Bruce’s Umbrella, Donald Duck, & My On-Line Diary

This last day of 2008 causes me to reevaluate my life, to recall why I keep this diary, and to remember Bruce’s umbrella and Donald Duck.

To start with, I remember Bruce’s umbrella!

O do I remember Bruce’s umbrella!

It was horrible!

As soon as I turned 11 years old, I joined Boy Scout Troop 36. To initiate me established members stripped my pants off and hung them from a lamp pole on Hendricks Avenue. I ignored busy traffic and hooting car horns to climb the pole and retrieve my pants.

From then on, I belonged.

My initiation shows what a rowdy bunch of ruffians we were, calling each other vile names and teasing each other unmercifully—except this once.

We were Scouts. We chopped down trees, explored caves, dug in fossil beds, explored ruins, built forts, passed around illicit copies of Argosy: The Men’s Magazine, and exchanged highly improbable information about how babies are made.

We were Scouts.

We were tough.

One drizzly Saturday morning we loaded our gear in the back of a stake truck and 30 of us began to pile aboard to go off on a camping trip. Laughing, catcalling, shoving we pushed for the best places at the front of the truck bed.

This kid named Bruce entered the fray seeking his place under a tarpaulin out of the rain.

A car pulled up in front of the Scout Hut.

Bruce’s mother got out and ran toward the truck waving a woman’s umbrella.

The lady back then was dressed like the female’s in a Desperate Housewives .tv show today. Tight skirt, low-cut, bouncing bodice, high spiked-heeled sandals, Bouffant hairdo (Is that what you call that sort of 1050s hair style?)

She was a sight.

We all looked.

She was yelling, “Brucie! Brucie, you forgot an umbrella”.

An umbrella on a Scout camping trip?

Bruce balked—he argued that nobody else in the troop carried an umbrella camping.

She insisted—he might get wet, catch cold.

From the bed of the truck, the rest of us watched the exchange.

She threatened not to let him go camping unless he carried that umbrella.

It was yellow.

It had flowers on it.

Bruce relented.

He climbed back on board the truck with the umbrella.

Not one boy—Not one—teased him.

None of us had ever heard the word mortification, but we knew its meaning. In our minds we every one pictured his own mother, and we all knew that kind of humiliation could happen to any boy.

There but for the grace of God is me with a yellow, flowered umbrella on a truckload of boys going camping to rough it in the woods.

We realized our common humanity.

We knew that happened to one, could happen to anybody.

So not one boy teased Bruce.

But I doubt if any of us ever forgot him.

Mortification. Humiliation. Universal experience. Things we share, or could share, in common. Bonds with humanity that we’d just as soon hide. Vulnerability. Transparency.

A saint once said, “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man…”

But we try to maintain our dignity—at least I do. I cringe at the thought of anyone seeing how weak I am especially when life forces me to carry a yellow flowered umbrella.

Pride punctured wounds deep.

Rather slip with a chain saw.

At least that’s manly… I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK!

That brings me to Donald Duck, an eminently successful corporate attorney I met as an adult when I was driving a tractor trailer over the road cross country. We met “by chance” at a one-time meeting in a church where neither one of had ever been before.

I wrote about our meeting back on May 31, 2007, This Couple Wanted My Bed, in my blog archives.

Donald Duck, successful attorney, and John Cowart, blue-collar truck driver, had nothing in common except that on some level each of us wanted to follow Christ whole-heartedly. On that basis we hit it off as fast friends.

We often talked about commitment, about how Jesus is worthy of our devotion because of His love for us, because of His death for us on the cross, because He rose from death, and because He sends His Spirit to be active in this present world through everyday ordinary people like you and me.

Don told me his insight that I am a proud man. He told me that if I chose I could be a passable Christian, attending church, dropping a little tithe in the plate, refraining from overt noxious sin—but that for me such a path would be hypocrisy.

Don said that if I chose to really follow Jesus, I would need to become vulnerable and transparent and honest. He said that I would not be an example of a Christian, but more of a public display, like when you visit an archaeological site and walk through the ruins seeing how primitives coped and made things fit.

On some shallow level, without realizing what I’m getting into, I chose to follow.

At a safe distance.

That brings me to this on-line diary.

For years I’ve kept a diary recording my day to day acting out of my own Christian life. Of course I try to put my best foot forward and I try to avoid looking like too much of an ass.

But at the same time I try to avoid hypocrisy. I do not record every time I browse for naked ladies on the internet; I do not tell all my resentments or the grudges I’ve held for years and years—but I mention enough such squalor to give a taste of my sins, temptations and struggles. I try to reveal and acknowledge my sins but not to wallow.

By the same token, I try not to record all my virtues and good deeds, but I try to give a taste of those also. Like the old Puritan teacher told theology students, “Be thou not overly pious”. I try not to relish and exalt in how nice I am.

For instance, yesterday I helped my son pick up surplus bread from a bakery and delivery it to a shelter for the homeless (how virtuous of me); But, I opened a package, took out the best pastry, and ate it myself (stole food right out of the mouths of the poor, What a creep). Those are the two sides of me my diary reveals.

My writing lets readers stroll through the ruins.

My goal in all this is to present a transparent picture of what the Christian life is like for one guy.

In seeing what it’s like for me, maybe something will strike a cord, maybe someone will identify, maybe some reader will recognize their own heart-yearning…

Maybe someday some reader will see through my transparency and vulnerability and realize— Hey! This is real. This rings true. Jesus is indeed the Christ, Son of the Living God, the Savior.

I want readers to see through murky me to catch a vision of Him…

And to see Him as worthy.

