Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 9: Transitions, Trying on New Lenses

At some point--I only had a very vague self-awareness of it at the time--I began moving from being a skeptic looking for problems with the Bible, into someone with a different frame of mind--one fraught with peril for any atheist or agnostic: I was becoming a "seeker." I was certainly not there yet, but I was moving steadily in that direction. I was beginning to genuinely want to know, if possible, what was ultimately True--about existence, God, self, life. I was just beginning to let go of the need to find the answers I wanted to find and to start seeking whatever answers there really were there to be found--whether those answers suited me or not. In short, I was beginning to embrace the mind-set that led to the recent downfall of that great and influential atheist, Anthony Flew: I was beginning to follow the truth wherever it might lead. The serious agnostic/skeptic, when considering the possible existence of God, must be ever vigilant to maintain an appropriately detached and cynical eye. One must carefully guard oneself against any undue influence (charming or persuasive people, books or arguments) which may be attached to the subject under examination (in this case, the Bible, Jesus, Christianity) lest one be led into accepting unwanted premises (there is a cause for the existence of the universe), and as a result, perhaps find oneself stumbling into inconvenient or even disastrous conclusions (I must owe my existence to the same Cause to which the universe owes its existence. Or: there must be some universal moral right and wrong--it can't all be a matter of personal opinion and taste).

This gradual transition from sincere cynical skeptic to sincere seeker was critical to the way I was assimilating the information I was gathering from my reading of the Bible and my observations of Christians. From my mid-teen years on I had been/become a pure materialist, not believing there was--or could be--anything beyond the material world. Now I was beginning to be willing to consider evidence for the possibility of a spiritual dimension to existence. This was a thousand football fields away from Jesus, Christianity--or any religion at all--but it was, for my part, a new openness that would set the stage for the experiences and thinking that were to shortly follow.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 8: Smitten and Searching

I continued to read the gospel accounts in the modern English paperback Bible I'd been given. In my search of the gospel accounts I had found many things, such as walking on water and miraculously feeding five-thousand people, that I rejected outright and some other things, like the parables, that I didn't understand too well, but I was still in search of a good, glaring contradiction I could use. besides keeping my eye peeled for contradictions, the other thing I kept in mind, as I read about Jesus and his teaching, was my friend's challenge that, if Jesus was not all he claimed too be, then he must, logically speaking, be a liar or a lunatic. I was withholding judgment on that score until I'd finished reading the four gospels.

I was now taking the Jesus girl to church every Sunday evening and I was beginning to fall in love with her as well. Although an unabashed atheist and revolutionary, I would sit there with her and her friends during the service, enjoying the music, observing the people and trying to take in the content of the sermon. Being in this particular church--All Saints Episcopal--seemed a strange thing to me on several levels. One was that this was the very church I'd come to with my family when I was a little boy wearing a starched white shirt and a little bow tie. Essentially, nothing about the building had changed in the least since back then. It looked exactly the same. I found myself staring up at those same great big heavy wood beams in the ceiling--just as I'd done as a boy (only now, instead of that starched shirt and plaid bow tie, I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and had long hair and a beard). But if the building was still the same, the service could not have been more different. Instead of an organ and choir, there was a Christian rock band. Instead of a man with a collar intoning and droning on about Gawd, there was a one of the Jesus People--Lonnie Frisbee--in a muslin smock, with shoulder-length hair, beard and sandals passionately preaching like some modern-day John the Baptist. The sermons seemed completely extemporaneous and not done from notes.

