Historical Notes For The Kid In The Attic

Every writer envisions the reader he expects to read his work.

For me, that’s the kid in the attic.

Though few of my contemporaries buy my books, I foresee that 50, 70 or a hundred years from now, on some rainy afternoon, a teenage boy prowling through boxes in the attic of his house will chance upon a dusty box of old books. Some title will capture his fancy and he will begin to read my diaries.

This is the reader I write for; I want to show him the reality of Christ in one ordinary guy’s life, to reveal the good and bad of how the Christian life works our for me.

In order to put that spiritual dimension in context, every now and then I feel it appropriate to mention contemporary historical events as pegs to hang the personal elements on. Two such events happened yesterday:

President Bush, our 43^rd president, gave his farewell speech to the nation last night.

His first speech as president came on September 11, 2001, the day moslem terrorists crashed airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center killing thousands of Americans. This tragedy launched our war against Al Quaida in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last night President Bush pointed out that there have, as yet, been no further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. He cited the founding of the Homeland Security Department and refurbishing of FBI and intelligence agencies. And he warned ““The gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack; we must never let down our guard.”

He mentioned the present economic depression we are entering—a depression I feel is caused by greed, corruption, bribery and usury.

And he spoke of the smooth transition of presidential power to Barack Obama, who is scheduled to become our 44^th president next Tuesday. This transition from one man and one political party to a different man and party appears to be smooth and seamless. Bush appears to have handled his party’s defeat with grace. I think more of him now that when he assumed office.

His brief farewell speech shows a strength of our democratic system of government wherein it takes no bloodshed or military uprising to move from one power base to another.

Yesterday’s news also reported another significant event:

In New York, U.S. Airways flight 1549 lost power on takeoff and crash landed in the Hudson River with 155 people on board.

The pilot, C.B. "Sully" Sullenberger, said a flock of Canadian geese smacked into the jet knocking out both engines. He saw he could not make it back to LaGuardia airport so he smoothed the plane into the river.

Apparently all New York saw the crash. Immediately, ferry boats, water taxies, Coast Guard vessels, and dozens of private watercraft rushed to aid the passengers who scrambled out of the fuselage onto the wings of the floating plane which sank shortly after all survivors were removed..

Other than a couple of broken legs and a bunch of frozen asses, all aboard survived intact.

As the plane went down, many viewers feared another 9/11 sort of incident, to the contrary, the accident proved the heroism, skill and character of good people as all aboard the plane were rescued.

Never though a plane crash could make me proud, but this one does.

But, all is not good news:

On the local front—yesterday Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton send out a looong e-mail explaining why $67 million, earmarked for a new court house, has disappeared from the city’s treasury leaving the city with nothing but a weed-covered vacant lot.

The money was in the city’s pocket, now it is in someone else’s pocket.

Yet, the e-mail explains, no one did anything evil, criminal, corrupt, or even stupid.

That’s good to know.

On a personal level, as I await my manuscript proof pages to come back from the printer, I’ve been reading Stephen King’s latest book, Just After Sunset, a collection of his short stories. The sheer beauty of some of his tales brought me to tears.

Two phrases from my devotional reading struck me:

“They refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders that You performed among them… But You are a God ready to forgive…and abounding in steadfast love”.

Not mindful of wonders… I feel as though we drive daily through a thick fog. All we can see are the white lines in the center of the highway as we move through the mist. Then suddenly a solid shape appears in our path—a deer, a tree beside the road, the bumper of a car ahead. We zip on by still focused on the white lines on the asphalt unmindful of the real, the concrete solid spiritual things God reveals.

We ignore the real and live in the mist… Yet He is ready to forgive, abounding in love.

The other phrase I noticed:

Jacob bewailing his circumstances said, “All these things are against me”.

What he was bitching about was the fact that God was saving him and his family from a seven-year-long famine! But he only saw the immediate circumstances and thought they were terrible.

How often I echo his words, “All these things are against me!”

Another Scripture says something about “All things work together for good” for somebody or another.

I often fail to see that.

As Granddaddy used to say, “There’s some folks would complain if you was to hang ‘em with a brand new rope”.

Ginny and I are scheduled for a Civilian Emergency Response Team training session tomorrow.

Maybe we’ll learn how to help in a plane crash.