rounded a corner, Kando held up his hand and a metal plate slid aside, revealing a window that looked down on a vast ball below.  Most of it was a harsh brown color, surrounded by oceans that were a sickly yellowish-green.  But near the center of one of the dead land masses, an island of beautiful, verdant green, split by a winding ribbon of blue, stood out. 

“That is your home,” Kando said.  “You see, space is not safe for the human body.  The poison of the stars – it is called ‘radiation’ – prematurely ages us, and weakens us, and leaves us vulnerable to disease.  For two thousand years, we tried to cleanse one small corner of the planet just enough to allow us to start life over.  A thousand years ago we succeeded, and your village was born.  But even then, the world was too harsh for healthy or long life, so we set about creating an elixir that would repair the damage wrought by the plutonium bombs that had poisoned the earth.  It took us four hundred years to perfect it, and by then we were dying.  Generations of living in space had rendered us feeble and infertile.  Even as we granted you the secret to longevity and health, we were unable to give ourselves either.  So we made a bargain; two of you for each year that we extended our protection and benefit.  All of the original Old Ones are long gone; for nearly five hundred years, we have taken two youths from you each year and given them the gift of knowledge and all the technology of the ancient world.  We give you the means to keep your people safe, healthy, and happy.  There is an adage from the ancient world: ‘Ignorance is bliss.’   We keep you from developing all the things that led the old ones to destroy each other, and in your ignorance, the bliss of the world is preserved, and the planet is gradually healing.  In the last two centuries, the amount of territory cleansed of poison has doubled, and we have been able to establish the additional villages.” 

“Does this mean that -” Kandar began, but Kando cut him off with a smile. 

“Yes, it does,” the Old one said.  “You are now the Old Ones.  Come receive our gift, and the curse that goes with it.” 

And so the Chosen, now Old Ones themselves, followed their friend to the lab where the knowledge of a perished world would be implanted in their brains.  And in the village below, the people mourned the two vanished youths, even as they thanked the Old Ones for another year of life and health. 

 

An Easter Sunday Sermon . . . from THE TESTIMONIUM

   It's Easter Sunday again, time to celebrate the remarkable event that lies at the heart of the Christian faith.  As I remarked to my students at the Christian School where I teach this week, Jesus could have said every single word attributed to Him in the Gospels, and done every other thing the Gospels claimed that He did - but if He did not rise from the dead on the third day, then he is just another dead philosopher.  His disciples knew this and proudly proclaimed it in their teachings, and in the letters they wrote, which became part of our New Testament.  The sermon below is part of the first chapter of my first novel, THE TESTIMONIUM, and it reflects what I preached on many an Easter Sunday when I was still a pastor.  I've shared it here before, but I felt this was a good time to share it again.

He is risen.

Dr. Joshua Parker folded his long legs under him and settled into the pew after the last song ended.  He picked up his well-worn New American Standard Bible and smiled as his father, Benjamin Parker, walked up to the pulpit.  “Brother Ben,” as Baptists in a tri-state area referred to his father, was a towering man in his early seventies with a deep booming voice and an accent that had never left the Ozark ridges where he had been born at the end of the Great Depression.  It was Easter Sunday, and Josh smiled at the thought that Dad’s new church was about to hear his signature sermon for the very first time.  It was a message that lay at the core of everything his father had believed and taught over a ministry that stretched nearly fifty years.  Josh had heard it many times growing up, and every year his father polished it a bit, updated the pop culture references to fit his current congregation, and then, in the language of the rural South, “rared back and let them have it.” Josh watched as his dad began to speak.

          “This morning I want to talk to you about one of my favorite passages of Scripture.  But it isn’t because it is my favorite that I want to talk to you about it.  It’s because I consider it to be the MOST important passage in all the New Testament – arguably the most important passage in all of Scripture.”  As Brother Ben’s golden tones resonated throughout the crowded auditorium, the audience shifted its attention slightly.  Some leaned forward; others redirected their gaze from the people around them to the tall figure in the pulpit.  Obviously the new pastor, whom they had already come to respect and admire, had something important to say.

