April 10, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News

Remembering family reunions and "The Tie That Binds'

By Mike Haynes

                I don’t remember where I got my silly, brown tie that has the words, crudely written on it in iridescent green with a paint pen, “Blest Be The Tie That Binds.” Maybe I found it at a garage sale.

                It attracted me years ago because it brought to mind an annual reunion my family had attended for around 50 years. At the end of each weekend gathering, we would sing that Christian hymn before everyone departed for their homes.

                The Kunkel Reunion was a longtime tradition on my mother’s side of the family that brought together the descendants of Samuel Kunkel, who was buried in 1926 in my hometown of McLean, Texas. Of course, various branches of the family had different last names, and members of my immediate family plus my uncle, a Smith, joked every year that if you attended the reunion, you had been “Kunkelized.”

                On my dad’s side, we attended the Morse Reunion for many years. It didn’t last as long as the Kunkel one, which I think ran from the 1940s to the 2000s, but Dad’s kinfolks got together annually for 30 or 40 years. That reunion stemmed from my great-grandfather, J.S. Morse, who died at McLean in 1968, and others in his family.

                The Kunkel Reunion usually took place at the American Legion Hall in McLean, sometimes moving to Thompson Park or other Amarillo sites. The Morses moved around more, often meeting in McLean but sometimes in the mountains of New Mexico.

                The Kunkel group certainly was more organized. As long as I can remember, the reunion began with an informal gathering on Saturday night, a huge potluck dinner on Sunday (in our part of the country, the noon meal is dinner, not lunch) and then a formal business meeting where money was collected, officers were elected, minutes were recorded and those who had been born, married or died in the past year were recognized.

                And before that Sunday dinner, most of the group attended church together.

                Methodists and Baptists were the denominations most represented, so in alternating years, the congregation of one of those two McLean churches grew by 40 to 60 people on one Sunday in June. There were plenty of jokes about Baptists not dancing and Methodists not having an invitation to be “converted” at the end of their service.

                Sadly, both reunions have faded away. I’m still accused teased by my dad and siblings for “killing” the Kunkel Reunion, because at the last business meeting 15 or 20 years ago, I was elected president for the next year. By that time, most of my grandparents’ generation – the driving force behind the reunion – had died, and attendance had been low for a while. Drucilla, the family historian and secretary, was gone, and the usual practice of each family group sticking to its own table had gotten even more pronounced.

I talked to some of the remaining Kunkels and other relatives, and all agreed that it was time to fold up the card tables.

                The Morse Reunion came to a similar demise, although I wasn’t involved in that decision. Now some of us “younger” family members run into each other occasionally and say, “We should have a reunion again,” but so far, we haven’t.

                Another branch of my mother’s family, the Smiths, had a one-time event in 2012. Roger Smith, then pastor of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, managed to get a big group of Smiths and relatives to a weekend at his church, and I’m glad. Four cousins of my mom’s generation posed for pictures, and a decade later, only one of them is left.

                I also was happy that I got to participate in a couple of reunions of my wife Kathy’s family. Her mom, Peggy, grew up in eastern Kentucky. She’s lived in Amarillo for more than 50 years, but she has visited her home in the heart of Hatfield-McCoy country most Memorial Days.

                On that weekend, the Francis clan traditionally has gathered to place flowers at mountain grave sites, eat the best fried chicken anyone’s ever had and sit on the porch telling stories and warning the kids not to get too close to the creek. I even got to meet a McCoy one year, kin to Peggy by marriage. I don’t think any Hatfields were invited.

                As with my family, deaths have reduced the number attending that reunion and worshipping at the pretty white Presbyterian church in the holler. The last time we visited Kentucky, I didn’t even get any fried chicken.               

                My mom has been gone since 2013, but the rest of the immediate family, consisting of my dad, three brothers, sister and their kids and grandkids, started a new tradition in 2021. We met in Ruidoso, New Mexico, for what we hope will be an annual Haynes reunion. My brother David’s wife, Ginger, had moved on to heaven unexpectedly, and David decided we could honor her by gathering in one of the family’s favorite places.

