June 30, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Book of Kells illuminates gospel, enlightens public

By Mike Haynes

                I’m hoping that this year my wife, Kathy, and I will get to stand in front of the Book of Kells.

                Unless you’re a history or art buff or have followed the reproduction of the Bible through the ages, you might wonder, “What’s the Book of Kells?” And once you know, you might say, “What’s the big deal about it?”

                For me, it’s pretty big. Because of my journalism background, which has involved ink and printing, and because of my Christian commitment, I have for years been fascinated by the production process of early Bibles. I’ve seen a few copies of the original King James Bible, published in 1611 in England, and four copies of the first Bible ever printed, by Johannes Gutenberg in Germany in 1455.

                But before Gutenberg, the Word of God was transmitted by hand, usually Catholic monks toiling with quills and ink, often followed by artists embellishing the pages with colorful images.

                The Book of Kells, named for its residence for a time at the abbey of Kells, Ireland, “is commonly regarded as the greatest illuminated manuscript of any era owing to the beauty of the artwork,” according to Joshua Mark of World History Encyclopedia.

                Since 1661, the 680-page book has been on display at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where we hope to see it. It attracts close to a million visitors a year to Trinity, which Queen Elizabeth I established in 1592 as a Protestant university.

                The book presents the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – in Latin and  illustrated stunningly. Christopher de Hamel, a Cambridge University professor and an expert on medieval manuscripts, said, “No study of manuscripts can exclude it, a giant among giants. Its decoration is of extreme lavishness and the imaginative quality of its workmanship is quite exceptional. It was probably this book which Giraldus Cambrensis, in about 1185, called ‘the work of an angel, not of a man.’”

This image from the Book of Kells shows the gospel

writer Matthew.

 
               The Book of Kells’ journey to Dublin is intriguing, too. Historians believe it was created by monks on the Scottish island of Iona around the year 800, then taken to Kells, Ireland, in 806 to keep it safe from the wave of attacks by Vikings, who first had struck Iona in 795, killing 68 monks. It could have been incomplete and finished at Kells.

                  When the anti-Catholic English leader Oliver Cromwell invaded Ireland around 1650, the book’s caretakers feared for its safety and took it to Dublin, where Bishop Henry Jones took care of it. He donated the book to Trinity College in 1661.

                Although known primarily for its elaborate artwork, the manuscript certainly had a Christian purpose. Joshua Mark wrote, “The Book of Kells is thought to have been the manuscript on the altar which may have been first used in services on Iona and then certainly was at the abbey of Kells.

“The brightly-colored illustrations and illumination would have made it an exceptionally impressive piece to a congregation, adding a visual emphasis to the words the priest recited while being shown to the people – much in the way one today would read a picture book to a small child.”

John the Evangelist is shown in this image from the

Book of Kells.

The Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity College includes much more than the book itself, which is tucked away in an atmospherically safe nook and for which photography isn’t allowed. Visitors can see videos and other displays. According to Marc Connor, an English professor and president of Skidmore College, “The exhibit also has illustrated panels that describe all the elements that went into medieval bookmaking: the creation of ink, the making of vellum, the elaborate symbols used, the monastic life in the scriptorium and much more. It’s an immersion in the medieval world of the word.”

Studying the trajectory of handwritten and printed Bibles through the centuries, I’ve been impressed with the dedication of those who have ensured that God’s Word always is available to Christians and to those whom God is pursuing. I think the Book of Kells will be a brilliant reminder of those efforts.

I’ll let you know.

June 16, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News

Fathers' Day: 'Grandads' also pass along wisdom to next generation

By Mike Haynes

                Father’s Day shouldn’t be just for fathers. Let’s extend it to grandfathers, too.

                Grandfathers also are fathers, of course, but author and minister Wayne Rice wrote on the Focus on the Family website that there is a special role for them – and for grandmothers, but that’s for another day.

                The Bible makes it clear that God’s wisdom should be taught not just to the next generation, but to the next one after that and beyond. That means the old and gray are expected to pass on what they’ve learned to their grandchildren.

                Deuteronomy 4:9 says, “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.” (NIV)

Not everyone has the luxury of growing up close to grandparents. In our mobile society, families often move far from the “home place” so that kids see their parents’ parents only on holidays or infrequent visits. The older folks aren’t in their lives every day or even every week so that the young ones can see how they live and benefit from their guidance.

