Jan 14
2011

When the nation commemorates the late Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, the media often shows him delivering his impassioned “I Have a Dream” speech from the August 1963 March on Washington. My little boy’s school take-home paper mentions how throughout the 60s he peacefully stirred Americans to overturn legalized discrimination against people of color.

King originally garnered the nation’s attention in 1955 when Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. That small act of righteous defiance resulted in a year-long bus boycott to promote desegregation. Leading that protest was the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church’s 26 year-old pastor, Martin Luther King. He was so successful organizing and inspiring that city’s African-American population that when his fellow pastors created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to combat racial prejudice, they elected King its first president.

In 1963 the young minister rose to even greater prominence when he planned a massive civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, as well as voter registration drives, and those to promote better housing and education for blacks across the South. For his efforts, he was arrested three times that year.

During his stint in a Birmingham jail in April, 1963, he wrote to his fellow clergy about brotherhood and the responsibility of the Church to combat injustice. One of the oft-quoted lines from it reads, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” He ended his letter with his assurance that God would see him, and the civil rights movement, through:

I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are not understood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham, and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. . . We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. . . .

(Quoted from Great Letters in American History by Rebecca Price Janney; for a full text of this letter you may also visit http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html

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Jan 6
2011

Today is Epiphany, January 6th, the day the Wise Men visited the Holy Child. It comes from a Greek word that means “appearance,” “manifestation,” and it refers to the time when the Saviour of the world was revealed to the Magi.

Christmas cards and scenes, tableaus and crèches often show Mary, Joseph, and the Babe surrounded by barn animals and shepherds, as well as three Wise Men, or Magi, who came from the East, guided by a miraculous “star.” However, something is wrong with that picture. According to the second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, the Magi inquired of King Herod where they might find the child born to be King of the Jews. The chief priests and teachers of the law put their heads together and determined that the ancient prophecies about the Messiah pointed to Bethlehem. And when the Wise Men arrived at that town, the Bible says they were “overjoyed.” Matthew 2:11 says, “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.”

That’s curious. Jesus was born in a stable and laid in a manger because there was no room for his family in the inn. What’s this about a house? There are various theories. Some say that stables were often attached to houses in that area, and the Holy Family may have moved up into the dwelling. It would seem, in that case, that the house belonged to the innkeeper. Others say that although the Wise Men weren’t present at the birth, they arrived some time after Mary’s Purification, which would have been about a month and a half later.

When they left, an angel warned them not to return to Herod, and Joseph also heard from an angel in a dream that Herod was going to try to kill Jesus, that they should escape to Egypt until the threat had passed. According to some scholars, that might have been two years after Jesus was born because Herod ordered the deaths of all male Jews two years and under in order to get to Jesus. I’ve always wondered, though, why Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem for two whole years when they only needed to be there temporarily, for the census. Wouldn’t they be eager to return home, after her purification and Jesus’ circumcision, eight days after his birth?

Intriguing questions.

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Dec 23
2010

A local business owner likes to display messages on his signboard, and as I drove by today, his offering especially caught my eye: “Wise men did not seek Santa Claus.” I wonder if it made others reflect the way it did me.

Personally, I like Santa Claus. I have fond childhood memories of anticipating his arrival on Christmas Eve, tracking his whereabouts on the radio via Norad, wondering if he would enjoy the milk and cookies I left for him when he arrived at 8 Meadow Avenue. I didn’t have any illusions, however, that Christmas was about Santa. The day really belonged to Jesus—Santa was simply a supporting actor in the drama. My happiest holiday recollections are from church and school pageants, singing stirring carols and hymns, filled with gratitude that God so loved the world that He gave us this precious gift. I remember riding home one velvety black Christmas Eve after the church service, sitting in the back seat with a gift bag filled with hard candies from my Sunday School teacher. As I indulged in their sweetness, I looked out the window and wondered if I could see the star of Bethlehem if I looked hard enough.