                Our family is no better or worse than a lot of families, but it comforts me that on big occasions, we do circle up and pray. There weren’t many dry eyes when about 25 of us did that around pizza boxes in a Ruidoso condo last summer.

                I used to get choked up, too, when Tom Caldwell’s bass voice would lead the Kunkel group: “Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.”

 March 27, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Looking at Russia's rich history - some good, some bad

By Mike Haynes

                Three years ago this month, my wife and I booked a Viking river cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Yes, Russia.

                We were supposed to board the boat more than a year later in the summer of 2020. At the time, traveling in Russia had become fairly common since the downfall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. In fact, the popular Viking cruise line had gotten its start in 1997 with Norwegian entrepreneur Torstein Hagen’s small ships taking vacationers along the Volga and other rivers between Russia’s two largest cities.

                Travel had opened up, the result of Mikhail Gorbachev’s relaxing of the iron-fisted Soviet rule and the breakup of the USSR as most of its pieces became independent nations. Christian missionaries from the West also were more free to operate in Russia and in former Soviet republics. From Amarillo, minister Roy Wheeler and Bill Duncan led many Christian outreach trips to Belarus in the 1990s.

                Now, reports have said Belarus is a staging ground for some of the Russian attacks on Ukraine that have dominated the news since Feb. 24. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s openness gradually had been receding, including more restrictions on foreign church activity, and the invasion of Ukraine pretty much put a stop to all western involvement in Russia, a country with a rich history – some good and some bad.

                As for the river cruise Kathy and I booked, the cruise line canceled it in 2020 because of COVID-19. We rebooked, and the pandemic again forced its cancellation in 2021. We rebooked for summer 2022, and … well, the war in Ukraine put an anchor on the boats again.

                Part of the enjoyment of planning a big trip, though, is learning about your destination. Since 2019, I have read three or four books on Russia and watched two video lecture series on Russian history and culture. One of the books is “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” published by Alexander Radishchev in 1790 during the reign of Catherine the Great.

                Like the Russians protesting this year’s atrocities in Ukraine, Radishchev was arrested because Catherine, despite preaching reform of the Russian empire’s repression of the lower classes, saw his writing as a threat.

                Radishchev’s book reminds me of “The Canterbury Tales” but with less humor. He describes a nobleman traveling by coach through multiple villages on the way from the Baltic Sea port of St. Petersburg to Moscow in the interior of the country. At each stop to change horses, he meets various characters who either have strong political opinions or stories of hardship under the ruling authorities. The tales include a young maid forced to marry a rich aristocrat, peasants coerced into the army illegally and a big landowner getting away with murder.  

                The author touches on the strong influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in the country’s history which – long after his and Catherine’s time – was pushed underground by the 1917 revolution and the ruthless Bolsheviks. The colorful “onion domes” of St. Basil’s Cathedral, which opened in 1561, were the top visual treat that Kathy and I had hoped to see in Moscow.

                Historically, maybe Putin’s brutal push into Ukraine shouldn’t be surprising. Russia has had high points, such as the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion in 988, Peter the Great building St. Petersburg into a European-style city in the early 1700s and reforms by Catherine in the late 1700s that improved life for the poor. Some czars were better than others, and Russian literature, music and dance have enriched world culture.

                But suffering has been common, from leaders such as Ivan the Terrible (who had St. Basil’s built but otherwise earned his nickname) to the devious Lenin after the revolution to Stalin’s bloody purges under Communism from the 1920s to the 1950s. And now, Putin is trashing his country’s reputation again.

                Russia actually began in Ukraine. Its people descended from the Kievan Rus, who had origins in Viking Scandinavia and in Slavic territories. In the 800s, they centered their society on Kiev (currently spelled Kyiv), where Orthodox Christianity became the official religion.