My Grandad John … (I know, the dictionary says it’s “granddad,” but “Grandad” was his name, and that’s the way we always have spelled it.) … Grandad John, my dad’s dad, did plenty of teaching and storytelling to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

                My Grandad Ruel, our mother’s dad, was an active businessman and died young – in 1962 at age 57 – so he wasn’t around long enough for me or my siblings to glean as much as we could have from him. The first thing that comes to mind for me is a little of his goofy humor. Sometimes I would walk by as he was watching a baseball or football game on the black-and-white TV in his den, and he would ask me, “Have you been drinking muddy water?” After I said, “No,” he would reply, “Well, you must have, because I can’t see the TV through you.”

My younger brother David did have a connection with him, though, and one of our prized family photos is of Grandad Ruel at his desk with a young David sitting in a chair next to him. I think the time he spent at Grandad’s office still is an inspiration for my brother in his own business career.

Grandad John was 95 when he died in 1997, and multiple generations lived in or near the same town for decades, so he had longer to influence us. Some of our silly, smalltown wit came down from him, and if we were paying attention, we picked up countless tips about manual labor, cowboy etiquette and integrity. Some of those lessons came through our mom and dad, but lots were directly from hearing or observing Grandad.

“Do what you’re paid to do and then some,” Grandad John would say. “It’s the ‘then some’ that gets your salary raised.”

Neither of my grandfathers were vocal with Bible instruction, but both were loyal church members who led by example. Grandad Ruel was a strong supporter of the Baptist Church, and Grandad John anchored our regular pew, second from the front on the left side, at the Methodist Church. My brother David still sometimes hands out quarters for the collection plate to his own grandchildren on that same pew, something that was a weekly practice for Grandad John.

Our grandparents and parents certainly made sure that we were in Sunday school and church to be exposed to the gospel and the Christian life.

Growing up near grandparents certainly isn’t a requirement for a fulfilling life. My wife, Kathy, was far from hers as a child; her mother’s dad was in Kentucky and her father’s dad in California. Her maternal grandfather died young after years in the Appalachian coal mines. But not having more than one generation nearby wasn’t a handicap. Kathy grew up attending church and youth groups and has a solid Christian faith.

Psalm 71:18 tells us, “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.” (NIV)

Wayne Rice pointed out that “the next generation” refers to a person’s children, and “all who are to come” usually means grandchildren or even later generations. God doesn’t want people to limit their influence to their children but to keep passing it on to their children and to theirs as long as possible.

Most grandfathers – and grandmothers – don’t want to become irrelevant. Mine sure stayed in our lives. Even if some live far away from their grandkids, they can be positive influences. They still have a job to do.

June 2, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Memorial Day story reminds us 'The others can’t tell theirs'

By Mike Haynes

                First Lt. Coy Buell Ellison died on Aug. 2, 1944, on a World War II bombing mission over Romania. He was a navigator on a Liberator aircraft that did not return.

                Seaman 2^nd Class Johnny Leo Windom died on Nov. 25, 1944, in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was listed as missing as action before being declared killed.

                The locations of their deaths were half a globe apart, but they had started out in the same place. They were the first and last of six young men killed in the war during a three-month, three-week period – all from the town of McLean, Texas, whose population was just more than 1,400.

                Ellison, Windom and the other four were remembered this Memorial Day in an annual service at Hillcrest Cemetery on the edge of McLean, whose city limits sign now says it has 665 residents. It was a sunny day with just enough breeze to make the Stars and Stripes flutter.

                The flag was marched to the cemetery center circle by Cub Scouts and raised to the top of a pole before being lowered to half-staff. The morning’s speaker, Don Sanders, noted the scores of other, small, American flags that the Cub Scouts had placed on graves the day before.

                “It’s a privilege to see a town that supports our veterans,” said Sanders, who served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970. He grew up in Stinnett and is a longtime member of Heald Methodist Church outside McLean.

                Sanders made clear that his faith, his mother and his “little sweetheart from McLean, Texas,” had helped him overcome “demons” that haunted him after his Vietnam experience. He had seen fellow Army servicemen undertaking dangerous tasks such as hauling napalm, and a friend from Buffalo, New York, who “had your back” had returned to the States with irreparably damaged lungs from Agent Orange.

                A chaplain had told Sanders, “God’s not through with you yet.”

“We’ll all get through this if we’re soldiers of Christ,” Sanders said. “I don’t know if it’s good for you to hear this, but it’s good for me to tell.” He referenced those who didn’t make it back. “I’m telling my story, but the others can’t tell theirs.”