           Casting his piercing gaze around the room, Parker smiled, then lowered his eyes to the large print Bible before him – although he could quote this passage from memory, he wanted to drive home the fact that he was quoting the Bible verbatim: “From the Book of First Corinthians, Chapter Fifteen, beginning in Verse One:  Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,   by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.   For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,   and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,   and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.   After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;  then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles;  and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.   For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

          Looking up, he posed a question: “Why would I call this so important? Simple.  It is, first of all, the earliest written account we have of those who actually saw the Risen Christ.  Most scholars think the crucifixion was in 33 AD.  Paul wrote these lines in 54 AD – twenty-one years later, and at least ten years before Matthew, Mark, and Luke began composing their gospels.  Obviously, he placed great weight on these words, because he described them “as of first importance.” This simple account of the Resurrection was foundational to everything Paul taught the churches throughout his long ministry.  But let me draw your attention to an odd phrase here: “I delivered to you . . . what I also received.”  What does Paul mean?  Well, when rabbis used that phrase, it was to indicate that the teaching they were about to impart was something someone else had taught them.  And the list of witnesses that followed is arranged in simple Greek verse form so it could be easily memorized. This wasn’t just a random bit of trivia that someone taught to Paul: it appears to be one of the very first catechisms composed by the early church.  So when would someone have taught Paul about how many people witnessed the Resurrection?  What opportunity did he have to meet the original disciples who were there in Jerusalem that first Easter morning?  The answer can be found in Paul’s very first letter, which we call The Book of Galatians, written about six years before his letters to Corinth.  In his account of his conversion, Paul explains: “Three years later” – that is, after his conversion on the Damascus road – “I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days.”  Now of course, Cephas is the Greek form of Simon Peter.  What makes this so critical?  The timing, my friends.  Paul was converted only a few years – maybe two or three at most – after the Crucifixion.  And three years after that, he is in Jerusalem, visiting Simon Peter.  That would place this visit about five or six years after Jesus was crucified.  Nearly all the eyewitnesses were still alive at this point! And not just the friendly eyewitnesses either.  The men who crucified Jesus were still present, and most of them still in power.  The members of the angry mob that arrested him were still around, as would have been some of the soldiers who guarded the tomb.”

          Parker paused, gathering steam.  In his pew, Josh watched with interest.  His dad had them now.  Every eye in the place was on the pulpit.  This was not just another tame old Easter sermon, this was thought provoking stuff!  The elder Parker continued: “Now, we have grown up in the church, most of us.  We have had the Easter story recited to us every year since we were toddlers.  And most of us have never questioned it at all. So the incredible import of what Paul is telling us here is easy to miss!  Let me put it to you this way: suppose that, around the summer of 1969 or 1970, I showed up in Dealey Plaza down in Dallas.  Then I found myself a soapbox and began to talk about what had happened there just six years earlier.  Imagine if I said: “Yes, my friends, it was right here, in this very spot, that President Kennedy’s motorcade passed through town.  And three shots rang out, one of which pierced his brain and took his life.  And he was buried in a lavish tomb in Arlington National Cemetery that Monday, as all the world looked on.  Then, three days later, he rose from the dead, and he appeared – first to Bobby, then to the Cabinet.  After that he appeared to LBJ, alone, then to the cabinet again, and then to over 500 witnesses at the same time – most of whom are still alive today!  Last of all, I saw him myself, right on I-30 between here and Texarkana!  How do you think THAT would go over?” he thundered.

          The audience was trying to process this.  Some of the younger ones laughed out loud, while many older ones scowled at the pastor, wondering what he was getting at.  Josh, who had heard this illustration many times before, was nonetheless moved by it all over again.  His father’s voice crackled across the assembly: “They’d start measuring me for a rubber room, wouldn’t they? Because they understood a fundamental truth in Dallas in 1970, just the same as they understood it in Jerusalem in 40 AD – Dead people STAY dead!”  Now they got it.  Many in the audience began to nod; others looked stunned as they processed what they were being told.