                Radishchev’s book reflects the strong influence of the Russian Orthodox Church when he wrote in the late 1700s. Describing a forced wedding, the author laments the misuse of the church of “the Father of all blessings, the giver of tender sentiments and joys, the architect of true happiness, the creator of the universe.” He notes the importance of several monasteries around the city of Novgorod.

                And he recalls the 1570 attack by Ivan the Terrible on Novgorod that started with Ivan’s forces surrounding the city: “Stung by the resistance of this republic, this proud, savage but intelligent ruler wished to raze it to its very foundations.”

                Historians estimate that 2,500 to 12,000 residents were killed, with many tortured, and the city was ravaged. Radishchev writes, “…by what right did he rage against them? What right did he have to annex Novgorod. … because he styled himself the Tsar of All Russia? … Can a right exist when the blood of peoples seals an outcome?”

                The same questions could be asked about Putin and Ukraine. I suspect that if Radishchev lived today, he would be on the streets of Moscow protesting the invasion. The overall theme of his book is the suffering of powerless people at the hands of powerful leaders, which has been the case through much of Russia’s history.

                Radishchev says, “Blessed is the writer if he is able to enlighten even one person through his creation; blessed is he if he has sown virtue in even a single heart.”

                I wish the current Russian leader would embrace those words of his countryman.

 March 13, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

'Remember the Alamo' reflects spirit of resistance seen in Ukraine today

By Mike Haynes

                I dragged Kathy to a Lone Star Ballet performance last week – not because either of us likes ballet, but because of Texas history.

                The event was the excellent “Remember the Alamo,” created by King Hill, the local theater teacher, writer, director and man of many talents. It presented
a streamlined version of the 1836 battle when fewer than 200 Texans were surrounded by thousands of dictator Santa Anna’s Mexican soldiers. Actors voiced historical quotes from key battle participants interspersed with dramatic music and young dancers illustrating the fighting and its sad aftermath.

                  It was hard for us not to compare the story of the “Shrine of Texas Liberty” to the 2022 war in Ukraine, where at this writing, the eastern European nation’s army and citizens were fighting off invaders from Russia in another David vs. Goliath mismatch.

                As an actor spoke words from young Alamo commander William B. Travis’s famous “Victory or Death” letter – addressed “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” young Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to mind.

            I pray that Zelenskyy’s fate will be more like that of World War II British Prime Minister Winston Churchill than that of the heroic martyr Travis. The Ukrainian has been called “Churchill in a T-shirt” for his bold leadership, and his inspiring words have been in the mold of Travis and Churchill.

            Here are some quotes attributed to Zelenskyy:

            “Life will win over death, and light will win over darkness.”

            “When you will be attacking us, you will see our faces; not our backs, but our faces.”

            And concerning Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his military: “They count on the fact that God’s retribution isn’t instant. But He sees. And answers. You cannot hide from His answers. No bunker can protect you from God’s answers.”

            Zelenskyy is Jewish, while Putin represents the traditional Communist establishment that for most of the past 100 years has been anti-religion. Certainly, millions of Christians and Jews have been praying for the well-being of the Ukrainian people and nation.

C.S. Lewis

            The same was true for those who opposed Hitler during World War II, and while the outcome remained seriously in doubt, Christian writer C.S. Lewis reminded us that whatever happened, no matter how terrible the situation, believers would be OK in the end.

            Lewis gave a sermon in 1939 titled, “Learning in War-Time,” urging Oxford University students not to forsake their education just because the war in Europe seemed so much more urgent.

            “Why should we – indeed how can we – continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are

in the balance?” Lewis asked. He answered his own question:

            “I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no

absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. …

“We are mistaken when we compare war with ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. Plausible reasons have never been lacking for putting off all merely

cultural activities until some imminent danger has been averted or some crying injustice put right.”