Jennifer Evans, my cousin who volunteers with the Hillcrest Cemetery Association and the McLean-Alanreed Area Museum, among other community groups, is researching all 31 known McLean service members who have lost their lives from World War I on. She read short biographies of the six who died in that short 1944 time span.

Ellison is buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery in England. Windom is buried at McLean. In addition, Army Sgt. Morse Ivey of the McLean Class of 1936 was killed in action on Aug. 9, 1944, in France. Ivey, who was related to my family, is buried in the Brittany American Cemetery in France.

Navy Ensign James Everett of the McLean Class of 1940 was killed on Sept. 10, 1944, while strafing a Japanese landing field in the Philippines. A marker at McLean memorializes his life. Private 1^st Class Alton Glenn died on Oct. 8, 1944, two months after being wounded while fighting with the Marines on Guam. He was born in Wheeler County and is buried at McLean.

And Private Delmas H. Collie died on Nov. 10, 1944, on Leyte Island after suffering wounds fighting with the Marines on Guam. His grave is at McLean.

As remarkable as it is that so many lives from one small town were cut short in less than four months, the impact isn’t the numbers but the devastation on each of those six families – and on families all over the Texas Panhandle and the nation.

Bobby and Carey Richardson, two of several excellent musicians at the Hillcrest service, talked about their late brother, Staff Sgt. Kenny Richardson, who was a member of the Air Force Academy’s Wings of Blue parachute team and a survival trainer.

Kenny Richardson was killed in a parachute accident in 1999, and knowing the sense of loss his brothers feel makes their beautiful harmonic singing even more inspiring. I’ve seen them perform “Go Rest High On That Mountain” at several funerals, and their rendition was no less inspiring on Memorial Day.

 A service that included “Amazing Grace,” “How Great Thou Art” and “Far Side Banks of Jordan” led by the Richardsons, Kristen Webb, Kendalyn Richardson and Bobby Evans left some in tears, but maybe the Ernest Tubb song, “Soldier’s Last Letter,” sung by Evans, captured the moment best:

“When the postman delivered a letter, It filled her dear heart full of joy. But she didn't know till she read the inside, it was the last one from her darling boy. …

“Dear Mom, was the way that it started. I miss you so much, it went on. Mom, I didn't know that I loved you so. …

“I'll finish this letter the first chance I get, but now I'll just say I love you…

“Then the mother's old hands began to tremble, and she fought against tears in her eyes. But they came unashamed, for there was no name, and she knew that her darling had died.”

 May 19, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Novels depict characters' spiritual growth amid WWII conflict

By Mike Haynes

                Two novels set in a World War II Europe infested with Nazis and full of intrigue, romance, history and philosophical conflict had their genesis in Shamrock, Texas.

                “Jesse’s Seed,” published a few years ago, follows David Dremmer from his life on a ranch, working with cattle and horses and trying to deal with Jesse, his difficult father, to the gunner’s seat in a B-17 bomber to confinement in a Nazi prison camp. Along the way, author Sam Pakan takes David through the emotions of a less than ideal marriage to falling for a resistance spy named Nicole while questions of faith and morality torture the main character’s soul.

                Now the second book, “A Bed in Sheol,” picks up the story where it left off, with David in the hands of Germans but buoyed by dubious help from a Luftwaffe officer. Both novels are available on the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.

                Pakan grew up on a ranch near Shamrock, and the stimulus for writing about World War II came from his association with two uncles and a neighbor who were WWII veterans. One uncle was reluctant to talk about his experience in the Pacific, saying, “I lost my best friend there.”

                Working on his master’s thesis at West Texas A&M University, Pakan interviewed a neighbor who had been held in Stalag 17b, a notorious prison at Krems, Austria, during the war.

                “Stalag 17b would have provided a good deal of history and drama, but it wouldn’t have been a place where a Nazi with a conscience could have remained, and that was part of the conflict I had wanted to insert in the first novel,” Pakan explained. So he set David’s experience elsewhere and created the Nazi officer, Heinrich Schneider. “I just imagined that some in the Reich must have struggled with their conscience, and, as a result, were broken by what they saw,” said the author, who made David the protagonist and Schneider the antagonist.

                David was conceived as “a weak man who was haunted by his past and had more than ample room for growth,” Pakan said. Part of that growth is spiritual, as the American makes a move toward God in the first book. But Pakan doesn’t consider the books “Christian novels.”