Each week the routine was basically the same: the band would do a set of Jesus music for about a half hour, then someone would get up with a guitar and lead everyone in praise choruses interspersed with old hymns, such as, Nothing But the Blood of Jesus. After the music and singing, the hippy-preacher would tell an Old or New Testament story and then he'd explain what this meant to us as individuals living here and now. He might tell the story of David and Goliath and then, coming out from behind the lectern, and with the Bible either still in his hand or tucked under one arm, he would make the transition by saying, "Some of you are just like that little shepherd boy, David--you're facing Goliath-sized problems in your life right now--problems which seem to big for you to handle alone. You may be strung out on drugs or totally bummed out about your messed up family or maybe you're so lonely you just want to curl up and die because you have this giant-size hole inside you and your heart is empty or it's hard as stone--well only God can give you the boldness, the courage and the hope, like David, to come up against your Goliath. Only God's spirit can enable you, by his spirit, to stand up to your giant and put and end to him like David did. And God knows how to take care of giants 'cause he took care of the biggest giants of all--sin and death--that means he took on the sin of the whole world, including yours. He did it by sending his only son, Jesus, to die there on that cross two-thousand years ago. He loved you that much, that he bled and suffered in your place and he died so you could be set free and conquer your giants, and he didn't just die, but he rose up from the grave--he did it to prove he'd conquered death and really was the the son of God, the Messiah, the savior of the world, and you can know him tonight, you can come to him and he will forgive all your sins and cleanse you from the inside out and make you a whole new person--no matter what you've done and no matter how many sins you've committed or how bad they are--he died to pay the penalty for each and every one--and not only that, but he promised to remove them as far as the east is from the west, that's infinitely far, and that means they're totally gone forever--completely forgiven--and forgotten. When you accept his gift of salvation he'll create a new heart in you--he can do it, he has the power to do it--through his spirit--if you'll just come to him tonight, because the Bible says today is the day of salvation, and now is the time to be born again--so just come to him, admit you are a sinner, and ask him to come into your heart and life and forgive all your sins. He wants to set you free from the power of sin and change your life, to make you a new person. Don't put it off. If you are ready to do that tonight--to come to Jesus and be forgiven and start a new life--I just want to pray for you that God would really do a great work in your life and meet you right where you are. You don't have to get yourself all cleaned up first, he loves you just as you are and you can come to him just like you are--with all your sins and junk and he'll do all the changing--he'll do it by sending his spirit to live inside you, so if you want to have a brand new start and if you really want to know the love of God and know you are going to heaven and you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then I invite you to show that by raising your hand and I'm going to pray for you right now that God would do a mighty work in your life--by his Holy Spirit--that he would transform you and give you a whole new life--and if that's what you want tonight, if you are hungry for God and spiritually thirsty, then just raise your hand and I'll pray for you. Jesus said, 'If you confess me before men I will confess you before my father in Heaven, but if you deny me before men I will deny you before my father.' The Bible says, 'the angles rejoice over just one sinner that comes to repentance', so raise your hand if you want to be born again and begin following Jesus tonight. I see your hand brother, I see that hand too... and you, sister, I see your hand also."

Each Sunday evening there would be similar program of music and preaching, followed by the inevitable Billy-Graham-style alter call. Each week ten to fifteen or more people would raise their hands to "receive Christ." The preacher would then ask them to come forward and stand at the front of the church to declare their commitment to Jesus. Then he would lead the group in saying, out loud, the "Sinner's Prayer." He would then give them a Bible and say, "Welcome into the family of God." He'd tell them that now, as new believers, they should pray, read their Bible, fellowship with other believers, and tell their family, friends and others about Jesus.

Every week more and more young people would flock to the church to hear the music and the preaching. Each week a number of them would walk forward to pray the sinner's prayer. For my part, I just took it all in and tried to figure out what--if anything--really happened to those who went forward and why all these young people were always hugging each other and saying things like, "Praise the Lord" to one another. I did have to admit that there was an undeniable and palpable atmosphere of joy and exuberance among them. They also seemed to share a deep bond and sense of strong camaraderie with one another. For someone like me, who was somewhat of a loner, it was both a little weird and a bit attractive at the same time. The Jesus girl--and my own questions about Jesus--would keep me returning to this strange scene week after week. I had however no way of foreseeing the strange and unusual events which awaited and would confront me in the months ahead.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 7: Altered States