                Lewis didn’t downplay the tragedy of war. He had been in the French trenches of World War I himself. But looking at the bigger picture in light of history, he reminded his audience that God ultimately is in control and that each person’s eternal destiny is more important even than suffering in war. He cited the Nazis’ then-recent invasion of Poland:

                “We think of the streets of Warsaw and contrast the deaths there suffered with an abstraction called Life. But there is no question of death or life for any of us; only a question of this death or of that – of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased.”

                That perspective may sound cold or callous, but it’s consistent with Paul’s statement to the Philippians:  ^“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

            In 1941, Lewis wrote in “The Screwtape Letters” that while Satan’s demons might be happy that war was causing grief for humans, the evil ones should worry because of the likely increased faith in God the conflict could encourage:

            “… if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy …” In the language of the book’s demons, “the Enemy” is God.

            Many prayers have been sent up since the Ukraine crisis began last month. I earnestly hope that, unlike the pleas of Travis in Texas, those of Zelenskyy are answered positively and that, in the longer run, many lives will turn permanently to God.

 Feb. 27, 2022, column in Amarillo Globe-News:

'Belfast' shares human side of Irish conflict between Catholics, Protestants

By Mike Haynes

                One way to explain what went on in Northern Ireland for roughly the last 30 years of the 20^th century is to say “the Troubles” were a conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

                That’s way too simple. Without getting too deep into the history, the main point of contention was political, not religious. Northern Ireland was under the control of the United Kingdom, while the rest of Ireland was independent.

Encyclopedia Britannica says, “Catholics by and large identified as Irish and sought the incorporation of Northern Ireland into the Irish state. The great bulk of Protestants saw themselves as British and feared that they would lose their culture and privilege if Northern Ireland were subsumed by the republic.”

                Belfast, the largest city in Northern Ireland, was the center of disputes that erupted into violence in the late 1960s, and it’s the setting of Kenneth Branagh’s new movie, “Belfast.” You don’t need to know the history to understand and enjoy this outstanding film; you just need to see it as if you were 9 years old – like Buddy, the main character played by Jude Hill.

                The plot, set in 1969, is fiction, but it’s based on the childhood of Branagh, the award-winning Irish actor who wrote and directed it.  And from the first scene, when Buddy’s play in the street is interrupted by young Protestant men throwing rocks and setting things on fire, to the last, when we find out whether he and his family will move to a safer city, the peaceful street where the family has lived for at least three generations is a place of turbulence and anxiety.

                A cute storyline showing Buddy’s crush on pretty classmate Catherine (Olivia Tennant) is complicated by the fact that her family is Catholic. Most of their street is Protestant, but the few Catholics living there are the reason for the repeated violence by the Protestant gang. Buddy asks his dad (Jamie Dornan) if the ongoing conflict will keep him from talking to Catherine. Although in another scene Pa questions some Catholic beliefs, he tells Buddy, “She and her people are welcome in our house any day of the week.”

                Buddy – and for the most part his family, who only want to stay out of the social strife and pay their bills – wonders why people can’t just get along. Their parish pastor isn’t much help with his fire-and-brimstone preaching, which prompts Buddy to sketch two roads – one leading to heaven and one to hell – on a piece of paper and ask his older brother which one they should take.

                Their grandmother (Judy Dench) just confuses things when Buddy asks her about the NASA moon landing and she says the dark side of the moon is “where Lucifer hangs his shillelagh.”

                The closeness of family and the importance of place outweigh political or spiritual concerns in “Belfast,” and Branagh doesn’t depict either side in the Irish fighting as the right side. The film’s visual aspect reflects the gloom of “the Troubles” and occasional moments of joy. It’s in black and white, but when the family temporarily escapes the stress – such as watching the 1968 Dick Van Dyke movie, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” – we see glimpses of color.