                “My books are written from a Christian world view, but I don’t see them as evangelical,” he said. “They offer glimpses of Christians and non-Christians walking through difficulties. It would be inauthentic to not picture a Christian praying and not asking God why.

“Christians believe there are reasons things happen, that God exerts influence in His universe, that there is an ordering force, so we ask for deliverance when difficulties come. When deliverance doesn’t come, we question it.

“It would be inauthentic to depict people who believe in God, who know He hears our prayers, to not question why. The atheist is left without even an expectation of things ever making sense and should, therefore, see chaos as inevitable. The fact that most don’t is telling, I think.”

Pakan said the names Jesse and David in the story do reflect the Old Testament father and son but that there is a limit to the connection. “This is by no means a retelling of the story of King David,” he said. “I just see that some men are thrust into positions of responsibility whether they want it or not.

“I don’t think King David sought fame or position. He was a flawed man in many ways and weak in others, but God called him a man after His own heart and chose him to lead the nation of Israel. Why? I don’t think the ancient king had any idea why, just as David Dremmer has no understanding why things seem to fall on his shoulders. In that sense, he is an everyman for his generation who, like so many, answered the call and did what had to be done. I see that as heroic.”

In both books, the character Bear is David’s trusted friend. Pakan said Bear was based in part on his neighbor who had been in Stalag 17b and also on a close friend of Pakan. “I suppose all my characters, at least to some degree, are amalgamated from people I’ve known or known about,” the writer said. “Even Nicole, though I’m not telling you where I came up with her.”

                One character definitely is based on someone from Pakan’s past. “Dancer, the horse introduced in the first book, was unabashedly created out of my dealings with my favorite horse,” he said. “His name was Heir, and he wasn’t black, but sorrel. Still his character comes through in every scene he’s pictured in. He served me faithfully for years and was a close friend. He deserves a tribute, and I intend to give him one.”

                Lovers of the ranching life will find familiar details in these books, and readers who like suspense or romance will be rewarded. History buffs will recognize real events and people, including a character’s interaction with Winston Churchill, complete with his cane and cigar.

                Beyond the surface are well-developed characters, their minds and motivations pricked by moral and spiritual conflict.

                Pakan hopes to write two more books in the series.

                “Considering how slow I write,” he said. “I’m praying for a long life.” He envisions the stories of David and Nicole ending around 2010.

“I’ve had these people living in my head rent free for years,” he said, “and it’s time they made it on their own.”

May 5, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

'Last Session' repartee pits Freud vs. C.S. Lewis

By Mike Haynes

                In 30 years, Anthony Hopkins morphed from C.S. Lewis into Sigmund Freud and from a mere Christian into a committed atheist.

                That’s all just on the screen, of course.

                In 1993 Hopkins, one of the finest actors on Earth, portrayed Lewis, possibly the greatest Christian writer of the 20^th century, in the movie, “Shadowlands.” Debra Winger played the woman Lewis married late in life, Joy Davidman.

 

               And in “Freud’s Last Session,” released in 2023 and available on streaming services, Hopkins has the title role in a compelling fictional conversation with a younger version of C.S. Lewis.

                Hopkins, 86, is on a roll. In another 2023 film, “One Life,” he is much more humble as the real-life Sir Nicholas “Nicky” Winton, who led a World War II effort to save almost 700 Jewish children, transporting them from Prague to London as the Nazis closed in.

                It’s unlikely that Freud, the legendary pioneer of psychoanalysis, and Lewis ever met, although a statement at the end of the Freud film claims that an unknown Oxford professor visited the real Freud a few weeks before his death.

                Freud, born of Jewish parents in the Austrian empire, moved to London in 1938 to escape Hitler’s rampage, and he died in 1939 of oral cancer after asking his doctor to give him lethal doses of morphine. He was 83.

                The movie places the visit of the two intellectual giants on Sept. 3, 1939, which would have made Lewis 40 years old – less than half Freud’s age. Lewis lived until Nov. 22, 1963, a week shy of his 65th birthday. He died on the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

                Don’t expect two hours of dry, intellectual ideas being tossed across a desk in Freud’s London study. The stimulating repartee is broken up with flashbacks to the boyhoods of the pair, a depiction of Lewis’ experience in the World War I trenches and a subplot involving Freud’s daughter Anna.