My parents weren’t especially religious people, but they knew what Christmas was really all about. When Linus Van Pelt explained it to Charlie Brown on TV, they smiled in the background, knowing that the little theologian had nailed it.

I’m not so sure that most American parents have that perspective today, in a culture that strives for political correctness and diplomacy, to the point of the ridiculous. I mean, why do advertisers insist on saying “holiday tree” in their circulars? Christmas trees can’t be confused with anything else, after all. Now “the holidays” are mostly about Santa Claus.

My husband and I decided not to ban Santa for our little boy, but to put the jolly old elf in perspective. We told David that long ago there was a wonderful man named Nicholas, a pastor who lived far away, at the edge of Europe. (We used maps and a children’s storybook as helps.) Nicholas loved Jesus very deeply, and he served the Lord with all his heart. That led him to give to people in need. His love and kindness were so great that even after he died, people all around the world celebrated his life by following his example. He became a special part of Christmas celebrations because of the way he lived for Jesus, and in America, we call him Santa Claus. Stories about him living at the North Pole and flying in a magical sleigh were a fun part of the story that someone created many years ago.

David happens to love Santa Claus/St. Nick, although we don’t make a big fuss about him. He’s mostly in the background for us because we think that’s where he belongs. My personal favorite image of Santa is the one of him kneeling before the Christ child, praying. That’s just how it should be.

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Dec 14
2010

Chris Wheeler Discusses the Off Season

 “Wheels” is an appropriate nickname for a guy who’s spent most of the last four decades on the road with the Phillies.  When baseball season ends, however, announcer Chris Wheeler prefers to stay put.  “I love every minute of my job,” he says.  “I am really lucky to be doing this.”  He does have a reluctant confession to make, though; being on the road again, and again and again does get tiring.  He is quick to add, “It’s not like the people busting to make a living, who have to get up every day at six. I feel fortunate that that’s my job.  I’m pretty lucky.”  

Nevertheless, when the season ends, “No buses, no hotels, no airplanes,” Wheeler says.  “They are all no-no’s for me.  I can’t remember the last time I was on a commercial flight.  I just don’t want to go anywhere.” 

With one exception.

“One weekend a year I go to see my beloved Nittany Lions.”  Wheeler graduated from Penn State in 1967 with a degree in broadcasting and journalism, and he remains a big fan of his college football team.  He also loves spending time in Happy Valley, which he believes embodies the spirit of a good college town.  He lights up as he relates the “track meet” of a game he saw this year between Penn State and rival Michigan in which his team won, 41-31. 

For much of his time with the Phillies, Wheeler has turned road warrior around the first of February and doesn’t stop moving until the last pitch of autumn, which used to be the end of

September.  After that, four months of golf and open-ended days awaited him.  He says with a smile, “That got cut short recently because of our success.  Now the off season is just three months long instead of four.  It goes so quickly that there’s not that much time to miss it.”   

Every ball club endures slumps during the season, but afterwards, when the roar of the crowd ceases, and the standings are firmly set in place, does Wheeler ever go into an emotional slump?  “That depends on how the season ends.  When we were losing, it could sometimes be a relief,” he admits.  “In those years, if you could play 500, you’d be happy.  And this year. . . .”  He shakes his head.  “Yeah.  This year we had 97 wins, the most in the majors.  And although everyone is tired at the end of the regular season, there is all this sheer adrenaline that keeps us going in the postseason, and then, in the last game, the air just got let out. That’s when you do have a letdown.”

 Sometimes Wheeler says people will come up and ask him, “How many days until spring training?”  He doesn’t start calculating right after the last pitch of the season, though.  “It’s like I have a biological time clock that goes off every January 2, as soon as we turn the corner into the new year.  Then I know the days until spring training.”  And he counts them down with excited anticipation.  Until then, however, he enjoys kicking back.