TEST POSTING With Graphic

Since Christmas and the phone line trouble, my computer went wonkie on me and I have not been able to post.
Donald repaired it today.
So this is a test posting with a cool computer graphic.
My real post is dated December 29th.

Preview Of Coming Attractions

Film reviewers attribute the worst movies ever made to Hollywood personality Ed Wood.

Mr. Wood stands in danger of loosing his number one spot.

My son Donald and I plan to make several movies over the next few months. Our films are sure to become classics.

After all, I’m noted for my refined taste in movies.

For instance, I rank among my personal number one box office favorites The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra, a film in which Ranger Brad says, “ Seriously, folks, around these parts we’re serious about taking horrible mutilations seriously”.

And the space aliens conquer the world using house painters’ caulking guns as props. (That solved some budget problems).

According to my cinematic taste, another prime example of the film maker’s art should attract the attention of other refined, cultured viewers with discriminating tastes.

It’s called Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter.

In the opening scenes of this fictional cinematic event, vampires attack lesbians in the city. Church leaders appeal to the Savior of the world for help. Jesus, who’s been studying karate before his second advent, comes out of retirement to battle the vampires. He whisks along city streets on his skateboard healing the sick, blind and crippled as he goes. A gang of 36 atheists attack, and Jesus karateizes the lot. But then, vampires beat him up and leave him bleeding in the gutter. A priest passes by on the other side, a cop passes by, but the Good Transvestite picks him up and nurses him to health. Then Jesus teams up with a professional wrestler and they whack vampires right and left in an auto junk yard and –

Oh yes, have I mentioned that this movie is a musical?

No account of my refined taste in cinema is complete without mention of Lair Of The White Worm. In this film an evil giant snake attacks the village demanding an offering. The townsmen decide to sacrifice Alice because, “She the closest thing to a virgin we’ve got in this village”. But the intrepid Scottish hero saves Alice and the village by thwarting the evil serpent by the simple ploy of going into the snake’s lair with a mongoose hidden under his kilt.

These are three of my top movie picks, these films make the early Godzilla movies look like cinema!

So naturally, the films Donald and I plan to make may rank right up there with these other film classics. Here’s a photo of Donald as cameraman/director:

Not really.

Seriously, our films lack such luster; they have different roots.

For several years back in the mid 1970s I taught Bible lessons at a sort of half-way house for drug addicts. A judge had given convicted residents the choice of going to jail or staying at the shelter and one requirement of living there was they had to attend my bible classes.

Talk about a hostile audience!

To win their attention, I developed various odd gimmicks to both amuse and instruct. They worked pretty well. Although in one class, while I illustrated a Bible lesson with poster paints, one guy went to sleep. I continued my talk as I crept out into the audience and painted his nose red. The class thought that was a hoot.

Years later, I taught these same lessons at a skid-row mission where the administration made the men sit through one of my Bible classes before they could have supper.

Many resented this requirement so I felt it necessary to do my best to win their attention and sympathy.

I felt I was battling for men’s very souls there because almost every week one or two of the down and out guys would have died between meetings.

So, although I fooled around and joked a lot to gain attention and interest, I trembled at the seriousness of what I was doing.

Then, once after a couple of years, the pastor of one of Jacksonville’s society churches happened to visit our house while I was rigging one of my demonstrations for the mission. The project intrigued him and he asked me to make a presentation to his Pastor’s Bible Class, a group made up of physicians, attorneys, architects, bankers, etc.

After praying about it, I felt that if a lesson was good enough for the guys at the mission—if I were giving them my best—then that same lesson was good enough for the society class. So I taught the exact same lesson both places that week.

The class proved popular enough that the pastor asked me to take over, and I taught that way for several years.

Incidentally, I was not exactly a high society person myself; as I was teaching that class on Sundays, during the week I worked as a janitor.

A strange situation.

Anyhow, because my son Donald got this bug about making video films for the internet, his idea is to use me teaching some of these same lessons with the same gimmicks and my tasteful jokes.

He wants me to star in his films.

Seriously folks, he’s serious about making serious religious-type films for a serious viewership…

What am I to do?

I can’t find my caulk gun!

Know where I can buy a mongoose cheap?

Repent, Sinner! Repent! The Day Of The Lord Is At Hand!

A Baby's Clothes

Polly caught a frog.

That’s the way she worded it.

It’s an occupational hazard for prostitutes.

Polly worked the same truck terminal where I worked back when I drove a tractor trailer 40 years ago.

I met her late one night in the men’s shower room. Both of us were naked.

Years later, I wrote a newspaper column about meeting The Girl In My Shower ; a copy of the article can be found at:
http://www.cowart.info/Rabid%20Fun%20columns/Girl%20in%20shower/Girl%20in%20shower.htm .

Polly asked Jesus into her heart that night—But the process of working out exactly what that meant in her life did not happen in an instant. For most of us, it doesn’t.

Salvation, becoming a Christian, is not all about solving our problems and getting our life all straight. No, Salvation is all about Jesus, about acknowledging His Lordship and giving Him His rightful and proper place.

Any happiness that relationship brings is a by-product, not the reason, of honoring Christ as Savior. So Polly’s life didn’t turn rosy the second she accepted Christ.

As I crossed country, whenever I’d pass through her town every couple of months, she’d update me on how her life was going. I think she felt relieved to able to share a cup of coffee or meal and chat with a male who was not a potential customer.

One day in the mechanic shop, she told me that she’d “caught a frog” from somebody or the other. She was pregnant and her man was upset about it, but she’d decided to have the baby anyhow.

(Now, please fellow Christians, don’t throw rocks at me, but I’m not at all sure that sometimes an abortion is not the best thing for all concerned, including the baby—and no, I do not care to discuss it.)

