How Did You Die?

 A neighbor recently died. We weren’t good friends. I knew him in a “neighborly” way, meaning if we were both outside, we’d stop and talk, or maybe we’d check on something for the other if it was needed. I’d never been in his house, and he’d never been in mine, but we considered each other friends in the way that most neighbors these days do.

He’d had cancer about a decade ago and had recovered. But in the process, the treatment had weakened some bones in his jaw to the point that, finally, they broke. The doctors did surgery to replace the bone, but – and this I don’t know the exact medical stuff, this is just how I remember it – he’d developed a serious infection that the doctors apparently weren’t able to get under control.

He battled it a long time. Eventually he was so weakened he was put on a feeding tube, lost his ability to talk, was in pain, and finally passed away.

At his funeral, the pastor who knew him and stopped by often to talk to him, told of how this man had passed from anger, not understanding why this happened to him, to eventually hoping he’d handle this situation in a way that honored God and his family. Essentially it seemed he reached a point where he said (and these are my words, not his, but it’s the general idea), “God, I don’t understand. But I love and trust you. Help me to handle this the way You want me to handle it, to show the reality of knowing You.”

What the pastor did tell us was that my neighbors’ last message to him, written on a white board that he used to communicated, was “My life has been worth the suffering.”

I realize this story raises a lot of question about suffering and God’s glory and where were the doctors and so forth, but that’s not my point.

After all was said and done, my neighbor died well. He left behind children and grandchildren that loved him, that were with him at the end. He was preceded in death by a wife that he loved.

And, perhaps most importantly, he was ready to die. Not that he wanted to die. But he was ready for when it happened (as it will to all of us).

As I said before, I grew up on John Wayne movies. They weren’t all John Wayne movies, but similar in style. And often these movies had a character who died in a tragic yet noble way. You were saddened by the death, but at the same time inspired by it. You might even think, “That’s how I’d like to die.” Maybe not in a hail of bullets or whatever it was, but in a way that was noble, that you could be at peace with, that your family, even though heartbroken, would be at peace with.

I don’t mean to be morbid. I mean, I recognize I am in the last decade or so of my life. I don’t know how long I will live – who among us does? – but I recognize I am closer to the end than I ever have been.

As has been said by others, I don’t have a fear of death as much as I worry about actually dying. Who knows what happens in that moment of passing from this life to the next (for I do believe there is a next one)?

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the English historian Williams Mitford is credited with saying, “Men fear death, as if unquestionably the greatest evil, and yet no man knows that it may not be the greatest good.”

Among the many words I have collected over the years is a poem by a guy named Edward Vance Cooke. He lived at the turn of the 20^th Century, born in the 1800s and died in 1932. It’s one of those things I’d call the “wisdom of the ancients,’’ although usually we think of the “ancients” as those from thousands of years ago, not just a hundred years.

But wisdom is wisdom.

So, I share this poem without further commentary and leave it as Cooke does.

How did you die?

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way

With a resolute heart and cheerful?

Or hide your face from the light of day

With a craven soul and fearful?

Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,

Or a trouble is what you make it.

And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,

But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what’s that?

Come up with a smiling face.

It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,

But to lie there – that’s disgrace.

The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce;

Be proud of your blackened eye!

It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts,

It’s how did you fight – and why?

And though you be done to the death, what then?

If you battled the best you could,

If you played your part in the world of men,

Why, the Critic will call it good.

Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,

And whether he’s slow or spry,

It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,

But only how did you die?

 

 

 

What A Man Should Know

 For the last few months, I have enjoyed reading a column in The Free Press (thefp.com – a site I recommend, for what it’s worth) by Elliot Ackerman called “A Man Should Know.” The idea is that there are things every man should know (as the series title says) and his topics range from things like how to wear a watch, how to wear a tuxedo, how to propose, how to travel, how to form an opinion, how to say thank you – a wide range of subjects that, as a man, our fathers or an uncle or older brother should have taught us (but many didn’t, for a variety of reasons).

You could say these are superficial things, but they are things worth knowing, things not often passed on from fathers to sons.

I supposed most of what I know about being a man came from watching my father, although I can’t say I watched with purpose; neither did he teach intentionally. But a boy can’t help but watch his father, and it’s amazing, as I’ve gotten older, to see how often I see friends who turn out an awful lot like their fathers (and find myself doing exactly what my dad would have done).