 A typical day in the off season for Wheeler ”is that it is anything but typical. During the season I know what I’m doing every day and when.  So if I have other things to do, like dry cleaning, bank, gas etc, I have to make sure I plan ahead.  During the off season there are a lot of days I wake up and don’t know what I’m going to do, which is real nice. And the best part sometimes is that if I don’t get it done that day, then I can do it tomorrow.”

He frequently does venture beyond the golf course and home to take his place behind the microphone for various organizations and charities, including the Delaware County Police Chiefs Association, where he’s been the keynote speaker for the last 20 years.  He also catches up with his colleagues on the phone periodically, but he says, “During the season we spend so much time together.  We’re thrown together all the time.  When the season ends, we joke around that you get to pick your own friends.”

 Baseball is his passion, but Wheeler does enjoy other sports, especially watching golf on TV and following Penn State football.  Although he likes the Flyers, Sixers, and Eagles, he doesn’t live or die with them.  “My life (in baseball) revolves around wins and losses,” he says, “so I don’t want other sports to affect my days.  For me, other sports are pure entertainment.”

 Wheeler also spends his free time pursuing his dual loves of history and politics, subjects that grab his immediate attention.  He recalls one trip he did take beyond State College several years ago to various Civil War battlefields and other points of interest with veteran Phillie and Fox baseball announcer Tim McCarver.  “We went all around Virginia, including the Battle of Fredericksburg,” he recalls.  “We visited the Stonewall Jackson Shrine and saw where the battle of Marye’s Heights occurred. Timmy noted that we would have been on opposite sides during that conflict,” he adds with a laugh.  Affecting McCarver’s southern accent he says his friend deadpanned, “Just think, I would’ve been up there, and you would’ve been down here.”  The Union Army took the worst of it in that skirmish. 

Since then, Wheeler says his old friend has been after him to visit Normandy, France, site of the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944.  He’s still thinking about it.  Right now he isn’t in a hurry to feel the road beneath his feet, at least until the clock starts ticking again sometime in January.

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Dec 6
2010

At sunrise on December 7, 1941, Mitsuo Fuchida led a squadron of Japanese planes toward Hawaii’s Hickam Field. There at Pearl Harbor the entire Pacific Fleet slumbered under the promise of a brilliant Sunday sky, a treat for sailors from the wintry U.S. mainland. At 7:49 AM, Fuchida’s cry , “Tora, Tora, Tora!” reverberated from his microphone into the planes of 360 other Japanese air warriors, and like mechanical wasps, they dive-bombed eight battleships, obliterating two and inflicting major damage upon six others. Nearly a dozen other ships, cruisers, minelayers, and destroyers bobbled about powerlessly in water slick with burning oil. The enemy shattered 150 planes as well. More than 2,000 servicemen died that morning, and over a thousand were wounded.

The following day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before Congress seeking a formal declaration of war as millions of Americans listened to the speech on the radio. In one of his most famous addresses, the President assured lawmakers and the American public that God would help our country. His moving words still manage to stir hearts:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. . .

With confidence in our armed forces—with the unbounding determination of our people—we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God. . . .

And He did.

(Adapted from Great Events in American History)

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Nov 22
2010

In the early part of the 17th century, England was a brutal place. According to one source, it had become “nation without a soul.” Turmoil filled the Anglican Church as well, with two groups desiring to bring about a deeper and higher spirituality. The Puritans hoped to reform the church internally, while the Pilgrims believed the only lasting change could come from separating from it.

In the fall of 1620, a little over one hundred men, women, and children from the Pilgrim community sailed for America in The Mayflower to pursue religious liberty and to better themselves in a land quite apart from Old England.

They chose a bad time to leave. It took them over two months to cross the ocean, and when they arrived at Cape Cod on November 9, it was far too late in the year to plant crops. More than half of the colonists died from illness as they tried to survive that first harsh winter in primitive dwellings without enough food. William Bradford wrote:

“If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. . .What could now sustain them but the Spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say, “Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity.”

