BY STEVEN RAY BOWEN
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Welcome to the “Front-Porch.”
Something amazing about a newspaper column: The stories come to you kind of like the flow of a river. Wherever life goes, so goes the pen. You can tell a man’s life story by reading columns, as you know.
I admit, sometimes I get a bit preoccupied with publishing that Great American Novel, as my college classmates of 1988 called it. But then we realize there’s nothing like trying to write an introduction to a great American novel every Monday morning in the form of a “column.”
It’s one of life’s great miracles.
It’s a 30-year miracle, I guess, since we started it all in 1997. There should be seven or eight great American novels squeezed somewhere in those three decades, I would think.
I’ve been thinking – as the river flows, as we said – and the thought came to me of one of America’s greatest characters and backwoods poets in a particular 1800s Great American Novel. This poet is a curious one, and unexpected: Huckleberry Finn, Mr. Mark Twain’s greatest character.
You met him somewhere along the way in your own American Lit course.
You may remember that one day when Huck and Tom Sawyer are looking down on a Sunday school picnic, Tom points out to Huck that what they’re really seeing is a band of A-rabs (Tom’s term for robbers), and those robbers have a hundred chests full of jewels and treasure and all sorts of other things.
Our great-American poet laments that, while he tried hard to see it, all he could see was a Sunday school picnic. His summation was simple: “As for me,” he says, “I think different.”
That profound summation brings us to our point, something all columnists will do sooner or later (although, alas, it is usually later).
As the world gathered in churches across the country to celebrate Easter, I thought about how the world views that holiday.
On one hand, we cannot help but wish some would treat every Sunday as Easter and not just put on their Sunday best once a year.
But, on the other hand, aren’t we glad that people who can’t seem to make worship a regular part of their lives at least pause long enough at least once a year? I mean, the best way to start jogging two miles once a week is to tie up your shoelaces and do it once.
Huck Finn was right about thinking different. “Out of the mouths of babes” applies here for sure.
I also could not help but think of a juxtaposition regarding Easter (a concept I learned from my own junior college American lit teacher, Ms. Johnson).
On one hand, we believe the Bible teaches us to recognize every Lord’s Day as a time to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The early disciples came together every first day of the week for the Lord’s Supper.
I believe that to be true.
But on the other hand, juxtaposed with that thought, is that if the world did not designate one day to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, then the atheistic and humanistic ways of thinking would gain a better stronghold on the world.
My conclusion is that I am glad any time the world pauses to celebrate the Lord. I am glad that irregular church-goers still believe in the resurrection for all that it is! That’s a good thing.
All of our hopes and dreams hinge on that truth. A news show from many years ago hammered home the tragedy of losing that belief.
The show was a panel discussion in which the host asked the panelists to share the moment in history they would go back to if they could. One by one, the panelists recounted some great American moments they would revisit, such as Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you …” speech, or Martin Luther King’s speech at the great Lincoln Memorial.
But one panelist, who had sat quietly, surprised the entire group when his turn came to speak. He said, “I think I’d go back to the resurrection.”
The panel laughed loudly, expressing in wonder, “What a strange request! How could you go back to a scene that we don’t know really happened?”
I had to shake my head. What a sad thing for a man or woman to live a life with such limited faith.
The host, not to be outdone, recoiled with this response: “Well, I think I’d go back to the big bang.”
That quip made the group as giddy as a group of silly schoolgirls, and they chattered on about his wit a bit, while the first gentleman sat quietly, taking it all in.
When the chatter died down, he spoke again.
“Well,” he said boldly, “I guess I just think different.”
The room got quiet momentarily, then they were off to other tangents.
But in the heat of that good-natured battle, our friend had stood his ground, gently but firmly. Today, we’ll stand with our “out-of-step” gentleman. His belief may be out of date to the world, but not to us. And, for sure, it was not out of date to those four evangelists who wrote the gospel story long ago, nor to a group of women who visited the tomb courageously and broken-hearted on the resurrection morning. To those poor ladies, the truth of the resurrection was as real and commonplace as the sun’s rising and setting.
So, when someone comes up to you and says, “Seriously? You mean you hold onto that old, archaic, out-of-date belief?”
We can answer in the spirit of our brave news panelist and our young backwoods poet Huck Finn.
“Well, I guess I just think a little different.”
Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently came out of retirement twice for teaching tours at Ferris and Waxahachie High Schools. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) have slowed down some of their travels and reconvened in their evangelistic work with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the working to publish “Crossing The Georgia Line” that ran in the Ellis County Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, and see frontporchgospel.com.