Anyhow, my views on the subject didn’t matter because the prostitute had already decided to have the baby before she even told me about it.

Ginny and I were expecting our own first child by then, and when I told her about Polly, Ginny knitted a little cap, booties and baby clothes for the prostitute’s soon-to-be-born baby. Not knowing whether Polly’s baby would be a girl or boy, Ginny knitted the tiny outfit out of pastel green yarn with yellow trim.

Ginny’s kind gift touched Polly.

Polly delivered a little girl child a few days before that Christmas that year. She told me that her man raped her as soon as she got home from the hospital. It hurt, she said, but she was glad he did it because she’d been scared he wouldn’t like her or find her attractive after she had the baby.

What a prince.

Like many abused women, Polly feared him but also feared being without him. The thought that he would leave her alone in the world terrified her. She could see no way to get along without him as her “protector”.

Although Polly was a Christian and, on a deep level wanted to extricate herself from street life at the truck terminal, she would never make a Bible scholar.

But, she was so proud of her newborn daughter.

“John,” she said, “I named her Merry. You know, after Merry Christmas, the mother of Jesus”.

Yes, she thought the two words were the same.

I saw no reason to correct her.

Months later when I left the road, I lost contact with Polly.

This time of year, when I hear people wish “Merry Christmas” I always think of Polly and Merry, and I wonder what happened to them.

May God bless them whatever.

If I make it there myself, I expect to see Polly again in Heaven. Not all of us who come to Jesus need to know all the right words, just the right “Man”.

Merry Christmas.

For Service, Punch Option 84. Let Me Repeat That In Spanish...

Here it is two days before Christmas and we’ve spent the last six days trying to reach AT&T to get our telephone working again. Their shabby system causes us to investigate dropping AT&T altogether and going with a rival cell phone company.

My dealing with AT&T brings to mind this cartoon:

On the up side, Ginny and I finally put up our outdoor Christmas display. Smaller than usual, but we got it up in time for Luminary Night. Sunday night we walked for three hours enjoying lights and decorated homes.

Here’s a photo of Ginny adjusting our little display

Being anchored to the house for six days waiting for the telephone repair man to show up has put a crimp in my Christmas activities. And while I practice hostage negotiations with the phone company, I also struggle with the problem of where my own work should go from here.

Talked with my friend Barbara White at Dave’s Diner yesterday about knowing the will of God. Barbara pointed out that I do not have to know what to do next, I just have to decide what to do next.

$9,999.00

Suppose that someone gave you a gift of $9,999.00.

You would not have to pay income taxes on that gift. It is a free gift and not earned income.

OK, suppose some gave me a gift of $9,999.00, I would not have to pay income tax, Ginny—she’s an accountant—says the tax has already been paid by the giver. The recipient enjoys the gift, tax free.

Unfortunately, no one gave me $9,999.00 for Christmas this year.

Instead, one of the kids presented me with this:

It is a lovely electric rat in a coffee mug.

When I lift my mug, the rat squeals and kicks his feet and thrashes his tail trying to back out of the mug.

Hey, it’s the thought that counts.

Right?

At Eve’s party the other night, our kids showered many such lavish gifts on us. (Eve tells about her shindig on her blog today at http://www.eveyq.blogspot.com/ ).

A lady in a parking lot yelled something that got me to thinking more about gifts yesterday afternoon when Ginny and I stopped at a department store to buy some batteries.

As we approached the store, we passed a family coming out into the parking lot. A sullen teenager lagged behind his harried mother. The irate woman shrieked at him, “That’s what you’re getting! You asked for three presents, and you’re getting three damn presents”!!!

Nothing like family togetherness for the holidays.

A gift originates with the giver.

What that gift is comes at the giver’s discretion.

The recipient is just that, a recipient. He can be grateful for the gift, regard it with indifference, or reject it according to his nature.

Our kids gave Ginny a delightful gift. Here’s a photo:

My photo can not do it justice. It’s about a foot long and all those things dangling from the dorsal fin are bells that tinkle when you move it.

Ginny is the first on our block to own one.

She’s the envy of all who see it.

This morning Ginny woke at 4 a.m. with me this morning and we talked about taxes. She says the gift limit has been raised to twenty thousand dollars. You can receive that much without having to pay income tax on it.

The gift comes free because you have not earned it; the giver paid for it before you even knew he was giving it to you.

If you work and earn, then the person who hands you $9,999.00 is merely paying a debt. That is not a gift; you’ve earned the cash and you have the bragging rights to how worthy you are to get such a sum.

It’s only a gift if you have done nothing to deserve it.

See where I’m going with this?

St. Paul said, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast”.

Salvation comes tax-free. Christ, the giver, has already paid everything that needed paying. He paid for it on the cross.

We can accept His gift with gratitude, reject it with resentment as not something we really wanted, or ignore it with indifference—to our peril.

Like the old hymn says, “Jesus paid it all; All to Him I owe”.

It’s a good thing gifts come free.

Otherwise, just think of all the tax I’d have to pay on my Squealing Rat In A Mug. Or what Ginny would owe on her tinkling, flowered, yellow and purple fish.

Some gifts are priceless.

Examining My Motives As A Writer

This Christmas tide, while the rest of the nation freezes under sub-zero blizzards and crippling ice storms, here in 80-degree sunny Florida, (I like to rub that in to poor yankees) I dabble at a systematic program that leads to reading through the Bible in a year.

I want to talk about that, but first let me say that last night Eve and Mark hosted a riotous combination birthday and Christmas celebration at their home.