I wasn't buying the miracles I was reading about in the Bible, but the fact that my father and I were getting along seemed to defy, if not any Law of Nature, then at least the laws of our natures. It's not that we had settled any of our our differences, it was that we had an unspoken agreement, for the time being, not to raise them. So we didn't talk about politics or any social issues. I still held very radical views and he still held very conservative ones. Considering our past seven years of anger and estrangement, it seemed to me a minor miracle that my father had invited me to come live with him and his new family. Dad had married Shirley three years back and had acquired four children--three young boys and a little girl--in the bargain. This in itself was completely out of character for a man who liked to quote W.C. Fields, "A man who hates dogs and kids can't be all bad." When we were growing up, dad would sometimes amuse himself and his guests by saying in our presence, "Why don't you kids go play on the freeway?" Now my father had a house full of rug-rats and had softened toward me as well.

This surprising change in my father was, I believe, one of the effects wrought by his new love relationship. His love for Shirley was so life-alteringly profound that, in spite of his antipathy toward children, I'm convinced he'd have married her if she had come with a whole tribe of pygmy headhunters. Not only was he willing to accept her four children as part of the marriage package, but he was genuinely trying to be a father to them as well. Their own father had died of cancer four years before--in the hospital where my dad was administrator. That is how he met Shirley, then a grieving widow. Although dad was trying to be a good father-figure to Shirley's children--ranging in age from three to thirteen--parenting was not something he was very adept at.

His two big disabilities as a parent were that he had next to no patience for children's horse-play and its attendant noise, and that his own father had been distant, cold and even at times cruel. I believe my dad was seeing, in these children, his second chance at parenting, of getting it right. And although his efforts were often awkward or faltering, he was giving it the best effort he was capable of. It was a little odd for me, a product of his first effort at parenting, to watch him try to relate to these kids while being both a loving father-figure and a disciplinarian as well. One minute he'd be taking the little girl tenderly in his arms after she'd skinned her knee but then the next he'd be snapping sharply and loudly at one of the boys for running in the house, "Dammit, I said stop that!" Although it was a bit painful to watch him struggle in his new father-figure role, I was feeling, for the first time, real sympathy for him as a parent because these kids were a very big handful at their ages and, on top of that, the youngest boy, Jimmy, was over-the-top hyperactive. If Jimmy came up to say anything to you he'd be on his tiptoes, rapidly bouncing and shaking his hands in the air. And he was already on Ritalin.

A psychiatrist I recently heard on a radio show said that we'd all be doing a good job as parents if we only passed on half the hang-ups our parents had passed on to us. I am not certain just where I'd stand by that criteria. I suppose this calls for an honest self-evaluation. My fathering may have been marginally better that my father's, but I don't know if I can claim it to be fifty-percent better. I know my father did much better than his father. My father, later in life, made a good and successful effort to get closer to us kids. I hope I can be as successful as he was in this.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 6: The Hunted Hunter Sets Out

To briefly recap, I had been released from Banning Road Camp (a Riverside County Jail facility) in May of 1971; went to live with my dad in Mira Loma, a rural area of Riverside; met an attractive 17-year old girl who was one of the new Jesus People; had gone with her to one of their gatherings; had been challenged by and old school acquaintance regarding Jesus and the Bible; and had determined to look into the issue for myself.

I had never seriously considered the teachings of Jesus or the claims of Christianity. Now I had been challenged to do so. I imagined this exercise would be an intellectual slam-dunk and that I'd easily find confirmation for my already formed opinions. After a day of job hunting, followed by late afternoon chores around my dad's place, such as cleaning out the stalls and putting the horses' hay in their crib, I was ready to take my first crack at reading the Bible. Shutting the door to my room, I sat on the bed, put the Moody Blues on the turntable and pulled off my dusty boots and sweaty socks. As the first notes of Nights In White Satin bagan to play, I laid myself out across the bed, dropped the paperback Bible I'd been given onto the floor and tentatively peeled back the front cover. I had a pencil at the ready, there for putting check marks in the margins whenever I found a contradiction, flaw or logical fallacy.