                In the film, both men are confident and assured of their positions on the existence of God. Each thinks the other is wrong, with Freud calling Christianity a “fairy tale,” but each also is respectful of his rhetorical opponent’s academic qualifications and beliefs.

                Hopkins is intense at times as he portrays a man in physical pain and still sorrowful from the death of his daughter Sophie in her 20s during an influenza epidemic. Matthew Goode, 46, whose character married Lady Mary in “Downton Abbey,” gives a subtle performance as Lewis. He seems to be restraining himself at times when he would like to make points about his faith.

                “Freud’s Last Session” is adapted from a play of the same name by Mark St. Germain, which is based on a 2003 book by Armand Nicholi, “The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex and the Meaning of Life.” Nicholi took statements that both men wrote and brought them together into a back-and-forth discussion. Some of Lewis’ well-known assertions show up in the movie dialogue, including his idea that all humans possess an innate knowledge of right and wrong that must have been implanted globally by a creator.

                Alexandra Mellen of “Christianity Today” magazine pointed out one lively exchange in the film:

Freud: “Your God who created good, or whatever that is, he must have also created the bad, the evil. He allowed Lucifer to live; he let him flourish. But logically he should have destroyed him. Am I correct? Think about it.”

                Lewis: “God gave Lucifer free will, which is the only thing that makes goodness possible. A world filled with choice-less creatures is a world of machines. It’s men, not God, who created prisons and slavery and – bombs. Man’s suffering is the fault of man.”

                Mellen said film director Matthew Brown’s brother-in-law, a pastor, told him the film is as fair and true to Lewis as to Freud. “What he loved about it was it allows Christians to have their faith challenged,” Brown said. “That’s a very important part of being a Christian. And I’m hoping that could be said for the other side, too.”

                The movie doesn’t end with a “winner.”

                “The weird thing is, everybody thinks the other side won when they see it,” Brown told Mellen. “My Christian friends think that Freud was more convincing, and vice versa, the psychiatric community thinks that Lewis won. It’s fascinating.”

April 21, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Amarillo sent mission groups to Belarus during open period

By Mike Haynes

                Long before Russia invaded Ukraine and years before Vladimir Putin established his iron hold on the Russian Federation, scores of Christians from the Texas Panhandle made multiple trips to that part of the world to help people who had little access to the word of God.

                From 1992 to 2008, teams of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, pastors, lawyers, business people and others traveled to Belarus, which is surrounded by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, to provide medical and other aid and to preach about Jesus Christ.

Col. Bill Duncan

                Director of the nonprofit group formed to facilitate the efforts was Bill Duncan, then of Amarillo, whose new book, “A Warrior’s Walk,” describes the birth, precarious life and eventual forced end of the remarkable ministry. Duncan now lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

                The memoir, subtitled, “The Life and Journey of Colonel Billy R. Duncan,” and edited by Amarillo minister and writer Gene Shelburne, also recounts the distinguished Marine Corps career of a man who served in Korea and Vietnam as well as representing his country in the Soviet Union before that Communist state collapsed. His experience with eastern bloc officials, including some in the KGB spy organization, helped pave the way for the success of the CIS Church Development Foundation.

                The immediate successor to the Soviet Union in 1991 was the Commonwealth of Independent States. Duncan, Stan Coffey, then pastor of Amarillo’s San Jacinto Baptist Church (now the Church at Quail Creek), Roy Wheeler, then senior minister of Paramount Terrace Christian Church (now Hillside Christian Church), Jim Smith, then pastor of St. Stephen Methodist Church, and others formed the CIS Church Development Foundation in 1992 after Coffey had been invited to lead a Christian crusade in Minsk, Belarus.

                With the monumental change in governance in Russia and the other eastern European nations, the local ministers saw an opening for Christianity that had been closed by the Soviets since 1917. “Nowhere on earth is there a greater open door to preach the Gospel,” Coffey told potential volunteers. “Following the death of Marxist ideology and atheism, we see a new opportunity to spread the word of Jesus Christ.”

 

                About 90 people from several denominations participated in the first crusade. Upon their return, Duncan and other leaders created “The Vision for Belarus” and evaluated the needs of “churches, medical and educational facilities, hospitals, orphanages, pension or retirement homes, children’s training camps, local media, existing trade unions, and other areas of the social fabric of the new republic.”

                The plan was to start in the million-population Minsk and grow into other cities. Because of Duncan’s experience as a Marine and as a civilian government contractor, he believed God put on his heart to use his contacts and take a top-down approach. With “CIS” in the foundation’s title, the group was able to get bureaucratic approval for events and visits that would have been impossible under the Soviets.