                Caitriona Balfe as Ma and Ciaran Hinds as the grandfather add to the talented cast of this PG-13 movie. It doesn’t include much violence, but danger always seems around the corner, and you worry about the family. As Pa has a standoff with an enemy brandishing a gun, Branagh shows Gary Cooper in “High Noon” along with Tex Ritter singing, “I must face a man who hates me.”

 

One instance of hope is when, at a graveside, a minister recites I Corinthians 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

                In real life, riots, shootings and bombings by extremists on both sides resulted in the deaths of police, soldiers and civilians for years. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 finally ended “the Troubles.” Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom but is governed primarily by local representatives instead of the British Parliament.

                I remember reading news reports about the violence between the two sides. “Belfast” shows us a third side – the human one.

 Feb. 13, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

We have neighbors all over the world

By Mike Haynes

                  I don’t watch the Olympics much anymore like I did the first few decades of my life. On one of the first days of the Beijing Winter Games, though, I turned on the TV and a red, white and blue flag caught my eye.

                  No, not Old Glory, although ours still is my favorite. It was the Norwegian red banner with a blue cross and white trim, next to the names of a mixed doubles curling team.

                  I also am not one of those Americans who, during previous Winter Olympics, became fascinated with curling, that sport where people on skates start a heavy round “rock” sliding down an ice runway, then use a little broom to sweep in front of it to help it go where they want it to. The closest thing I can compare it to is table shuffleboard.

                  For me, it’s interesting for about five minutes, but I watched the man-woman team from Norway for maybe 30 minutes not so much to see how they did against Canada but because in 2019, Kathy and I were blessed to visit their country. Yes, we were just tourists, but even our short exposure to a beautiful, captivating part of the northern world gave us a perspective that we wouldn’t have if we had stayed home.

                  We loved interacting, if only briefly, with friendly people in the larger cities of Bergen and Oslo, with tour guides helping us try to see the Northern Lights in sub-zero temperatures and with native Sami people who raise reindeer.

                  So when I saw “Norge” on the back of the curling team’s shirts, I knew that it’s Norwegian for “Norway” and that, as a blond store clerk had told me when I asked, it’s pronounced, “NOR-ga.”

                  Kathy and I have been to a few other countries, too, and as a result we have an appreciation not only for the meaning of visible things such as Israel’s Western Wall but to some extent for the attitudes and opinions of people in other cultures.

When I visited East Berlin with a group of college students a few years ago, our tour included a stop at one of the World War II memorials to the thousands of Soviet soldiers who died in the battle to take Berlin from the Nazis. Now I’m as proud of the crucial U.S. role in winning the war as any American can be, but the young man who spoke at that memorial in Germany reminded us that the Soviet Union also played a huge part in stopping Hitler. Russians and other residents of the former USSR take great pride in their country’s sacrifice.

In the current world political climate, it may be hard for Americans to think positively about Russians or Iranians or maybe even Chinese people. But when you meet people from other countries one on one, it’s easy to realize that usually, it isn’t the people who cause trouble, but governments.

The Olympics are supposed to bring athletes and their supporters from all sides of the globe together in friendship, and Christians should understand that global camaraderie better than anyone. After all, Jesus lived in the Middle East, nowhere near the western world. He spoke Aramaic, not English. Christianity spread to Rome and eventually to the rest of Europe and to North America, and now some of its greatest growth is in Asia, Africa and South America.

Christ said we should love our neighbors as ourselves, and he didn’t mean just our next-door neighbors. In the well-known story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), he tells us the definition of “neighbor” was the Samaritan, a traditional enemy of the Jews, who mercifully helped a beaten-up Jew on the side of the road. 

                  The Bible makes it clear that God wants us to love everyone with no exceptions. We don’t always have to agree with them, but it helps us to love people if we make an effort to see the world from their perspective. We can do that whether we travel “across the pond” or just talk to the guy across the street.

                  And being a fan of curling isn’t a requirement.