In addition to the stark climate, the Pilgrims found difficulty in taming the wilderness of Massachusetts because they were mainly shopkeepers and people who had inhabited towns all their lives. They had incredible fortitude, however, convinced that they were in God’s place in God’s perfect timing. One of them remarked, “It is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again.”

Aided by a native American named Squanto, they learned how to plant corn and catch fish. Although times were hard, when The Mayflower returned to England for supplies the following April, no one decided to give up and go home—they were home.

In the fall as they observed their one-year anniversary in America, the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving, a three-day feast that they shared with Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe and ninety of his people. Governor Bradford recorded, “Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing. . . and as one small candle may light a thousand; so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea, in some sort, to our whole nation.”

(From Great Events in American History, pp. 9-11)

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Oct 19
2010

(I wrote this piece for the Christian History Institute’s Glimpses for Kids)

Before Christianity came to Great Britain, the Celtic people had a lot of pagan beliefs. In late fall, they thought the dead would visit them. It is believed that they left food on their doorsteps and built bonfires. Some even dressed like the dead and went house to house. This is how the tradition of “trick or treat” began.

In the third and fourth centuries, Christianity began to spread through Europe and into Great Britain. But even so, many of the pagan Celtic customs were still popular. Then, Christians removed the Pagan temples, but still Celtic traditions carried on.

Finally in the eighth century, the church decided to have a day to honor the great Christians of the past, on November 1. This is called “All Saints’ Day.” The word “hallow” means “to make holy or sacred.” Therefore, October 31 would be known as hallow’s eve to describe the night before the day to honor those great souls. That is where the name “Halloween” comes from. It is a night that can remind Christians that, rather than worry about evil spirits like others do, they can honor and remember the great Christian heroes of the past.

HALLOWEEN IN THE U.S.A.

For the first 200 years of American history, Halloween wasn’t observed. When the Irish came in 1840, they brought along an old legend about a man named Jack. The story goes that Jack couldn’t go to Heaven because he kept all his money for himself. He was not allowed in Hell, because he kept playing tricks on the Devil. The legend says Jack was ordered to roam about with a lantern lit by a live coal. Though “jack o’ lanterns” could be made from turnips, potatoes, or beets, there were so many pumpkins in America that the Irish used them.

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Oct 9
2010

Every year around this time, I used to look forward to seeing the statue of Christopher Columbus at Saints Philips and James School in downtown Phillipsburg, New Jersey. There he stood in all his bronze glory holding a model globe with a cross on top, a look of adventure on his handsome face. On Columbus Day, a large floral wreath adorned the sculpture, making it appear even more heroic in my child’s eyes.

When I studied history in college and graduate school, professors and history books sometimes offered a very different view of Columbus, portraying him as a money-grubber who introduced European diseases and vices to the natives he met, while forcibly seizing their lands. In my own books I’ve honored Columbus’s legacy while pointing out that while he started his mission on the right foot, in some ways he didn’t end well.

One thing really impresses me about him–he had a profound desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people in lands where His name had never been uttered. According to an obscure book written in his hand, Columbus ventured out into the unknown not just for spices, nor gold, nor silver, and not for his own glory or even Spanish domination of the seas, but to win the hearts of the natives for Christ. He wrote:

It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be
possible to sail from here to the Indies. All who heard of my prospect rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me. There is no question that the inspiration was from the holy Scriptures. (Ibid.)

In addition, Columbus insisted that maps and mathematical skills were less important in guiding him than were the Scriptures that he believed foretold the momentous journey. He saw himself undertaking the dangerous voyage for the sake of Christ’s Kingdom above all.