Because of travel plans and folks wanting to spend Christmas with their spouses’ families, the Cowarts exchanged jokes, jabs and gifts last night. It was a hoot! Poor Clint, our newest, must wonder what he’s gotten into by falling for Patricia. He’s got a treasure he didn’t recon on the family being thrown into the bargain.

We played with candy rats (lone story of an odd Cowart holiday tradition. We teased Mark about mistaken a perfectly good manatee for a walrus! (Mark hails from up north). We prayed, feasted, read Scripture and told bizarre, embarrassing stories about each other, and exchanged even more bizarre gifts (another Cowart tradition).

For our Christmas devotions I read the Ten Commandments and short passages from three of the Gospels. And to reinforce the seriousness of the gathering, I told about this cartoon:

Terri didn’t get the joke—which made it all the funnier for the rest of us.

Now, back to my original intention of reading day by day through the Bible in a year.

I’m not making it.

I miss a lot of days, but reading all the way the whole thing again remains my goal.

Sometimes, that practice creates a posterior pain

For instance, Friday’s reading brought me to Peter’s First Letter, Chapter 2, where I read:

For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

Now the passage primarily reveals Christ, telling what He did and our relationship to Him. I believe this passage is literally true. Every phrase pictures the situation accurately. But one phrase in particular captured my attention: An example that ye should follow His steps.

Years ago I read Charles Sheldon’s popular novel titled In His Steps. And yes, I know it advocates a watered-down, liberal Christianity and a social gospel; (O Horrors!) but it’s still a cool, thought-provoking book.

Here, I’ve scanned in a brief passage from that book which I ran across again recently; it’s about Jasper Chase, a writer:

Money and fame as a writer.

All this gives me something to think about.

I hate examining my own motives!

See where Bible reading gets you?

I’ve got to stop reading such stuff.

It messes with my head and gives me another (well-deserved) posterior pain.

I like the parts where Peter talks about how vile, nasty sinners are going to get their comeuppance—those passages make for easier reading.

The thing is, when reading the Bible, you can never tell which phrase is going to stick. Alive, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable—that’s God’s written word.

As Peter says, “Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”.

Theologian term the process of the Holy Spirit’s working on the writers inspiration. It means God-breathed.

Reading Scripture carries that same sort of supernatural dynamic.

At His discretion, the Holy Spirit sometimes causes certain phrases to jump out at the reader. Theologians term this process illumination, which means to light up.

Sometimes I wish the ideas of Scripture did not light up for me…

Say, I wonder what’s on tv this evening?

An Annual Ritual

Thursday I visited my parents' grave.

Hide & Seek At Christmas

Happens every Christmas.

I heard about it on the radio this morning as I transcribed more pages of that old hand-written diary I’ve been working on.

Once again vandals have been stealing images of the baby Jesus out of nativity scenes in front of churches and homes.

Nothing new there.

Pathetic losers.

Somebody needs to buy these folks a Gameboy or something.

What is new, to me at least, is that some security firms now hide GPS devices inside the images so authorities can locate the stolen figures in a hurry.

An Associated Press news bulletin tells all about it; the bulletin can be read at http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ned=&q=stolen+jesus%2C+gps&btnG=Search+News

Some folks train security cameras on their Christmas displays to identify thieves, as well as attaching GPS locators to track down the missing Jesus.

One church chained jesus to a heavy cinder block, but thieves made off with the whole rig.

I find all this … I suppose amusing is the word I want. But it borders on hilarious.

A jesus that can be stolen is not the God I worship.

He’s too big to lift for one thing.

I have no use for a GPS to find Him.

Indeed, our roles are reversed.

If anyone is lost, it’s us, not Him. The first thing God called to Adam after the fall was, “Where art thou?”

Adam and Eve were hiding in the bushes from God.

We, their descendents, do the same thing.

Only the bushes are different.

We hide.

God seeks.

Now, manger figures are just that, figures. Someone carved or molded them out of plastic, wood, plaster, stone, papier-mâché—even pressed tin like the ones I showed in the video last week.

These things rust, get chipped, get weatherworn, misplaced, stolen. They perish in the using. I suspect that for most Christians they rank more as decorations than as representations of Christ the Lord.

Even if they are meant as representations, they are poor ones.

The Scripture tells us that God who came to earth to be born in a stable, held the universe together while He was becoming a baby. He later said, “All power is given unto me in Heaven and in earth…” While solders hammered nails into His hands, He gave their arms the strength to swing the hammer. And the Lord of Life rose from death under His own power.

The Scripture says, “In Him we live and move and have our very being”.

He can not be lost, He holds all creation in the palm of His nail-scared hand.

And here is the wonder—the Mighty God, the Lord of Life, the Bright and Morning Star, the King of Kings, the Alpha and Omega, the Creator and Sustainer of all—Jesus seeks us.

We can’t hide from Him. I have this mental picture of kids playing Hide and Seek with Dad, they crouch behind the cellar door, giggling that Daddy can’t see them.

But he can.

God can too.

He knows where we’re hiding.

As far as God is concerned, everyone of us has a GPS stapled to our ass.

Every hair on our heads is numbered by Him who calls every star by name, who sees every fallen sparrow, who sees every tear to well up in our eyes, who heals the broken in heart.

And His call to us now is still the same as it was at the world’s beginning to sinners in the Garden of Eden:

Where art thou?

Come Home.

Come Home.

Come in free.

I Need A Scorecard

In a different vein, Patricia, our youngest daughter, the one studying to be a phlebotomist (great pun: vein/phlebotomist—I’m so clever!) came home yesterday.

She brought her friend(fiancé ?) Clint (his mother is a long-time Dirty Harry fan) to meet us; from Jacksonville they plan to drive to a cabin in the mountains for Christmas with his parents so Patricia can meet them for the first time.