                The Amarillo-based group delivered Bibles and prescription medicines and preached on the streets and in churches. But with some local officials still holding long-held restrictive attitudes, not everything was smooth. In fact, Duncan, his Russian interpreter and a pastor from Trinity Church in Amarillo spent a night in a Russian prison.

                After the three took a side trip to deliver Bibles and antibiotics to Ukraine in September 1992, they were stopped at their Moscow hotel because their passports didn’t show a visit to Ukraine. The Russian officials suspected the lack of a Ukraine stamp meant they had been conducting treasonous activities.

                 Because Duncan and the prison warden both held the rank of colonel, Duncan decided to take a bold approach and demand their release as American citizens. After a tense discussion, the warden relented and fined them $38. Duncan had $30 in his pocket, and the pastor had $8.

                “God showed himself as our Provider and our Protector that day,” Duncan wrote.

                For more than 15 years, the mission trips continued with activities that included visits to churches, prisons and hospitals. Duncan estimated that a million people were reached, 2.4 million Bibles were distributed and 139 churches, including home churches, were started.

                Roy Wheeler, along with his interpreter, Luda, was one of those who preached in churches and theaters. Some services lasted for hours with eager audiences standing the entire time. Duncan recalled a frigid rally in 1993 in an unheated theater. Wheeler’s luggage had been lost, and in freezing temperatures, he preached while wearing a donated jacket and mittens. The group took advantage of his misfortune and posted billboards that said, “Come see the American speak. He is unequipped for our winter and unseasonably cold!”

                Duncan said the persuasiveness of Wheeler and Luda created a big response to the message, and Wheeler made 10 trips to Belarus in the following years.

                It all ground to a stop as a result of the “2002 Religion Law” that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko – still in power in 2024 – put into effect requiring state approval for churches or religious organizations to meet. The Amarillo group managed to continue but with more caution. In 2008, however, the U.S. State Department instructed Duncan not to continue taking groups to Belarus on tourist visas as had been the practice. Duncan realized that the new restrictions could be dangerous, and the CIS Church Development Foundation was dissolved.

                In his book, the veteran Marine and Christian missionary asks, “Will the seeds that we planted continue to grow?” His answer: “…Yes! … We still hear comments from a pastor or a fellow-believer over there. God is still alive and moving inside Belarus.”

April 7, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

You can go home - especially on Easter

By Mike Haynes

                I never have liked the saying, “You can’t go home again.” A book by Thomas Wolfe published in 1940 made it popular, and I’m sure that circumstances make it true for some people. Even Jesus said, “No prophet is accepted in his hometown.”

                But I’m not a prophet, so I like much better the words from 2005 of rock band Bon Jovi: “Who says you can’t go home?”

                I did on Easter Sunday.

                I’m fortunate that I live close to my hometown and can go back fairly often. Interstate 40 bypassed it 40 years ago, its population is half the size that it was when I was a kid, scores of the people I knew back then have passed away, and I don’t know many of the newcomers who have moved in since I went off to college.

 

The Easter sermon

               But sitting on the same second pew last week that my family has occupied for 70-plus years, I certainly was home again.

                I’m blessed. My cousin, 18 days younger than me, has been the Methodist Church’s pastor for close to 30 years. My sister, who moved back home a decade ago after a coaching career, leads the hymns and the children’s music. Last Sunday, the congregation joined the dozen little kids – two of them sons of my niece and her husband – in singing, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart … Where? … Down in my heart to stay!”

                And a big portion of my extended family – more than 20 – filled several of the front rows, just in front of a slightly larger group of another family that has graced the church since I can remember.

                My youngest brother and two cousins were in the choir, and another brother held down the end of our pew. My 93-year-old dad is having trouble getting around these days, so he and one of my aunts, also a little mobility-challenged, sat in the foyer at the back of the sanctuary. Dad sang in the Methodist Men’s Quartet for years, and my aunt used to be the choir leader. They were given microphones Sunday, so even from our spots on the second pew, my wife and I could hear Dad singing bass on “In the Garden.”

                Of course, the focus wasn’t my family. It was Easter, so the community was well-represented. My cousin, the preacher, pointed out that it would have been the 95^th birthday of a woman who was one of my childhood Sunday school teachers. She had passed away four weeks earlier. Her birth in 1929 also had been on Easter Sunday.