The first thing I encountered was a long listing of names of all the ancestors of Jesus, afterward summed up by Matthew saying, "The genealogy of Jesus Christ may thus be traced for fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen from the deportation to Christ himself." No contradiction jumped out at me there--and I wasn't about to read all through the Old Testament looking to see if this Jesus family tree I'd just skimmed over was accurate. I'd have to take Matthew at his word on that one. But, how'd he get all this genealogical information anyway? That too was not something I really cared to look into just now. I wasn't out to nit-pick, I was on the hunt for big, fat obvious contradictions.

Next I came to the Snoopy Christmas Special birth of Jesus story. Angels appear to people and you're told an unbelievable virgin birth story, but then I already knew these unbelievable miracles were in the Bible. I had bigger fish to fry. In the Baby Jesus story I found mention of a king named Herod. Here might be a possibility. If there were no historical record such a king ever existed, I suppose that would be a pretty major flaw. I'd have to look into that. Already, in five-minutes of reading I'd discovered that this Jesus character wasn't portrayed as having lived once upon a time somewhere in some vague Middle East, but in a real and specific place at a particular time in recorded history. Certainly skeptics and historians before me had done some serious fact-checking of the gospels. What had they found? I'd have to look into that as well.

Every other verse in Matthew I found him saying that this or that incident fulfilled some prophecy from somewhere else in the Bible. Here was something else for me to check out--at some point anyway. By the time Jesus got himself baptized I'd had enough reading for one session. In this my initial Bible excursion I hadn't bagged any good contradictions, but then again, I'd just begun. There was always tomorrow...

It was getting late, and before going to bed I went out to the back of our half-acre horse ranch, lit a cigarette--a habit I'd begun at around age 14--and put one bare foot on the bottom railing of the corral. Taking a deep inhale of the Marlborough, I began to think about the beautiful young guitar-strumming girl down the street. She said Jesus was her personal savior and Lord and that his love was real and could change a person's life. As I very slowly exhaled the soothing smoke, my horse, Joplin, looked up from the last bits of her hay and began to amble over to me.

For anyone just tuning in, I am doing a multi-part series, Father's Day 1972 Revisited. For several years now, inspired by St. Augustine's Confessions, I have written or rewritten my conversion experience afresh each year. Since this radical turning point in my life had its focus on Father's Day (1972) I am now in the habit of having my thoughts turn back that direction each year as June arrives. This annual writing ritual helps me reflect anew upon God's amazing and magnetic love and how he so marvelously crafts his call to each individual soul.

This little blog--and my small band of loyal readers (all three of you!)--have inspired me to write in a little more detail this year than in years past. Father's Day is on the 21st, so in the weeks prior I will try to progress my story a little ever day or two. Feel free to leave comments or questions as we go along and I will try to answer them. Perhaps you will help me see or think about something I've overlooked.

My father is no longer living. If your father is still with us, I wish you the blessing of appreciating and enjoying him while he remains. On a higher plain, I am reminded how good it is to be loved by the great Father and Shepherd of our souls!

Note: Scroll to bottom to begin with Part 1.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 5: Proud Preconceptions and a Paperback Bible.

So my old acquaintance from high school, now a Jesus freak, had provoked me into searching the Bible for contradictions and, beyond that, to attempt to determine whether this Jesus these people claimed to love was some sort of con man, a lunatic, or was who he claimed to be--if he'd ever existed at all. I felt I needed to determine these things by my own investigation so I could tell myself, and others in the future, that I had made an honest inquiry into the matter and had come to an informed decision. What I was not setting out to do was to explore all the world's religions, or to compare them all with Christianity. I was only interested in doing an adequate enough study of the Christian documents--the New Testament--which would intellectually entitle me to then reject them on the basis of my own first-hand study. This way, when confronted again sometime in the future by a Christian, whether a Jesus freak like my buddy or some high-church suit-and-tie type, I would be perfectly comfortable in asserting, "Yes, I have read the Bible myself and have found it completely unbelievable and utterly unconvincing. It has quite a number of contradictions and logical fallacies in it, such as..." and here I would toss my evidence on the conversational table like slapping down a pair of aces.