Anyhow, I’d spent part of the day cleaning house getting ready for their arrival… Then, Jennifer, our eldest daughter, called saying that she’d invited Eve, our middle daughter, and they’d all meet me and Ginny at a Chinese restaurant.

Ginny and I got there first and waited in the parking lot.

The kids called on a cell phone to tell us they were at a nearby duck pond in the park and would meet us in a few minutes.

Meanwhile, this car pulls up with a young couple inside. The man got out, approached me, extended his hand and said, “How are you doing, Sir?”

I had no idea who this stranger was.

The young lady got out of the car.

I had no idea who she was either.

Of course, the couple was Clint and Patricia. I did not recognize either one at first (she has a new hair color and style).

I felt so embarrassed.

In the New England of the 1600s, people considered gross mental confusion a sign of being bewitched (Recently, I’ve been reading a book about psych/sociological elements in colonial witchcraft trials).

Must be that I’m being hag-ridden… or just plain going nuts.

Anyhow, we enjoyed a nice dinner with all those kids—whoever they were.

Ginny’s Hearty Pre-Christmas Stew

When we visited yard sales over the summer, Ginny bought used or out-of-date pillar candles for next to nothing; yesterday, she surrounded these with glass balls we scrounged from the trash to decorate our table with this centerpiece which cost less than $3.

Clever girl.

As Christmas approaches, so do a myriad of activities. More shopping, wrapping presents, phone ringing, church meetings, Luminary Night, birthdays, parties, house cleaning, decorating, visits from friends, charitable activities—we hardly have time to eat.

Problem solved.

Clever Ginny cooks up a huge pot of her hearty Pre-Christmas Stew.

Theoretically, when pressed for time by all the goings on, we can eat on this delicious one-dish meal time and time again. All it needs is warming up and serving.

Here’s how she makes it:

First she buys a two or three pound beef roast and cuts it up into bite-sized chunks; She spoons some flour into a paper bag, drops the beef chunks in and shakes it up to coat them.

In her largest pot, she browns the meat in about a ¼ cup of oil.

Then she adds about four cups of water, a can of stewed tomatoes, four or five onions cut up into wedges, 6 or 7 bouillon cubes, a bay leaf, a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin, oregano, and a dot of garlic powder.

She brings this stuff to a boil then turns down the heat to let it simmer for about two hours.

Now, she adds a head of cabbage she’s cut up into wedges, several sliced carrots, and a couple of ears of corn.

She tops all this off with a can of mild green chili peppers.

She lets this stew cook until the cabbage, corn and carrots are soft.

Served with buttered toast, this meal sticks to your ribs on a cold day.

It’s supposed to serve eight and I’m told that it stays delicious for days and days and days for eating through out the busy days before Christmas.

I wouldn’t know—the two of us ate the whole pot over this past weekend!

Here’s the clipping from Ginny’s receipt book:

In other news:

Donald dropped in Sunday afternoon to discuss making further movies; he’s posted a description of technical details on his blog at http://www.rdex.net/blog/ .

More about our movie plans later.

A Note For The Kid In The Attic:

At a press conference in Baghdad where President Bush spoke, some little person threw his shoe at the President of the United States.

The President ducked.

Secret Service agents did not spray the whole room with machine guns; the U.S. Air Force did not A-Bomb the city; Cruise missiles did not obliterate the country.

The President ducked.

The arab reporter was ejected from the conference.

What would have happened to that same roomful of arab reporters if one of them ever had thrown a shoe at Saddam Hussein?

Our President soft-pedaled the incident as an expression of free speech!

Petty little insignificant people seek revenge; the great and mighty pass over insults.

I’m not particularly a Bush supporter, but I’m impressed in that he teaches me that the king does not swat flies.

Forbearance.

Maybe that’s why God puts up with so much that we do.

Christmas In A Little Tin Box

Limos line the curb.

Fans press against the velvet ropes.

Searchlight beams arc across the night sky.

Starlets smile as they sashay along the red carpet.

Stephen Spielberg gnaws his teeth and weeps in envy.

Ginny’s diamonds and jewels flash beside me as I wave photographers aside.

Yes, today marks my film début as I star in my son, Donald Cowart’s film production of Christmas In A Little Tin Box.

Donald originated the idea, directed, produced and masterminded this sure-to-win-an-Oscar, 12-minute, classic movie.

You can view it on line at either http://blip.tv/file/1572083/ or, even better, at http://cowartvideo.blip.tv/

As a viewer at this Premier Showing, you can even start a John Cowart fan club by telling all your friends to watch.

As you might can tell I’m as pleased and tickled and delighted as a kitten catching his first mouse.

Ok, I’ll admit it. There were really no searchlights, starlets, limos or diamonds at the first showing of my film; that was all in my mind. In reality, I even had to pop my own popcorn--but I’m as pleased as if all the Hollywood glitz did really happen.

Donald put a lot of work into this thing.

He plans to produce more Bluefish Videos in the future.

Wait! I have to hide. There’s a paparazzi approaching my front door…

Never mind, it was only the mailman.

Relax, click the white triangle in the middle of the following, and enjoy the movie.

A Preview Of Coming Events

My son Donald tells me that processing the film we made last week will take another few days. Even before this one is ready to post on You-Tube, we are discussing other movie possibilities…

Given my love for 1950s era science Fiction films, and my bent toward matters of faith, perhaps we’ll produce something like this:

Ginny and I visited Dr. Oz, my oncologist, yesterday.

My PSA reading is up to 9.

Dr. Oz gave me some disturbing news: my prostate cancer is not likely to kill me for another ten years. I thought it was more efficient than that.

It’s like going to the dean’s office expecting to graduate and being told you don’t have enough credits so you have to take another ten classes.