                Even that remembrance wasn’t the focus. My cousin’s sermon directed our minds and hearts squarely on the astounding, historical story of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross to take the punishment for all our sin, his miraculous resurrection from the dead and the provision that if we believe in him, “Because I live, you shall live also.”

Children's time

                My cousin stressed that the first three disciples who came to Jesus’ tomb on Sunday morning – John, Peter and Mary – had different reactions to Christ’s body being gone. John and Peter “went home,” while Mary stayed at the location where she last had seen her Lord’s body. And she was rewarded when Jesus appeared and spoke to her.

                The sermon borrowed a few elements from my cousin’s first Easter sermon in 1994 – another return to the past. What drew tears from a few eyes, though, was his recalling of the heartwarming decision he had made to follow Christ fully – which resulted in his becoming a minister.

                Standing in front of an Easter cross, he pointed to the exact spot at the altar where he had experienced a spiritual breakthrough three decades ago and had begun a journey to become a hometown pastor.

                 After church, my family and a few friends enjoyed a big Easter meal at my dad’s house – in the same kitchen and den where my four siblings and I grew up. The children raced to find eggs in the front yard where we had done the same.

                So sometimes, you can go home. But if I paid attention to my cousin’s sermon, I should remember that believers have a home to go to that we never will leave.

March 24, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Why you should see 'Cabrini' and learn about her selfless quest

By Mike Haynes

                Don’t skip “Cabrini” because you’re not Catholic.

                Don’t skip it because you’re not Italian.              

Don’t skip it because the title reminds you of opera singers. (The movie does include just a little opera singing, but that isn’t what it’s about.)

                Just don’t skip it.

                Here are two reasons to see “Cabrini”:

Cristiana Dell'Anna as Mother Francesca Cabrini

According to Angel Studios, executive producer J.E. Wolfington agreed to help make the film on two conditions: (1) that it would be about a great woman who just happened to be a nun, and (2) that a 501(c)(3) entity would be set up so that all the net revenues would go to charity.

Both of those stipulations were met, and the film’s heroine, Mother Francesca Cabrini, was the definition of charity. With some dramatic liberties that add characters and condense timelines, “Cabrini” is the story of her selfless quest to help orphans and immigrants in the New York City of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The movie begins with harsh coughing by Mother Cabrini, played by Cristiana Dell’Anna, and a doctor telling the young woman she might have two years to live. That doesn’t stop her from seeking a missionary appointment abroad, and Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini) sends her from Italy to America to minister to the masses of Italians who have sailed to New York in search of better lives only to find filth, hunger and discrimination.

Her persistence – to be exhibited throughout the story – results in Mother Cabrini and a small group of other sisters sighting the Statue of Liberty in 1889. They make do with a broken-down building in the city’s Five Points district, searching muddy streets and climbing down sewer ladders to find children they can move into their makeshift orphanage.

                The sisters encounter heartaches – such as the death of an orphan boy in an industrial accident – and resistance from racist residents, city officials (John Lithgow plays the mayor) and even the local archbishop (David Morse). Through it all, Mother Cabrini not only survives but succeeds with her ambitious ventures to aid the poor.

                  The archbishop does allow his Christian kindness to outshine city and church politics and offers buildings and land formerly owned by the Jesuit order to Cabrini so she can build a proper children’s home.

                One catch is that water is scarce on the property, but Cabrini and her followers overcome the problem by searching for water and digging a well manually themselves.

     

Federico Ielapi as Paolo and Cristiana Dell'Anna
as Mother Cabrini in "Cabrini"

           Actress Dell’Anna’s unyielding yet sympathetic face is perfect to convey the grim determination that takes Cabrini well beyond her doctor’s prognosis and past her initial, vague mission to help disadvantaged immigrants. She manages to open a hospital with funds from New York Italian, Irish and Jewish groups and even travels to Rome to ask for money from the Italian Senate to finish the project.

                At one point, the pope questions Cabrini’s motives, wondering whether she is trying to create her own empire instead of doing the work of God. She replies that she wants “an empire of hope.”

                As the film ends, we are told that Cabrini lived to be 67 years old, establishing 67 missionary institutions for the sick and poor in New York, Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Denver, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Latin America and Europe. She became a U.S. citizen in 1909, and in 1946, an estimated 120,000 people filled Soldier Field in Chicago when the Catholic Church canonized her as the first American saint.

