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.

 

 Dec. 19, 2021, column in the Amarillo Globe-News:

Some thoughts about Christmas and the birth of Jesus

By Mike Haynes

                A couple of Christmas observations:

                REAL JESUS – I think the nativity set’s stable that my mother put out every December for decades was made of sturdy cardboard, and the animals, shepherds, Wise Men, Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus were painted ceramic figures. The presentation was rustic but a little cleaned up from what the real thing would have looked – and smelled – like.

                Since Kathy and I have been married, we’ve had a respectful but kind of cartoonish set of nativity characters displayed on a desk each year until this season, when I gave Kathy a new, shiny, more elegant holy family that we can add to gradually.

                I even have some 2.25-inch nativity figures created by a toy soldier company that are realistic except for the lack of dirt or grime on the neatly painted metal models.

                There is nothing at all wrong with those representations of the birth of Christ, the manger scenes around the country or the multitudes of Christmas pageants with cute boys and girls playing angels and shepherds. Columnist Gene Shelburne pointed out last week, however, that the sanitized version of the Christmas story creates icons – shepherds, camels, three kings, the baby and his parents – that sometimes are lumped into the same holiday wonderland as Santa Claus, reindeer and Frosty the Snowman.

                It’s too easy to enjoy the cuteness and beauty and forget that the nativity story is a real occurrence that happened 2,000 years ago in the gritty town of Bethlehem – which still exists – in the real country of Israel – where artifacts confirming biblical history continue to be dug up.

                Movies also have tended to show romanticized versions of Jesus’ birth. The 1977 film, “Jesus of Nazareth,” has a good amount of dirt and a splintery manger, but what I remember about it is its beauty.

                This year’s “Christmas with The Chosen: The Messengers,” which has done well at the box office in competition with more mainstream movies, comes the closest I’ve seen to making Joseph and Mary and their surroundings seem like people and places that come out of history instead of from a pretty renaissance painting.

                When the young, pregnant woman and her husband find out they don’t have a place to stay in Bethlehem, the actors, played by Sara Anne and Raj Bond, show genuine distress, just as a modern couple might when discovering every hotel room in town is booked because of the biggest college football game of the year.

                Joseph’s face is sweaty and grungy, and Mary moves gingerly as an expectant mother would. When they finally settle on a stable for the night, Joseph complains as he scoops manure off the dirt floor to make room for Mary’s blankets.

                As the holy moment arrives, Mary is deep-breathing and in pain as a wide-eyed Joseph wonders what to do. The scene remains G-rated, but we hear the sounds of birth, and the baby that Joseph presents to his wife still needs cleaning off.

                The more accurate portrayal of a human birth and the other true-to-life scenes might be more likely to influence doubters toward the reality of the Christian faith. In fact, that’s true of the entire “Chosen” series, which until this episode in theaters has been only on YouTube and a streaming app.

* * *

                CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS – Timothy Larsen brings up a reverse take on the typical lament that society is taking Christ out of Christmas. In this month’s “Christianity Today” magazine, the Wheaton College teacher who is the editor of “The Oxford Handbook of Christmas” says that despite the commercialism and secularism of the holiday, Christmas is the most Christian time of the year.

                In his essay, “No One Took Christ Out of Christmas,” Larsen points out that even the U.S. government recognizes a Christian sacred day as a federal holiday, churches typically have their largest attendance at Christmas, and some radio stations that normally play rock or pop music switch to Christmas songs in December. “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” becomes “Joy to the world! The Savior reigns.”

                “In our culture, Christmas is the least secular time of the entire year,” Larsen writes.” And the Christmas season takes up 10 percent of the year!”

                If we do worry about Christ disappearing from Christmas, he says, one action we can take is to make our own celebrations more centered on Christ. At least in our own homes, we can follow the second headline on Larsen’s essay and make this season “The Most Jesusy Time of Year.”

 Dec. 5, 2021, column:

Author C.S. Lewis was 'The Most Reluctant Convert'

By Mike Haynes

                If you’d like a relatively detailed account of how a person traveled over several years from atheism to belief in a vague supreme being to commitment to Jesus Christ as God, I recommend C.S. Lewis’s book, “Surprised by Joy.”

                Those who’ve seen the “Shadowlands” movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy, the woman he married, may be thinking, “Oh, ‘Surprised by Joy’ must be about the famous Christian author finding love late in life.”

                It isn’t. The “Joy” in the title refers to a deep desire or longing that can be fulfilled only by God and not completely until we are in heaven with him. Lewis takes readers on a journey from his childhood through his battlefield service in World War I to his experience as an Oxford University student and then professor, with each period of his life bringing him closer to that divine joy that he doesn’t think he wants.

                For a condensed but still well-explained version of Lewis’s spiritual journey, I would look for a chance to see the new film, “The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis.”