It’s not always good. Sometimes we find ourselves repeating mistakes. I know a guy whose father left his family when he was young. He hated his father for that. Yet many years later he was about to do the same thing until, fortunately, he remembered what it did to him as a child. He changed his mind (and heart), and he is happy today with a great family life.

My other role model was probably John Wayne. His movies, anyway. The characters he played. A lot of actors, and characters in books, set the tone for what I wanted to grow up to be like.

Back when magazines were a force in our culture, I subscribed to Esquire Magazine. It had some really good writers and good stories, and there was, for a time, a column on “ethics,” written by Harry Stein. He didn’t preach as much as he just told stories of people who responded to difficult situations in an admirable way. He wasn’t overtly judgmental, but just let people who walked that fine line between right and wrong teach by their actions. I liked it so much, when he published a book that was a collection of his essays – entitled “Ethics and Other Liabilities” – I bought it, and go back to it often.

All of that is to say I’m always interested in help on how to live a better life. I like to hear life advice from older people, because there are things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. So many young men, in particular, are growing up without fathers in their homes, or maybe have fathers whose own fathers weren’t there, so there is a disconnect in teaching or even just being an example of “what a man should know.”

I have books like “Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men,” subtitled “An utterly invigorating guide to being your most masculine self.” Another is “A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines.”

By years, I’m an old man now. But I’m still trying to figure out what a man should know.

You want to talk old men? It’s one of the oldest stories in the Bible.

My friends and family say I am obsessed with the book of Job from the Old Testament. I don’t know if “obsessed” is the right word, but I do find it to be a book that answers so many questions about life for me. People always say it’s a book about suffering, but I find it to be so much more than that. Job, to me, has answers for almost everything.

For example, the story starts by saying “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.”

I have some understanding of fearing God and shunning evil (although I admit I haven’t always done both very well), but what does it mean to be blameless and upright? And shouldn’t a man know how to be “blameless and upright?”

Then I got to chapter 31. There are so many layers to the story of Job, so many themes to explore that I find fascinating (and – spoiler alert – will be writing about), that this particular chapter slipped by me for a long time. It comes toward the end of the book, when Job is defending himself against the accusations of his friends, accusations that seem smart and right but Job knows are wrong.

Anyway, he gets to Chapter 31 (not that Job knew he was in chapter 31), and it hit me: here is Job’s example of what it means to live “blameless and upright.”

He starts out with this:

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman…” Job is way ahead of his time. He lived – or the story was set – in a period well before the giving of the law to Moses. It seems likely that he lived between the time of the great flood and before Moses, possibly around the same time as Abraham.

Given the way we think of those times as being patriarchal, I see Job as almost a feminist. He never fails to mention his daughters, including giving their names at the end of the book when he doesn’t mention the names of his sons. And it makes a point to say his daughters were treated as co-heirs with their brothers, sharing equally in the inheritance.

And step one of Job’s “blameless and upright” life seems to be that he made a covenant not to lust. Eugene Peterson puts it this way in “The Message,” his paraphrase of the Bible: “I made a solemn pact with myself never to undress a girl with my eyes.”

Women have been sexualized and objectified for centuries, and there is no end to the problems this has caused both men and women. Yet here is Job, centuries ago, telling us, “Don’t lust,” way before Jesus said that same thing.

I don’t think Job is saying he doesn’t lust. He had eyes. But what he means, I think, is that he has decided not to dwell upon those lustful feelings. As a somewhat normal, red-blooded male, I can’t always help what I see. Job, I think, is saying “I can’t always help what I see and that first reaction, but I can move on.” Job says he doesn’t have to keep looking, to take looking to another step (undressing with his eyes), which could lead to yet another step, and maybe another … We are creatures that, I believe, have free will; we are free to decide what we will do with what we see. But it takes discipline, a “covenant” with your mind and heart, if you will, to resist.

Then Job goes on to say, “If I have walked with falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit— let God weigh me in honest scales…”

In other words, Job says I don’t lie, and I don’t deceive. That’s about as simple and straightforward as it gets. A University of Wisconsin-La Crosse study said 75 percent of adults tell zero to two lies per day. Another study said adults may lie every two to three minutes in regular conversation. Whatever the number, most of us know lying is wrong, but it comes so naturally to us that it’s easy to say something that isn’t true without even really thinking about it.