Jan. 30, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News

Cruise concertgoers and performers still rocking it

By Mike Haynes

The ladysitting at a small table reminded me of some in a senior citizens’ Sunday school class at our church. Short hair, white and neatly styled, glasses, maybe in her mid- to late-70s. I normally see women like that at church or in the grocery store.

But this woman’s head was bobbing back and forth, sometimes side to side, in a 

rhythm to some upbeat music by JR and the Stingrays. And other men and women, many who looked her age or older, were in front of the stage, dancing. Several of them obviously were experienced jitter-buggers, with women twirling under the raised hands of men and feet maneuvering like slalom skiers.On this first night on a Caribbean cruise, most of them wore white T-shirts that said, “29th Annual Concerts at Sea 2022,” and they were there for performances by bands from the 1960s as well as bopping to the Stingrays house band and catching up with friends who had enjoyed the trip with them in the past.

I’m getting up there in years myself, but some of these joyful people from all over the USA were closer to my dad’s age. And I’m sure some of them did sit in church pews the Sunday after they returned home. But Kathy and I, lovers of classic rock music, always marvel that so many of the people at the concerts we attend have gray hair, hearing aids and sometimes walk with canes.

Florence LaRue, almost 78 and an original member of the Fifth Dimension, one of the headliner cruise bands, used a cane when shopping at the port of Roatan, Honduras. But on stage, she danced and swayed with the younger members of the group and sang “Up, Up and Away” like she did 55 years ago. Apparently her off-stage cane is temporary; she had hip and knee replacement surgery not long ago.

During the show, LaRue was open about her age. She said people ask her how she keeps going at an entertainer’s pace. Her answer? “It’s all God.”

Gary Puckett, of Union Gap fame, is 79 and still booms out his hits such as “Woman, Woman,” with a vibrato voice. He and the other headliners on the cruise – Paul Revere’s Raiders, the Buckinghams, Peter Rivera of Rare Earth and Brian Hyland – as well as singer Roy Michaels – put on rockin’ shows that pleased their audience as fully as when all were in their teens and 20s.

Puckett pleasantly surprised some of us when he volunteered the information that he is a Christian “born-againer.”

Hyland was 16 in 1960 when he recorded “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." Two years later, his “Sealed with a Kiss” was another hit. You wouldn’t know he’s 78 from his energetic guitar riffs or his rendition of another success, “The Joker Went Wild.” And we found out the New Yorker is as friendly as a West Texan behind his ever-present sunglasses.

Granted, the purpose of a cruise is to have fun. But these Concerts at Sea people, mostly in their 50s to 80s, struck me as knowing better than most of us how to do that. With their masks on, senior couples did the twist, jitter-bugged to “Come On, Let’s Go” and snuggled to “In the Still of the Night.”

Rivera sang “I Just Want To Celebrate” in the ’60s and ’70s for Rare Earth. He told the cruising concertgoers that Grand Funk Railroad musician Mark Farner advised him that no matter your age, “keep working for another No. 1 hit.”

Off the ship, Kathy and I observed a man from Michigan, about to turn 90, who probably would agree. He and his daughter, maybe my age, were on a “swim with the dolphins” excursion at Cozumel. Even with one weak leg, he did it. This tall, thin man swam out 30 yards from a platform wearing a life jacket. A dolphin appeared under him, and he held onto the marine mammal’s fins while it sped him back to the platform. He finished with a big smile.

The Bible tells us a lot about work and responsibility. There’s a time to plant and a time to build, says Ecclesiastes. But it also says this:

“So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”

The older people we saw on that cruise brought their youth with them. As Paul Revere’s Raiders sang, they’re still getting their “Kicks.” And that’s a “Good Thing.”

 Jan. 16, 2022, column:

Conversions to Christianity can be dramatic, or quiet process

Fanny Crosby, 30 years old and without sight since she was a baby, was a teacher at the New York Asylum for the Blind when she and some friends attended a revival at the Methodist Broadway Tabernacle in 1850.