                The movie had a short local run in November. It stars Eddie Ray Martin playing Lewis as a child, when his mother’s death was a traumatic experience; Nicholas Ralph as a teen and young adult Lewis, whose friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien and others at Oxford helped draw him nearer to God; and Max McLean as Lewis in his later years.

                PBS viewers may recognize Ralph from his portrayal of James Herriot in the current series, “All Creatures Great and Small.”

McLean also narrates the film, using much of the same dialogue that he does in his one-man stage version of “The Most Reluctant Convert,” from which the movie grew. McLean founded Fellowship for Performing Arts in New York City and performs other Lewis and Christian live shows. From his association with the C.S. Lewis Foundation, he has friends in Amarillo; he’ll see some of them again July 28-Aug. 5, when he participates in the C.S. Lewis Summer Institute at Oxford.

                Not all of us go through such a painstaking, thorough analysis of the meaning of life, the possibility of supernatural events and the study of what is true and what isn’t. Lewis, the rigorous intellectual, did. He had grown up in Ireland in a Christian home but had rejected Christianity, probably influenced by the inexplicable loss of his mother and the horrors he witnessed in the trenches of World War I.

His book, “Surprised by Joy,” takes us from a childhood filled with details of everyday life to a young adulthood that becomes more philosophical to his 30s, where he finally considers spirituality and realizes that nothing in life is as significant as the Creator God.

                The movie, “The Most Reluctant Convert,” is a condensed version of that trajectory.

                Again surprisingly, the conversion in the title isn’t to belief in Christ. As Lewis says in the book, it’s an acceptance of deism. Any change in his beliefs had to be logical, and for him, it was a step-by-step process.

                Alone in his room at Oxford’s Magdalen College in his early 30s, Lewis “gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. …

                “It must be understood that the conversion … was only to Theism, pure and simple, not to Christianity.” Lewis believed in a God, but not a personal one and not in the form of Jesus Christ.

                He still was not sure that “I was now approaching the source from which those arrows of Joy had been shot at me ever since childhood. He did start attending his local parish church, “not because I believed in Christianity, … but because I thought one ought to ‘fly one’s flag’ by some unmistakable overt sign.”

                It was through more reflection and conversations with Tolkien and others that Lewis came closer to faith in Christ. “I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken,” he wrote. He was in the sidecar of his brother Warnie’s motorcycle on a sunny day as the brothers approached the zoo at the village of Whipsnade.

                “When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did,” Lewis wrote.

                He also decided that joy was important only as a signpost to Christ: “It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer.”

                As a world-famous author and scholarly professor, Lewis may not seem to be a model for us ordinary folks. But if you take time to read this book or see this movie, you might be surprised that we all face some of the same obstacles to understanding God.

Nov. 21, 2021, column in the Amarillo Globe-News: 

People in our pasts serve as 'stone' markers in our journeys

By Mike Haynes

                Two men I knew long ago passed away this year, and I found out about both on Facebook.

                Both were people I’m glad I encountered in the 1980s, and both had been mostly off my radar for the past three decades.

                I liked both a lot, and it would have been nice if I had contacted them occasionally through the years. But this isn’t a plea for getting in touch with friends or loved ones before it’s too late. I fully agree with that, and no one has expressed it better than Lance Lahnert, the former sports editor whose column about his late father ran in this newspaper annually for years.

                Making sure family and close friends know you love them is vital. And for me, keeping the ties to my McLean schoolmates and hometown friends is a given, made easier by an all-school reunion every two years.

                But what about people who were significant to you for a short time before you moved away? The deaths of Darrel and Ed reminded me that we should at least stop to be grateful for those we knew in the past.

                The book of Joshua in the Old Testament tells us that after the Israelites had crossed the Jordan River as God stopped its flow, the Lord told their leader, Joshua, to have men take 12 stones from the river to stack in the Promised Land as a memorial of the event.

                The primary purpose was for future generations to know about the power and love of God. It also was a reminder that the story of the Jordan crossing should be passed on.

                I see people in our pasts as markers in our journeys. Even if we don’t stay in touch, each time we think about them and the impact they had on us can be a “stone” that reminds us of good times and good people.

EDWIN HENRY

                Edwin Henry hired me as sports editor of a suburban newspaper in the Houston area around 1980. He was a helpful boss, having covered sports around the city for years. He gently tutored me in writing about baseball, which I liked but didn’t quite understand as well as other sports.

                He quickly became a friend, too, helping me move into my apartment and giving me advice on living single in a big city. I learned of his love of bass fishing and bowling and met some of his family and friends.

                George Foreman, who was between his boxing heyday and his later comeback – and before the George Foreman Grill – lived in a Houston suburb. Ed had connections and easily could have interviewed the sports legend by himself. But he invited me to go with him, and we spent an hour as Foreman sat on his couch next to bench press equipment in his living room. Ed wrote a feature on his boxing career, and I wrote one on his Christian faith.