The third area Job addresses is saying “If I have denied justice to any of my servants …” He seems to be saying he did not mistreat the people that worked for him. He listened to them, and considered their situations. If they had a complaint, they were free to bring it to him and he would consider it. What a work place that would be!

Later still, Job says “If I have denied the desires of the poor or let the eyes of the widow grow weary, if I have kept my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless …” The right way to live, according to Job, is to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, provide for the homeless and hungry. I can’t say it any better than Job did when he said, “If I have seen anyone perishing for lack of clothing, or the needy without garments, and their hearts did not bless me for warming them with the fleece from my sheep, if I have raised my hand against the fatherless, knowing that I had influence in court, then let my arm fall from the shoulder, let it be broken off at the joint. …”

But that isn’t enough. We know from chapter 1 that Job was one of the wealthiest men of his country. Yet he makes a point here of saying his wealth was not his security; his identity was in his great riches. He says, “If I have put my trust in gold or said to pure gold, ‘You are my security,’ if I have rejoiced over my great wealth, the fortune my hands had gained…” then “these also would be sins to be judged, for I would have been unfaithful to God on high.” To put it in New Testament terms, he stored up his treasure in heaven. His faith and security were in his relationship with God. The rest … well he says it in chapter 1, “Naked I came into this world, and naked I will depart.” Job understood his wealth and prestige and power were all temporary.

Job then goes on to say we shouldn’t celebrate when bad things happen to our enemies, to people we know have done bad things, even if they deserve it. He said, “If I have rejoiced at my enemy’s misfortune or gloated over the trouble that came to him— I have not allowed my mouth to sin by invoking a curse against their life.”

When people wrong us – and they will – what is our reaction? I hear friends of mine today wishing God would bring severe, Old Testament-style judgement on the people they disagree with, particularly when it comes to politics or cultural issues. You can’t escape this attitude on TV, on social media, in protests, almost everywhere you look. It is only human to want to see justice, at least our version of what we think justice for those people should look like. And it’s so easy these days to be angry.

Research says that anger in the United States is at an all-time high, with many Americans experiencing daily anger due to various social, political, and psychological factors. Approximately 70% of Americans report feeling angry every day, with 31% describing their anger as “really angry”. This marks a significant increase in anger levels compared to two decades ago. And this increase in anger is connected to a rise in social violence and unrest.

But that’s not Job. I once heard it put this way: when we consider people who have done wrong, we should pray “God, bring them into a right relationship to You, and do it as gently as you can.”

“Do it as gently as you can” is not what most of us want. Yet that’s compassion, and love, and humility, and – to be honest, at least in my case – something I can ask for only when my heart has been changed by God.

Job isn’t finished with his description of the blameless and upright life. He goes on to say, “no stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler—”

And “if I have concealed my sin as people do, by hiding my guilt in my heart because I so feared the crowd and so dreaded the contempt of the clans that I kept silent and would not go outside—” How many times have we not said something or not done something because we were concerned what people would say or think of us or even say about us? Isn’t this peer pressure? Job is saying don’t be afraid of what other people think; don’t be afraid of doing the right thing even when those in power or the majority are saying something else. Do the right thing.

And that’s where Job ends his defense of himself.

But it’s also what I think defines a blameless and upright life.

Treating women with respect. Always tell the truth. Treat the people that work for you and with you fairly and honestly. Take care of the poor, the widows and orphans. It’s OK to pursue wealth, but don’t make that your security. And use that wealth to take care of people, to feed the hungry and provide shelter for the homeless. Don’t gloat when your enemies fail or fall, and pray for their well-being. Don’t be afraid of what other people will think about you, do the right thing.

Jesus repeats all of those in the New Testament. Read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus talks about lust and adultery, loving one’s neighbor, giving to the poor and social justice, the love of money … all these things that Job lays out hundreds of years before.

Norman Mailer, in “Cannibals and Christians,” said “Masculinity is not something given to you, but something you gain. And you gain it by winning small battles with honor.” The things Job talks about are the small battles most of us face every day. Ordinary things. But it’s the ordinary things, I have found, that are mostly likely to trip us up.