On October 12, 1492 around noon when Columbus and his men arrived on the beach in the land he called San Salvador after Jesus, the Savior, he told them to kneel. Then he prayed:

O Lord, Almighty and everlasting God, by Thy holy Word Thou hast created the heaven, and the earth, and the sea; blessed and glorified be Thy Name, and praised be Thy Majesty, which hath deigned to use us, Thy humble servants, that Thy holy Name may be proclaimed in this second part of the earth. (Great Events in American History, p. 3)

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Oct 2
2010

Following World War II, the United States and Soviet Union developed an adversarial relationship with each trying to outdo the other in terms of military strength. At one point, Premier Nikita Khrushchev declared, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!” Americans feared what might happen if the communist nation ever initiated a nuclear attack against us, and it came as a nasty jolt when, on October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite into space. As I wrote in Great Events in American History, author Tom Wolfe observed, “Nothing less than control of the heavens was at stake. (Sputnik) was Armageddon, the final and decisive battle between good and evil.”

As the satellite orbited the earth, many Americans went outside at night to try and catch a glimpse of it orbiting overhead. Teenager Homer Hickam, Jr. of Coalwood, West Virginia remembered the night vividly, writing of it in his memoir Rocket Boys:

I saw the bright little ball, moving majestically across the narrow field between the
ridgelines. I stared at it with no less rapt attention than if it had been God Himself in
a golden chariot riding overhead. It soared with what seemed to me inexorable and dangerous purpose, as if there were no power in the universe that could stop it.

In November, the Soviets launched a second satellite; Sputnik spent itself by the end of October and disintegrated as it fell back to earth. On December 19, the U.S. got its chance, sending SCORE into space (Signal Communications Orbit Relay Equipment.) Aboard it carried a tape recorded Christmas message from President Dwight D. Eisenhower that used words from the Bible to show that America’s reason for venturing into space was a peaceful one:

This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific
advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one. Through this unique means I will convey to you and to all mankind America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill toward men everywhere.

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Sep 10
2010

My book, Great Events in American History, isn’t just about our country’s milestone achievements, but about painful occurrences that have tested our endurance. Most of the dates happened long ago, but the last one in the book took place just nine years ago. To commemorate the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I’d like to share some excerpts from the book.

The first one is taken from the speech that President Bush gave at the National Cathedral a few days after the horror. He told the nation:

“It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. In this trial, we have been reminded and the world has seen that our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave. We see our national character in rescuers working past exhaustion, in long lines of blood donors, in thousands of citizens who have asked to work and serve in any way possible. And we have seen our national character in eloquent acts of sacrifice. Inside the World Trade Center, one man who could have saved himself stayed until the end and at the side of his quadriplegic friend. A beloved priest died giving the last rites to a firefighter. Two office workers, finding a disabled stranger, carried her down 68 floors to safety. . .

“On this national day of prayer and remembrance, we ask almighty God to watch over our nation and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. We pray that He will comfort and console those who now walk in sorrow. We thank Him for each life we now must mourn, and the promise of a life to come. . . .”

When Todd Beamer kissed his pregnant wife good-bye that morning, he had no way of knowing that the plane he would soon board for a business trip would take him to his sudden death. He and his fellow passengers and flight attendants learned of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. via cell phones and went down fighting the men who were going to try to take out one more building revered by Americans. Lisa Beamer wrote afterwards:

“My relationship with God through Jesus has been the driving force in my life since my childhood, giving me hope for this life and for eternity. . . God has shown me the reality of eternity in a dynamic way these past few months. When I’m overwhelmed with sadness at what I’ve lost in this life, He is quick to give me His eternal perspective. ‘Lisa, this life is just a blip on the radar screen compared to your future with Me in heaven,’ He says.”

The Beamers’ third child, Morgan, was born four months later.

Our neighbor’s son got married that first weekend after 9.11, but they weren’t sure at first whether to go through with the ceremony with so much heartache all around them. Their priest encouraged them to go forward, however, saying the best thing they could do was to demonstrate to the terrorists who seek to destroy us is that life goes on, and we will prevail. To that I say, “Amen.”

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