                Mother Cabrini certainly must have been a saint, whether in the Catholic definition,  the Protestant use of the term as any born-again Christian or the way I remember people describing a person who did good deeds and lived an admirable life: “She’s a saint.”

She took to heart Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ …

“…’Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

If you don’t see “Cabrini,” do think seriously about her example.

 March 10, 2024, column from the Amarillo Globe-News:

Scottish woman remembered with much respect

By Mike Haynes

                A fierce battle in Scotland in 1746 sometimes is called “the Scottish Alamo” because of the overwhelming victory of British Redcoats against an under-equipped band of tartan-wearing Highlanders.

                It was the Battle of Culloden (pronounced “kul-ODD-in”), and it effectively ended many of the Highland traditions such as wearing kilts and speaking Gaelic, at least for a few decades. It put the British government in London in firm control of Scotland.

                I suspect that Scots would be likely to call our revered Alamo massacre “the Texas Culloden,” because their bitter fight on a moor near Inverness is as much a key part of Scottish history as the Alamo is for us. It was the last full-scale battle on British soil, and the site has been preserved along with a modern museum. The Alamo is just now catching up on its presentation for visitors.

 

Flora MacDonald

               The key figure in the battle and surrounding events was 25-year-old Charles Edward Stuart, known as “Bonnie (Pretty) Prince Charlie.” He had recruited Highlander clans to rebel against British King George II in an attempt to put a Stuart, his father James, back on the throne of England and Scotland. His supporters were called Jacobites (“JACK-o-bites”), using the Latin word for James.

                “Bonnie Prince Charlie” led his rebel army successfully for a few months before meeting his “Waterloo” at Culloden. Until then, the attractive prince had stirred the imaginations of many Scots who thought he would lead them to victory over the oppressive government.

                But he is known more for his flight to avoid capture after Culloden than for the admiration he had before the battle. And surpassing him in fame and respect is a young woman who didn’t ask for recognition but who is more celebrated in the British world than the prince.

                Flora MacDonald was a 24-year-old woman living on a farm on one of the Hebrides islands west of the Scottish mainland when the bonnie prince and a few protectors took refuge there as they fled to avoid capture after Culloden. Flora helped sew a disguise for Charles and continued with him and his entourage. The prince dressed as Flora’s Irish maid with the name Betty Burke.

                The most famous, dramatic and romantic part of Flora’s involvement was a boat ride to the Isle of Skye, where the prince hid before eventually boarding a ship and escaping to France. Despite rumors, there was no romance between Flora and Charles. She and others eventually were arrested. She was held on a prison ship, then in London and finally was released. But the legend of Flora and “Bonnie Prince Charlie” already had been born.

                Many have heard versions of the “Skye Boat Song”:

                “Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, Onward! the sailors cry; Carry the lad that’s born to be king Over the sea to Skye.”

                Flora was hailed not so much for her faithfulness to a cause but because in a moment of crisis, she had done what seemed right to her.

                Author Flora Fraser follows the Scottish heroine for which she is named from birth to her death on the Isle of Skye in her 2022 book, “Flora MacDonald: Pretty Young Rebel.” Fraser describes the “in between,” when the woman who had saved the prince moved with her husband to North Carolina, supported the British in the American Revolution and ultimately sailed back to her homeland.

                The book details how Flora MacDonald became a celebrity in her lifetime and remains in the British consciousness today with her picture on sewing kits, jewelry and tins of Walker’s Shortbread cookies. A statue of her stands in front of Inverness Castle.

                Admired as a strong, clever woman who affected history, Flora even is remembered in North Carolina, where Flora MacDonald College for young girls operated for a few years and she is mentioned on historical markers.

                Her grave on the Isle of Skye features a tall, Celtic cross monument with the words, “Flora MacDonald – Preserver of Prince Charles Edward Stuart – Her Name Will Be Mentioned in History – And If Courage and Fidelity be Virtues – Mentioned with Honour.”

                So the majestic, flamboyant man with royal blood was defeated, escaped and lived an uneventful life in Europe while the ordinary, practical, woman who helped him briefly is remembered with much respect.

                I can’t help but think of the Jewish people 2,000 years ago who prayed for a messiah who would arrive, a royal prince possibly leading an army against Roman oppression and bringing them peace and prosperity.

                Instead, Jesus came as an humble baby, grew up as a carpenter’s son, traveled by foot with his followers and died a criminal’s death.

                Sometimes the best in life comes from unexpected faces.