          “Yet right there in Jerusalem, the town that murdered Jesus, in the stronghold of his enemies, the early church was not only proclaiming his resurrection, they were giving a whole list of everyone who had seen him! And fifteen years later, Paul was still able to say that most of the eyewitnesses were still alive!  Now listen carefully, folks – there was only ONE way that the early church could have gotten away with proclaiming such an outrageous tale in the seat of Jesus’ enemies – and that was if even his enemies knew the story to be true!  After all, if his body were still in that tomb that James Cameron says he found, all the Pharisees and Roman authorities would have had to do would be exhume the body and drag it through the streets of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.  Christianity would have been murdered in its cradle!  But they couldn’t do that, now could they?  Because the body was – not – there.

 

His father was reading the final passage of the day as he returned his attention to the sermon:  “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.   Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.   If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

 

          Brother Ben looked slowly around the room. “I put it to you today, my friends, that Paul got it absolutely right.  The world has been doing its best to put Jesus back in that tomb for 2,000 years because they understand what many Christians forget: that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, our faith is based on a lie. Our belief is not in a risen Savior, but a desiccated corpse.   If Jesus did not rise from the dead on the third day, we might as well tear down the church and build a bowling alley, for all the good we are doing anyone!”  He paused for the last time. “But that isn’t the case, is it?  We serve a living, risen Lord!  And because He was powerful enough to conquer the grave two thousand years ago, He is powerful enough to handle whatever you are struggling with today!  He holds out His hand to you this morning, offering to take your burden, to forgive your sin, to cleanse your life, and to make you a new creature!  All you have to do – is TAKE IT!”

 

 

SAYING GOODBYE. . . .

    It was the summer of 2014.  Late afternoon, I was on my way home from Dallas, where I'd been paying a visit to the SMU Paleontology Lab.  I'd had a nice lunch with my friend Mike and gotten to look at some really cool fossils, and was ready to get home, put my feet up, and maybe play a little SKYRIM before bed.  I was almost home - I'd gotten off of I-30 onto the service road - when I spotted a tiny scrap of yellow fur almost dead center in the middle of the road.  I thought maybe it was some kid's stuffed toy, a Beanie Baby perhaps, but as I passed it I saw that it was a tiny kitten - and that it was moving.

    I pulled over and got out of the car, walking back to where the helpless little thing was wriggling in the middle of the road, trying to get his feet under him.  I picked him up and checked him out.  He was obviously dying - there was blood coming from his nose and ears and the corners of his eyes, which were barely open.  I doubted he would last the hour.  I certainly didn't want him to end his brief existence as a bloody smear on the asphalt, so I carried him to the shade of a tree several feet away from the road and sat him down on a soft clump of grass.  At least he'd die comfortable, I thought, and turned to walk away.  Then he lifted his tiny head and started mewing at me.  My heart melted.

    I scooped him up and carried him home on my lap, worrying that he might expire before I could even cover the five minutes to my driveway.  My girls came out to meet me and I told them: "We're NOT keeping him; I just want to see if we can save him and find him a good home."  We put him in a cardboard box - a very small one at that! - with a couple of dishtowels to keep him warm.   After he had rested for a bit,  I went to the store and bought some canned cat food and put it in a bowl, mixing it up with warm milk.  We lifted him out of the box and set him in front of it.  Those tiny nostrils flared and he began eating as fast as he could, gulping down half the can in a minute or so.  I picked him up and put him back in the box, where he promptly curled up and went to sleep.

    For the first few days, he was too weak to climb out of the box, but once he got his strength back, he was suddenly all over the house.  We carried him around on his back like a baby, and my wife and daughters laughed when he would try to suckle their fingers.  He would curl up to sleep inside my shoes, climb the chair when I was sitting down in it to sit on my shoulder, and delighted in chasing our grown cat, Gina, all around the house.  He grew up to be a gorgeous yellow tom with a gentle heart and a striking puzzle pattern on his back that looked almost like a face from some angles.  He had such a soft purr you had to put your ear up to his chest to hear it, but he was the most loving and docile cat I have ever owned.  Needless to say, all that nonsense about "finding him a good home" lasted less than 48 hours.  WE were his good home.