Nice to stay a college student, but you really expected to graduate.

O goodie/ O damn!

My train does not leave for hours yet.

Does this mean I have to unpack my bags?

Lots of stuff to re think.

Last night, Ginny said the nicest thing to me.

She said, “You are the most sanest man in the world”.

Her words surprised me; I treasure them.

I treasure her.

Great Christmas Reading

While I wait for my son to finish processing the video presentation I modestly star in, a film sure to win an Oscar and bump Brad Pitt right off the screen, I spend my time reading.

Yesterday my e-friend Felisol in Norway (at On The Far Side Of The Sea, http://felisol.blogspot.com/ ) asked me about a story by Count Leo Tolstoy, one of the world’s greatest writers.

Here is a photo of the Count as a young man in 1854:

Does that photo resemble anyone you know?

Maybe a certain movie star?

A complex and confused man, Tolstoy wrote War And Peace, Anna Karenina, and many other great works of literature, as well as scores of profound short stories.

In spite of his literary success and critical acclaim, for a time he grew suicidal.

He said, “I abnormally developed pride and an insane assurance that it was my vocation to teach men—without knowing what (to teach)… My life came to a standstill… the truth was that life is meaningless. And it was then that I, a man favored by fortune, hid a cord from myself lest I should hang myself… and I ceased to go out shooting with a gun lest I should be tempted by so easy a way of ending my life.”

Yet, in 1870, his diary says, “I knelt down and prayed; and as I prayed I just knew there was a God. . Then I remembered the Gospel of John that I had read, and how it seemed to be written by an eye-witness, and I knew that if that was so, then Jesus was the Son of God and I was saved!”

That spiritual experience colored the rest of his life and is reflected in many of his writings.

Here’s a photo of him taken later in life:

I searched and found the story Felistol wants to read. It is one of Tolstoy’s finest. It’s named : “Where Love Is…” The text is at http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Tolstoy.html .

If anyone is interested in one of my own Christmas stories, I recommend “Graverdigger’s Christmas” a true tale of something that happened to me and my family back in the mid 1970s. It forms a chapter in my book of the same name. The on-line text is at:

http://www.cowart.info/John%27s%20Books/Gravedigger%27s%20Xmas/Gravedigger%27s%20Christmas.htm

Now, I may not write like Tolstoy, but I am beginning to look like him—

In that later photograph.

Happy Happenings

For her birthday our eldest daughter got a new puppy; she named it Bumble:

Jennifer loves her new puppy.

Her cat reserves judgment:

Friday two interesting phone calls came in.

In the first, a lady asked me if I knew any poor people. Her group wants to supply a poor family with a Christmas food basket—but they don’t personally know any poor people. She wondered if I had any suggestions.

“Certainly,” I replied.

Fill your food basked with goodies then take it to any Ford, Chrysler or GMC dealer with a note to send it to the company CEO. Those poor CEOs are begging for grocery money (they want 235 Billion dollars) from Congress. Poor guys don’t know that to get government food they need to fill our an application at the Food Stamp office instead of pestering Congress. Or they could apply at the Salvation Army.

I have a problem giving money to people who make more than I do.

I can see giving to people poorer, but giving to people richer doesn’t make much sense to me.

Of course I need to temper my resentment with the idea that perhaps we should all go a little hungry so that none may starve.

Anyhow, after my taunting the lady who called, I gave her the name and address of a family of recent immigrants with several children; Both mom and Dad were professional people in their own country, but here they both work menial jobs and are having a rough time making ends meet.

The second phone call came from my youngest son, Donald. He’s recently acquired a webcam and decided to become a film producer. He said he wanted me to star in a webcam film for the internet.

I told him that I will not undress on camera—that’s the only webcam stuff I know, but he assures me there are other kinds of films.

He brought his equipment over Saturday morning and filmed me (fully clothed) telling the Christmas Story.

Donald is editing the film and will post it online in a day or two. I’ll post a link when he does.

Our middle daughter, eve, invited Ginny and me Christmas shopping in Waldo with her and her husband, Mark. The little town of Waldo, about 70 miles from Jacksonville, hosts a gigantic farmer’s market and flea market where, on acres of ground, vendors gather on weekends to sell everything from turnips to jet turbines. Used furniture, lamps made of artillery shells, live chickens, antique bells, dolls, knives, flags, used clothing, pots, cement fish ponds—anything they scrounge and think might sell.

I proudly announce that I did not buy a copy of Michael Angelo’s statue of David, nor an Egyptian mummy case, nor olive jar fragments from a 16^th Century Spanish shipwreck, not…

One of my besetting sins is to buy any nick knack that strikes my fancy at a garage sale of fleas market. With Mark and Eve, I enjoyed browsing in this wonderland of junk but I resisted buying. I’m proud of me.

The kids wore out of shopping and left early. Ginny and I continued viewing crystal door knobs, Indian pottery, chenille bedspreads, swords, stuffed animal heads and other treasures.

One small problem:

Ginny drove, I navigated. I mean there are only two roads, so what could go wrong?

I told her where to turn.

We drove and drove.

After about 30 miles, Ginny finally realized that I had her driving south instead of north.

Ooops.

My mistake.

Do you know what she said about my goofed directions?

“This has been a really beautiful drive, Honey”.

Not one other word.

See why I love her so.

Mary's Climbers

I thought I was finished with any more references to the old Heard Bank building.

Back on November 29, 2008, I told about how the old bank changed hands, how it fit in Jacksonville’s history, what happened to some of the columns from the old building, how a new Bank of America tower replaced the Heard Building, and how falcons nest on the tower and swoop to snag pigeons.