One thing that seems obvious to me.

These things in Job are indeed things “A Man Should Know.”

An Unlikely (and unwilling) Exorcist

 It's hard to imagine just what an impact the movie "The Exorcist" had on us in the dark ages of the 1970s.

For those of you too young to remember, "The Exorcist" was a movie about a 12-year old girl who is possessed by demons, and a young priest who takes it upon himself to selflessly save her. It was pretty terrifying stuff, with what were considered pretty complicated special effects for that time period. According to Wikipedia, "The Exorcist" was voted scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly in 1999, by Movies.com in 2010, by viewers of AMC in 2006, and by the editors of Time Out in 2014. In addition, a scene from the film was ranked #3 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. In 2010, the Library of Congress selected the film to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

I was in college when it came out. I wouldn't go see it, because quite frankly the whole idea scared the be-jeebers out of me. As a kid, my family regularly hosted missionaries from around the world, and I remember hearing these stories of demons and demonic events in far-off lands.

However, almost everyone in my dorm did go see it. And they came back looking as if they'd seen a ... well, a demon. One guy was so shook up I remember he told me he didn't go to sleep at all that night but lay in bed reading a Bible.

Many of them actually went back a second time, and like most things, the more they saw it the less scary it became, and soon it became a running gag in the dorm, complete with attempts to re-enact many of the grosser (more gross? grossiest?) scenes.

And then, a few years later, I was asked to participate in an exorcism.

This was around 1976, one summer while I was working a summer job for a billboard company outside of Athens, Ga. It was a summer filled with crazy stories, working with some really good guys who were just hard-working country boys who took pride in what they did, groused about the boss (whom they called "Grump"), and slowly included me in whatever they were doing, which in once case included attending a true Southern country old-fashioned Pentecostal church.

They guys knew I was a church-going guy, that I'd gotten the job because the owner of the company was on the board of a Christian campus organization of which I had someone gotten elected president. They were also smart enough to know that just because I said I was a church-going guy, that didn't necessarily mean I measured up to Pentecostal standards of what it means to be a Christian. Fortunately, at the company picnic, I inadvertently "proved" my faith.

While I'd like to say I "proved" my faith to them with my deep knowledge and understanding of Scripture, or incredible acts of self-sacrifice and kindness, or a piousness which reflected in my every word and deed, remember these were good ol' country Pentecostals. What happened was that, at the company picnic, after I went through the barbecue line and got loaded my plate with ribs, corn on the cob, bread, beans, potato salad, and banana pudding, I went to the drink cooler to get something to wash it all down with. I reached deep into the ice, and the first thing I pulled up with a beer (probably PBR, or Falstaff).

Now, anyone that knows me knows I don't drink alcohol (but I do have a serious Diet Coke). It's nothing religious; I just have never liked the taste of alcohol. I've tried, but it's just not worth the effort. I've never had an alcoholic beverage that comes anywhere close to being as satisfying as sweet tea or a Coke (Diet Coke, these days). So, when I pulled up the can of beer, I dropped it and went fishing until I pulled up an ice-cold can of Coke. (We didn't have Diet Coke back then, only something called "Tab," of which my then-college roommate declared "the only difference between Coke and Tab is that Tab tastes bad!").

Later that day, the old man of our crew - a man we called Phillipi - came up to me and said, "Ray, I know you're a Christian. I saw you pick up that beer, and the way you dropped it and went for a Coke told me everything I need to know."

If I had known what was coming, I might have gone back for the beer.

Phillipi was the sign painter. While billboards in those days were mostly paper, they did have some that were custom painted, and Phillipi would free hand the most amazing signs. He was the only one who didn't leave the shop during the day. While the rest of us were out on trucks, going from billboard to billboard to change signs or cut grass or do repairs, he had a stool in front of a billboard on which he'd paint whatever the customer wanted. He had a radio that played Gospel, and sang along in this high, nasally tenor voice that rang out like one of the Happy Goodmans (google it; but in their day the Happy Goodmans were Southern Gospel music).

One day, for some reason, I was in the shop when Phillipi told me to get in the truck with him. This was unusual because, as I said, Phillipi didn't leave the shop. I could tell this was important to him, so I climbed in with him and off we went, heading out across hill and dale, river and woods, to a place I had no idea about.