    We named him Fortuna, Latin for "Lucky" - or just Tuna for short.  He was a wonderfully quirky cat.   He loved watermelon and cucumber, and went nuts for any kind of lotion or salve with menthol in it.  When my wife was taking a bath, he would sit on the edge of the tub and lick soapy water off of her arm and shoulder.  He LOVED curling up in the bathroom sink, or stretching out in the empty bathtub, especially on warm summer days.  He got along with everybody, even our dogs and goats.  Well, almost everybody.  The sugar gliders just looked too delicious for him, so we eventually gave them away to save them from becoming "Tuna Snacks."  He quickly became an indoor/outdoor cat, letting himself out if the door was not latched, and standing on his hind feet with his front paws against the door and mewing if he needed our help.  He was a mighty hunter in the land, specializing in field mice and sparrows, although he was not above chasing squirrels - I don't think he ever caught one.  He also delighted on hopping up on the kitchen table while my mother-in-law was sitting there. She chased him down so many times I swear he thought his name was "CAT! Get off the table!"

    When one of us was sick, he'd be a great "medicine kitty," curling up next to us and letting us pet him for hours.  At night, especially during the cold months, he loved to get right between us, usually on top of the blanket but sometimes under it.  And no matter how old he got, he never protested when I scooped him up and carried him on his back, paws in the air, while hugging him and calling him my "kitty boy."  We've had many cats over the years, but Tuna was uniquely mine from the first day. I've never been so attached to any feline in my life.

    Last Wednesday, I was on the way home from work with some meat to grill when Rebecca called me and said: "Dad, Tuna's hurt.  Something's wrong with his tail and he's got a big gash on his face."

     I met her at the vet clinic, and my first thought was one of relief.  The cut on his face was ugly, but his eye was not compromised.  He also had a long gash on his tail, but it wasn't too deep.  I could see, though, that his tail was hanging limp.  I was concerned, but not too much so - I mean, I would still love him if he became a bobcat, right?

    But as the days went on, it became apparent that his injuries were much more devastating than we realized.  His tail had been broken and dislocated right where it joined onto the sacrum, and that nerve bundle also controls a cat's bladder and rectal functions.  He was just as sweet, friendly, and curious as ever when I went to see him the next day, but the vet's tone was serious - if he couldn't regain digestive function, his quality of life would be severely compromised.  I wanted to keep him alive - OH! how desperately I wanted that.  I asked them to keep him over the weekend, to monitor him, just to see if there was any hope of recovery.  There wasn't.  Our vet was as kind as he could be, but he explained that even if we managed to physically force the waste from Tuna's body as it built up, it would be a painful process that would leave him prey to all manner of infections, internal bleeding, kidney stones, etc.  My hopes faded as I realized I wouldn't want that kind of life for my poor little kitty boy.  So this afternoon, my wife Patty and I went to the Animal Hospital to see him on his way.

   I held him and cried so hard, as Tuna sniffed my face and licked away the salt of my tears.  He purred and head butted us to be petted and have his ears scratched, then after a few minutes of being loved on, he decided to explore the examination room.  What did he do?  He found the sink and curled up in it, looking up at us with a satisfied air.  I had Patty take one last picture of us together, and then when the doctor came back in, I held him and petted him until the drugs kicked in and the end came.

    Oh Fortuna, my sweet, brave, kitty boy, you were gone all too soon. No more quiet companion by my side as I watch TV or read a book, no more inquisitive eyes watching me as I take a long hot soak at the end of the day.  No more warm furry lump in the bed between us at night.  You lovely cat, I wouldn't have given you my heart if I had known you were going to break it so soon!

    That's a lie.  Of course I would have.

    Oh Tuna, sweet boy, we barely knew ye.