Back on October 18, 2008, I wrote about how my friend Barbara White’s daughter, Mary, died of lung cancer. And I wrote about her funeral on October 26^th.

Well, Dan, Mary’s husband, organized a team at his work called Mary’s Climbers. They intend to walk up 42 flights of stairs in the Bank of America tower as part of a fund raiser for the American Lung Association.

This event is scheduled for February 7, 2009, between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

42 Floors—That’s 838 steps they plan to climb.

These guys are heroes.

It’s all I can do to climb out of bed in the morning.

So, my contribution to the cause is to post this notice on my website—any reader interested in signing up as one of Mary’s Climbers, you can register at www.climbjacksonville.org .

Feel free to step up and sign up—then really step up!

A Sample Reading Fom A Young Lady's Diary

A while back a friend entrusted me with numerous volumes of her diaries dating back to 1976.

I’m honored.

Since I remain in confusion about my own work, recently I’ve begun transcribing the hand-written text into my computer. Tedious work but worth the effort; it’s likely to take a year or two before it’s ready for publication.

Here’s a sample page followed by my transcription from manuscript to type:

December 10, 1980

Father, I am so tired. Somehow it is a tiredness that goes before doing anything. It brings a sense of futility.

Is it really all right that I am so—I don’t even know the word—but I see others who are capable and I am not.

My child, I never ask you to be capable of doing anything that I do not equip you to do.

True, Father, I must seek to know Your will for me so I may know what You want me to be capable of. But how will I know, Lord?

Live close to Me. Abide in My commandments. Come to Me often in prayer. Surrender your life to Me moment by moment. And when you look back, you will see. You do not need to worry about knowing ahead of time. Just obey Me in each present moment.

O Lord, I give You my life today. I praise You because You are the God of all, the creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, the Empowerer. In You, from You and through You, my life has meaning. Forgive my concentration on the things I can’t do. Forgive me my refusal in the past to do things I could have done. And guide me into each step You have prepared for me to walk in.

It Ain't My Brother Nor My Sister...

Perhaps neither supernovas, planetary conjunctions, nor even supernatural phenomena explain the appearance of the star:

Writing about the sign in the sky above our house the other day (it was Tuesday) reminded me of an old joke:

Without fail, Old Reprobate Joe, a sinful degenerate, faithfully attended church every Sunday.

Without fail, every Sunday in his sermon the preacher tried to convince Old Reprobate Joe to repent and turn to Christ.

Without fail every Sunday at the end of the service Old Reprobate Joe would shake the preacher’s hand and say, “You sure told ‘em today,Preacher”.

The old sinner let the words of the sermon flow right over his head. He always assumed the message was for somebody else.

He always said, “You sure told ‘em today, Preacher”.

Finally, one deep winter Sunday came which snow locked the whole town. The preacher struggled through hip-deep snowdrifts to the church where he found only one other person had made to through the blizzard, Old Reprobate Joe.

To his congregation of one, the preacher delivered his most powerful evangelistic message urging repentance and faith.

At the end of the service Old Joe met him at the church door, shook his hand and said, “Preacher, if they’da been here, you would’da sure told ‘em today”.

When I wrote about the planetary conjunction Monday, I cited the examples of Balaam, the man whose eyes were open, and the last page in my Bible. I thought to myself, People, my readers, really need to know about these Scriptures.

Then yesterday, I decided to read over these same passages for my self again and I saw that like Old Reprobate Joe, I was letting the message flow over my head to apply to somebody else.

Yes, Balaam’s ass, though dead, yet speaketh—to John Cowart.

The old camp song came to mind:

It ain’t my brother nor my sister,
But it’s me, O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer.

I’ve run into this same problem again and again. Back in the days when I taught an adult Bible class, in preparing the lessons, I’d be tempted to apply Scripture to the needs I perceived in class members; I’d have to continually reign myself in from judging others and see what the Scripture said to me.

This seems to be a common trait among religious people. We tend to have a clear view of what other people ought to do. We tend to say how much the other guy should drink, or smoke. What tv programs or movies he should watch. Whether or not she should have an abortion. Whether his hands should be folded to pray or raised in the air. Whether he should vote for this candidate or that. Whether he should serve in the military or be a conscientious objector.

And what about that mote speck in his eye?

I can get that out. I have a chainsaw.

Yes, it’s easy for me to apply the message to somebody else.

But I often forget the one essential question: Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do.

Me.

Not him. Not her.

Me.

If Scripture does not teach me first, how can I apply it to others?

Leaving that subject…

Recently I’ve been hammering out a work schedule and time line—without much success. I just don’t know what, if anything, to do next.

I wonder if I should continue to write at all.

On one hand, my lack of success tells me, “If you keep doing the same thing you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting the same thing you’ve been getting”.

On the other hand, thinking about perseverance tells me, “Winners never quit and quitters never win… He that puts his hand to the plowshare and turns back…”

Ginny tells me that I go through this dilemma every time I move from writing one book to another; she says it’s part of my own creative process. But I forget that every time. The pain seems always new as though I’d never felt it before.

I loose sight of the essential question—Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?

While I struggle with this problem, I fill my workdays with rote clerical chores; I’m transcribing an old hand-written diary into the computer. Typing is not my forte. I can’t read the script and I can’t type and I get frustrated—Don’t they have little people to do this sort of rote clerical work?

Oh.

Sorry.

I forgot.

I am a little people.

But at least I’m doing something. I’m moving. Sluggish, but I am moving.

And here come Christmas in Florida:

We Saw A Star

Ginny pulled in our drive right at sundown yesterday.

When I opened the door for her, I saw something that made me run back inside to get my camera and to check our kitchen cupboard.