Fanny Crosby

She was moved enough to go forward at the end of two services, “seeking peace from her inner spiritual struggles, but found none,” according to Vance Christie, a pastor and Christian writer. Then on Nov. 20, 1850, she prayed at the tabernacle’s altar, later recalling “that the light must indeed come then or never.”

Christie wrote that as the congregation sang, “Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed?” and the line, “Here, Lord, I give myself away,” “Fanny expressed that commitment as the desire of her heart, yielding her life to Christ. Immediately her ‘very soul was flooded with a celestial light,’ and she sprang to her feet, literally shouting, ‘Hallelujah!’”

Not all of us have a dramatic conversion story like that. Some are more like Ruth Graham’s, which she said, according to writer Richard Hollerman, was like this:

Ruth Graham

"I have had ‘crisis’ experiences, but my salvation did not happen to be one of them, for I cannot remember the time when I did not love and trust Him. In fact, my earliest recollections are of deep love and gratitude that He should love me enough to die for me.”

Ruth Graham’s parents had been missionaries, and like many who grew up in the church, she couldn’t pinpoint a date that she first believed. Her husband, Billy Graham, also grew up in a Christian family but knew the day he gave his life to Christ.

Peter Smith wrote in the Louisville Courier-Journal that Billy Graham “credited his conversion to the work of Mordecai Ham, a native of Allen County, Kentucky, and one of the most fiery and controversial evangelists of his generation.”

Billy Graham

In 1934, Ham preached a revival series at Charlotte, North Carolina, near the Graham farm. Smith wrote that the teenage Graham “attended out of curiosity but was transfixed by Ham, who looked straight at him and said, ‘Young man, you are a sinner.’ Graham soon made a confession of faith."

Of course, Billy Graham convinced millions to make decisions for Christ in his own decades-long ministry.

Martin Luther King Jr., honored for his civil rights work, certainly was a believer, as “the Rev.” in front of his name attests. Like Ruth Graham, his acceptance of Christianity might be called a process.

The Journal of Lutheran Ethics quoted King’s autobiography: “Religion has just

Martin Luther
King Jr.

been something that I grew up in. … The church has always been a second home to me." According to the JLE, “King explains that he never experienced a conversion per se; however, he does say, ‘Conversion for me has been the gradual intaking of the noble ideals set forth in my family and my environment, and I must admit that this intaking has been largely unconscious.’”

Many Methodists know the story of their church’s founder, John Wesley. It may not have been the day he first believed, but his experience at a 1738 meeting on Aldersgate Street in London was his defining moment.

According to United Methodist Communications, “As he heard a reading from Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, he felt his ‘heart strangely warmed.’ Wesley wrote in his journal that at about 8:45 p.m. ‘while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my

John Wesley

heart strangely warmed.

“I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.’"

Wesley’s mother, Susanna Wesley, had a similar experience in 1740. She had been a devoted Christian while raising a huge family. But according to Vance Christie, "A significant spiritual event took place in Susanna’s life in January 1740 at a communion service led by her son-in-law Westley Hall. She afterward wrote of the incident:

“’While my son Hall was pronouncing these words in delivering the cup to me, “The

Susanna Wesley

blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee,” these words struck through my heart, and I knew that God for Christ’s sake had forgiven me all my sins.’”

Christian History & Biography magazine reported that in 1850, the future great preacher Charles Spurgeon converted to Christianity after seeing a vision, “’not a vision to my eyes, but to my heart. I saw what a Savior Christ was,’ he wrote, ‘I can never tell you how it was, but I no sooner saw Whom I was to believe than I also understood what it was to believe, and I did believe in one moment.’”

Charles Spurgeon

And one of the most dramatic conversion accounts is that of Oxford professor and writer C.S. Lewis, who had to overcome intellectual objections before he became “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England,” in 1930, according to scholar Alister McGrath. But that decision in his Magdalen College room was a belief in theism – in God, but not in Jesus Christ.