Reading the Bible might prove an unpleasant task, but the chore would be well worth doing if--as I was sure it would--it bolstered my reasons for rejecting the Christian message. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "this Bible reading project might just turn out to be as rewarding as my reading of Bertrand Russell's book, Why I Am Not a Christian, a few years back." That was the book I had used to great effect--or so I imagined--in high school when confronted by Jesus People handing me a gospel tract like The Four Spiritual Laws, or when they were so bold as to "witness" to me with something like, "Do you know God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life?" I'd reply by saying with a little sneer, "Do you know the Spanish Inquisition killed thousands of Jews and Muslims? Don't talk to me about your so-called "loving" God!" If that didn't do the trick and shut them up, I'd brush them off with the "crutch" charge. They might begin, "The Bible says that God so loved the world he sent..." and I'd cut in with, "Yeah, yeah, all that religion stuff is just a crutch for the ignorant, to keep them compliant. But if it makes you feel good to think about Jesus and God's love, go right ahead--whatever turns you on."

With this less-than-receptive frame of mind, I set out to actually read the gospel stories for the very first time. It's not that I didn't know what was in them--in a vague and general sort of way. I knew they claimed for Jesus a virgin birth, that there was John the Baptist, the disciples, John 3:16, some guy named Pontius Pilate, and, of course, a crucifixion and resurrection. These things I'd learned from Episcopal Sunday school and liturgy in addition to being enrolled in Vacation Bible School by my Baptist grandmother each summer. There, between craft projects (leather wallet, Indian beaded bracelet, pounded copper picture, wood-burning) we would be treated to felt board presentations depicting Bible stories. Compared to watching Bonanza in color on the neighbor's TV, the felt board was rather boring. Nonetheless, the most basic elements of the Jesus story were duly planted in my developing brain--and soul.

I now don't even know who gave me the Bible I first read back then, back in the summer of 1971. I know it was a paperback, contemporary version, done by J.B. Phillips. This smoothed the way for me to confront the story and teachings of Jesus plainly, without the "Thees and Thous" of the King James distracting me. In addition to beginning to read the Bible, I decided I would add to my "research" a weekly visit to the Sunday evening gathering of the Jesus people there at All Saints Episcopal Church. It was not until later I learned that Lonnie Frisbee and his Jesus-freak followers were only borrowing the building and were not a part of that church. They were Hippies-turned-Jesus-People evangelists sent from Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa by Chuck Smith. My motives for meeting with the Jesus People were very mixed. On the one hand, the beautiful Jesus girl was going there and I could give her a ride each week. For that I was willing to sit and listen to a hippy preacher. On the other hand, I could observe the Jesus freaks and try to find an answer to the question in my mind, "What could have so influenced all these peers of mine as to make them give up pot and free love in exchange for some crazy rule-infested Jesus lifestyle?" It made no sense to me. I, however, was an intellectual. I'd get to the bottom of it: a mass psychological malady of some kind no doubt.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 4: A Brief Encounter With a Jesus Freak