I expected to see what I saw, but I didn’t expect it to be right above our house, right at our front door.

National Geographic News, December 1, 2008, foretold the event.

It’s a planetary conjunction seen beyond the crescent moon. Jupiter and Venus line up so that although the three bodies stand 500 million of mile apart, from earth they look close together.

Back in the 1500s astronomer Johannes Kepler figured out the movements of planets are so regular that he developed laws of planetary motion which NASA still uses today to plot the course of satellites and the space shuttle. I wrote a chapter about this great astronomer in my book Strangers On The Earth. Kepler even composed music, the music of the spheres, using the movements of heavenly bodies as the basis of his composition.

Such a lining up of planets as Ginny and I saw last night occurs regularly. But too much sunlight makes them hard to see without a telescope. The next time a planetary occultation with Venus will be visible from North America is on the morning of April 22, 2009.

But this one happened right in our front yard.

“Historically, striking planetary groupings have held special meaning to ancient astronomers and astrologers,” National Geographic News said.

“In fact, some historians think that a similar conjunction between Jupiter and Venus in 2 B.C. may be the source of the "Star of Bethlehem" story related in the Bible. The stellar pair would have appeared so close together, scholars think, that they might have seemed to meld into one brilliant beacon of light. ….

“A similarly close conjunction between Venus and Jupiter occurred in June of 2 B.C., and some scholars have connected the event with the Christian nativity story…

“According to the Bible, three magi in the East were alerted to the birth of Jesus and led toward Bethlehem by a superbright star—a celestial phenomenon that could be explained by two planets tightly grouped in the sky,” National Geographic said..

Could be.

Of course the Bible says nothing about the number of wisemen, and makes no mention of the star being superbright.

Some scholars think the star may have been a nova; others, a planetary conjunction; still others think it was a supernatural phenomena.

Some Bible scholars connect the appearance of the Star Of Bethlehem with an obscure prophecy made by Balaam, a strange figure in the book of Numbers where he is identified as “the man whose eyes are open”.

Isn’t that a mysterious appellation?

Anyhow, Balaam said:

I shall see Him,

But not now:

I shall behold Him,

But not nigh:

There shall come a Star out of Jacob,

And a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,

And shall smite the corners of Moab,

And destroy all the children of Sheth.

Some scholars see a reference to Bethlehem’s Star or even to Christ Himself in those words.

Could be.

Matthew’s Gospel is the only one to mention Bethlehem’s Star:

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.

And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.

Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, enquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

And he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, Go and search diligently for the young child; and when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way.

Supernova? Planetary conjunction? Supernatural light?

Who knows?

But here’s a strange thing—in the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, on the last page of the text, Jesus identifies Himself as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last…

Then He says, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”.

The bright and morning star!

That’s something to think about.

Isn’t it?

I tried a close-focus of the moon, Jupiter and Venus but my hands shake too much to eat soup much less get a crisp clear photo of the Heavens, but it seems to me that Jupiter (faint on the far right) has a red glow about it.

And this astrological phenomena stood right above our house.

So I checked our kitchen cupboard carefully.

Just in case, I want everyone to know that we have plenty of frankincense and myrrh.

But if anyone has a spare camel-load of gold…

Decorations

Over the long weekend Ginny and I focused on taking down Thanksgiving decorations , packing them away, and talking about decorations for Christmas.

The key word there is talking.

We talked about how in Christmases past we hosted decorating parties. When Donald and Eve were in college they’d round up all the kids stranded on campus far from home and bring them to our house for the Christmas holiday. They’d camp out sleeping on the living room floor, eat us out of house and home, bring in tons of laundry for Ginny to do, and enjoy conversations with students from other countries. We had Arabs and Israelis and Haitians and Bulgarians and yankees and Nigerians and I forget what all else.

Ours was a mad house… but it was a lavishly decorated madhouse.

And I’d spend all holiday driving kids to and fro from college, to the airport, to the mall, to the doctor’s office—crazy days.

But fun.

Only once did I have to put a student out for inappropriate behavior.

But now that our kids are grown and gone to establish their own homes and lives, peace on earth reigns in our house over the holidays and we hardly decorate at all any more. Instead, on Saturday, we drove downtown to the main library to enjoy their parade of trees, we strolled looking at window displays in downtown businesses, and we ate lunch on a Landing balcony overlooking the giant community Christmas tree there.

We lack the energy and inclination to decorate much this year and consequently we enjoy the season more. So, now and then until Christmas, I’ll occasionally post favorite cartoons from the book Ho! Ho!Ho! edited by S. Gross and Jim Charlton (Viking Press). I bought the book as a present for someone else but I’ve enjoyed the cartoons so much that I may keep it myself.

Over the rainy Sunday we read sipping coffee in silent companionship: Ginny is working through every Agatha Christy mystery in print; I finished reading C.S. Forester’s Age Of Fighting Sail: The Naval History Of The War Of 1812.

And we talked about Christmas plans and home repairs and sex and worship and health and terrorism and a multitude of other things. We never finish the fascinating conversation we began 40 years ago.

We decided not to erect a Christmas tree this year—too much furniture to move.

But, Ginny did unpack a tacky glorious angel she likes and a tasteful singing dog which she plans to display on her office desk.

And I broke out a manger scene with small figures made of pressed tin painted with translucent glaze. I bought it at a yard sale for a nickel last year. The entire thing fits into a matchbox….I set it up in front of the aquarium; the photo dosen’t show it, but in real life the figures gleam much shinier than our goldfish.

The other 30 or so cartons of our 40-year’s-accumulation of Christmas decorations can stay in the attic for this year. This year we’ll leave the heavy decorating to Laacoon’s family.