I said, "Philippi, where are we going?"

He said, "To cast out a demon, son."

Hmmmm, I thought. Is he serious? And if he is, do I really want to be part of this?

He said, "I want you with me, because I know you're a Christian and a God-fearing man. I want someone who can pray with me when we confront this demon."

I said, "Wait a minute. How do you know about this demon we're going to confront?"

He said, "I got a call. Bobby Tom's wife called and said Bobby Tom was sweating and screaming and cursing and thrashing around and she needs help. He's possessed by a demon."

I don't know that "Bobby Tom" was the real name, by the way. I wasn't really paying that much attention.

We got to Bobby Tom's house. His wife had left and taken the kids. Bobby Tom was indeed lying in his sweat-soaked bed, thrashing and moaning and letting out these crazy yelps and calling for Phillipi (once he realized Phillipi was there) to help him. He'd been throwing up, and the room indeed looked like something out of The Exorcist. The stench was awful; the room needed a good hosing down. All that was missing, it seemed to me, was “Tubular Bells” (the theme from The Exorcist).

Phillipi - who was a Deacon or Elder or something big in the local Pentecostal church - walked over and sat Bobby Tom up on the side of the bed, laid his hands on his head, and said, "Ray, get in the corner and start praying."

He didn't need to say it twice. As for praying - I'd been doing that ever since he said the words, "We're going to cast out a demon."

"DEMON!" yelled Phillipi, bouncing Bobby Tom up and down on the bed. "COME OUT! I ORDER YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS! COME OUT! SPEAK TO ME, DEMON, I AIN'T AFRAID OF YOU! SPEAK TO ME AND PREPARE TO LEAVE THIS GOOD MAN!"

Meanwhile, I was in the corner, petrified, but I was praying. However, while Phillipi was praying for the Demon to speak and be recognized, I was praying, "Oh, please, Demon, if you're really in there, don't say anything! Just leave! Please don't do anything or say anything!"

I might have been working at cross-purposes with Phillipi.

Anyway, Phillipi went on like this for a while, calling out to the Demon, ordering him, demanding, bouncing poor Bobby Tom up and down on the side of the bed, slapping his hands on Bobby Tom's forehead and temple, while Bobby Tom groaned and moaned and sweated and started shivering violently, which only encouraged Phillipi even more.

"I SEE YOU SHIVERING, DEMON!" he yelled. "YOU CAN'T RESIST THE NAME OF JESUS! COME OUT! COME OUT!"

And I was in the corner silently praying, "Resist, Demon! Don't say a word! Just go away!"

This went on for what felt like a half hour but was probably ... well, maybe a half hour. Finally, Bobby Tom let out this loud groan and collapsed back on his bed. Phillipi mopped his brow and stood back, looking at him.

"Get me some water," Phillipi said.

I went to the kitchen where, in the trash can, I noticed a bag full of crushed beer cans. Dozens of them. On the corner was a case of beer, half gone. There were various empty bottles of liquor and maybe even some cheap wine scattered around the counters.

I got the water and went back to Phillipi.

"Phillipi?" I said, quietly. "You need to come see this. I think I know the Demon's name - Falstaff."

For those of you of a younger generation, Falstaff was a popular and relatively inexpensive beer of the time.

I took Phillipi into the kitchen, where he looked around. "Demon Alcohol!" he roared, nonplussed.

We went through all the cabinets looking for alcohol and loaded up everything we could find in the back of the truck. Bobby Tom was passed out on his bed, and we left him there.

"You know, Phillipi," I said. "I don't think it was a demon. I think it was the DT's (Delirium tremens)."

Phillipi pulled over on a bridge that ran over the Ocoee River and got out of the truck.

"You call it what you want," he said, as he proceeded to dump all the alcohol into the river. "It's a demon either way."

We got back to the shop, and the other guys had come back. I told them about what we'd been doing, including dumping the beer over the bridge into the Ocoee.

"Which bridge?" was the question.

There was a second run that afternoon. I didn't go on this one. But I think it had something to do with a truck parked on the side of the road, and a bunch of good ol' boys clambering down the hillside into a local river.

Sometimes, one man's demon is another man's blessing.

Or something like that.

(This was first published on God n' Me at raymelick.substack.com. I am duplicating because, what this heck - it's mine).