                Ed was African-American, and he sometimes tactfully filled me in on cultural differences that he figured I wouldn’t know about as a white guy who grew up on a ranch in West Texas.

                In a couple of years I moved back closer to family, but Ed still was concerned about my future. When he and his wife visited Amarillo for a bowling tournament, my parents and I met them for supper. After that, though, we let the 600 miles between us take its toll. I’m not sure why I decided to Google him the other day and saw that he had died this year.

        

DARREL THOMAS

       Darrel Thomas was my colleague for seven years at Texas Tech. He was the photography adviser for Tech Student Publications, and I was the editorial adviser. We guided student staff members of the university’s newspaper and yearbook.

                Darrel was an instructor and friend to the hundreds of student photographers who passed through his office, studio and darkroom in the basement of the journalism building. He stayed in contact with many of them, and the scattered photogs got together with him often.

                Darrel was a Tech student and then a student publications/media professional for 44 years. He’s one of a few people who deserves the title, “Mr. Texas Tech,” or at least “Mr. Red Raider Photographer.” As fellow advisers, we sometimes disagreed – Darrel defending his photo students and me supporting the writers and editors. He was demanding about photo excellence but a fun friend to students and colleagues. He liked rock music and a good get-together.

Kathy and I did get Darrel to shoot our wedding photos in 1991. I may have seen him once after that.

He retired, but his camera was as active as ever. My recent interaction with him usually was saying “Nice photo!” about one of his online bird, cloud or moon pictures, to which he always, replied, “Thanks, Mike.”

                Darrel died Oct. 23, and his memorial service took place Nov. 9 in the Kent R. Hance Chapel on the Tech campus.

                Darrel and Ed left legacies with those who came their way. Last week, I saw an Associated Press photo credit naming one of Darrel’s students who became a veteran NFL photographer. On social media, Ed’s son said he’s honored to see stories about his father, and that  “It helps keep his memory alive.” 

                Maybe it isn’t realistic for us to stay close to all the people like Ed and Darrel who have touched our lives. But we can think about them now and then – a mental “stone” – and thank God that we knew them.

 * * *

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.

 

Nov. 7, 2021, column in the Amarillo Globe-News:

Jesus: A better superhero than all the fake ones combined

By Mike Haynes

                Our niece, Sheri Ann, loves Halloween. She and her husband, Tyler, always dress up, decorate their house and especially, make it a fun time for their 4-year-old son, Dallas.

                From the video I saw of Dallas this year, it looked like his improvised costume was part Ninja Turtle, part Spiderman. And his confident body language showed that he considered himself some kind of superhero.

                Lots of superheroes show up on Oct. 31. Wonder Woman. Black Panther. When I was around Dallas’s age, I had a Superman outfit complete with the red cape, and I would jump off our 18-inch fireplace hearth knowing I wouldn’t really fly around the living room but giving it my best imitation.

                 We invent superheroes who have abilities we’d like to have. How many times has someone asked you, “Which would you rather have, the ability to fly or to be invisible?” 

                Superheroes also fulfill, at least in our fantasies, the need to be saved. We are Lois Lane falling from a building, but Superman catches us to save the day.

                We use the word to praise first responders, soldiers and others who put themselves on the line for our protection, but there are no superheroes in real life like those from the DC or Marvel universes. Except…

                Christianity offers us one. You know his name. And if what he says is true, he’s a better superhero than all the fake ones combined.

                We are told that by taking our sins upon himself when he died on the cross and then rising from the dead, Jesus Christ – God – saved us from the penalty of those sins. His message is that if we believe in him as divine, we will live with him in heaven for eternity. Things might not be so good on Earth, but there, he is preparing a place for us that is better than anything we can imagine.

                Christian author C.S. Lewis was aware that other religions have stories of gods dying and coming back to life. He knew that such accounts, including that of Jesus, sometimes are called “myths.” He also knew that although people tend to use the word “myth” to mean something that isn’t true, there is another meaning.

                Simply put, “myth” can mean a story that describes or explains a truth. In that sense, Lewis recalls in his essay, “Myth Became Fact,” the example of Balder, the son of the god Odin in Norse mythology. Balder dies and goes to the underworld and eventually, at the end of the world, he returns.  

                Lewis also mentions Osiris, an Egyptian king and god who was murdered but came back to life as ruler of the underworld. But the British author points out a key difference in those myths and that of Christ. While the others are hazy histories with no specific locations or times … well, Lewis explains it better than I can:

                “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.

“It happens – at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified … under Pontius Pilate.

“By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle. …God is more than a god, not less: Christ is more than Balder, not less. We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology. We must not be nervous about ‘parallels’ and ‘Pagan Christs’: they ought to be there—it would be a stumbling block if they weren’t.”

If someone tells me the Bible story is a myth, my answer will be, “Yes, it is.  A true myth.” It fulfills the wishes of humans who for thousands of years have invented superheroes to save them; and 2,000 years ago in a real place on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the myth came true.