The final step came in 1931, after discussions with Christian colleagues J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson. Three days after a long talk with those men, Lewis rode in a sidecar of his brother Warnie’s motorbike on the way to a zoo. “When we set out I did not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did,” Lewis wrote.

C.S. Lewis

Walter Hooper, later the renown writer’s secretary, called Lewis the “most thoroughly converted man I ever met.”

Fanny Crosby apparently was pretty converted, too, considering the 9,000-plus hymns she wrote. My favorite evidence is the opening of a familiar one:

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine.

“Heir of salvation, purchased of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His Blood."

 Jan. 2, 2022, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

God provides inspiration in variety of forms

By Mike Haynes

                God may have been trying to tell me something in 2021. Three experiences that I already have written about inspired me – and my wife, Kathy, too – to be more confident and intentional about the biggest story in history.

It’s that true story about Jesus coming to Earth to save us from our sins if we believe in him and promising eternal life with no pain or sorrow for his followers. Our path in the past year included some definite sorrow, including the untimely deaths of my brother’s wife, Ginger, and one of my high school classmates, Mike. But God also gave us inspiration in the form of a visit to North Carolina, a book study and a streaming TV series.

On vacation in the Blue Ridge Mountains, we realized the Billy Graham Library was within driving distance, as was the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove. We visited both on consecutive days, expecting – at least in my case – more history and nostalgia than motivation.

                We found out it would be hard to walk through the displays and videos of either of those Billy Graham facilities without having the great evangelist’s words penetrate to the heart like they did for so many during his almost 70-year ministry. The focus of the library/museum and the training center is squarely on the gospel, and we walked back to our rental car both days with a renewed sense of urgency about the Christian message.

                Both of us recommend visiting those places in Charlotte and Asheville.

                Then God moved our Sunday school teacher, Kevin, to introduce us to John Burke’s book, “Imagine Heaven.” Mostly through scientifically recorded accounts of near-death experiences, Burke gives us a detailed, plausible look at what heaven might be like. The descriptions of beautiful landscapes and cities, all pulsating with energy and light, gave us a better understanding not only of the afterlife but of the unconditional love of God.

  
              That perspective on heaven truly made me feel better about Ginger and Mike, plus others who have moved on, and the prospect of being with them again in much better circumstances.

                We recommend the book to supplement your reading of scripture.

                And then there’s “The Chosen,” the first presentation of the life of Jesus in the form of a TV series. I know that everybody isn’t comfortable with expanding on the biblical accounts to show what daily life would have been like for Jesus and his chosen followers, but the producers emphasize that they don’t show anything that conflicts with scripture and that the storylines – such as Mary Magdalene’s first encounter with Christ, her backsliding and her being forgiven – are plausible representations that fill in some of the blanks not revealed in the gospels.

                We see a less stiff, more human Jesus, making ironic jokes with the disciples, feeling exhausted after a day of healing and nudging one disciple to take notes, knowing that the young Matthew later will write one version of Christ’s ministry.

                Like many viewers, Kathy and I have been delighted to see Jesus and those around him in a fresh light. And we’re happy that so many people have said the series is driving them to the Bible to read the authoritative accounts.

                After seeing the half-hour “Chosen” adaptation of the nativity story along with a diverse group of musicians and singers plus some of them delivering heartfelt words about why  “People Must Know,” we don’t hesitate to recommend it.

                The past year had other spiritual highlights. My brother, David, nephew, John, and friend, Mark, attended the Promise Keepers “comeback” rally at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington, which fired up thousands of men. And of course, Franklin Graham came to Amarillo with his “God Loves You” tour, offering the same message that his father did for decades. I have written about those, and they also are recommended.

                We can hope that God will place other points of motivation and encouragement in each of our paths in 2022 so that more will experience his love now and forever.

* * *

Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016 and has written for the Faith section since 1997. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.