This Sunday evening church excursion was not turning out anything like I'd planned. Instead of ushers telling me, as I'd hoped they would, that I couldn't come into the church dressed as I was, I was welcomed by a hundred or more Jesus people, most of whom probably assumed I was one of them. I was chagrined I'd let myself get snookered into being part of this gathering of Jesus freaks. And now, to top it off, here was an old high school acquaintance calling me "brother." When I informed him I was no "brother" and that I'd just given someone a ride there and was not at all interested in religion, he looked genuinely surprised, but then, getting his evangelical footing gushed, "Hey man, you should really check it out--God loves you, Jesus proved it by dying on the cross for you. You know, the Bible says..." I cut this off immediately with, "Don't tell me the Bible says this or that or some other thing. That Bible of yours is full of contradictions and fairy tales--no one believes that stuff anymore." But before I could quote some Bertrand Russell for his enlightenment, he held out his big Thompson Chain Reference Bible toward me and said, "Well, show me one and we can talk about it." This so startled me I forgot my Bertrand Russell and just stammered, "Well, I know they're in there, it's well documented. I couldn't tell you just where they are right this minute, but I know they're there." At that moment I was blushing inside with intellectual embarrassment. I had prided myself on being an intellectual, someone who dispassionately looks at all the available facts, considers them very carefully, applies logic and reason and then follows the truth wherever it might happen to lead. In that instant it became blindingly obvious to me I had never even come close to doing this regarding religion, the Bible or the claims about Jesus. Oh sure, I'd gotten drunk with a buddy one time and we'd read Revelation and laughed it to scorn. That of course wouldn't really count as having read the Bible. I was intellectually busted and I knew it. Of course I was not about to concede that to this Jesus freak.

Next he tried another angle, asking me, "Well, who do you think Jesus was then? The Bible says..." "Yeah, yeah, I know what the Bible says about Jesus--I was went to Sunday school all the time when I was little, right here in this church in fact. You can't really expect me to believe any of that walking on water stuff or the virgin birth or the resurrection and all the rest of it. Besides, no one is really sure if Jesus even existed." For some reason, my declaration of unbelief didn't seem to faze him in any way for he simply replied, "Jesus was either a Liar if he said things about himself he knew weren't true, a lunatic if he believed all he said about himself and it was not true, or--or he was exactly who he claimed to be if everything he said about himself was true. He must be one of those and, as for me, I know he's my Lord and savior, praise God!" My only retort at this point was to try and brush it off by saying, "Well, his followers probably just made all that stuff up after he died." About this time Cher came up and wanted to introduce me to someone--which was a sort of salvation to me at that moment. As we began to walk away my friend called after me, "I'll be prayin' for you brother." "Ugh," I said under my breath and thought, "Yeah, you just do that. Whatever floats you religious boat buddy." Still, as satisfied and self assured in my unbelief as I was, it seemed a worrisome chink had been found in my atheistic armor. I'd have to see to that. Already I was determining in my mind to find at least a few of the many contradictions I'd referred to so that, the next time some Jesus freak button-holed me I'd be ready with better come-backs. I especially didn't like having to concede that I hadn't read the book I was rejecting. That just didn't look intellectual and would need to be addressed. OK, I'd have to read the Bible--at least once, at least the New Testament gospels with all their unbelievable fairy-tale miracles. It would be worth it in order to bolster my anti-Christian arguments. I could handle it, no sweat.

Thus was I drawn yet another little step into Gods loving and so well-disguised trap.

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 3: Not Saved by the Ushers

The mysterious young Jesus Person neighbor girl asked me--me--an atheist/agnostic/, seeker, rebel, hippy guy--for a ride to church. Going to church held absolutely no appeal to me, but spending time, even half and hour, with this girl did. Perhaps I could find a way to give her a ride but avoid sitting through a church service. A plan began to form in my mind and was, from my point of view, brilliant. I would wear my favorite very well-worn hippy bell-bottom jeans, the ones all faded and frayed and with the knees torn out. A white T-shirt would be good and, in spite of the sultriness of the evening, I'd wear that old army shirt emblazoned with Magic-Marker peace symbols--the one I'd sewn a large American flag,upside-down, on the back of. And, just in case all that was not enough to get me denied entrance, I went barefoot. Yes--that would do the trick! I had it all played out in advance in my mind: Of course, the ushers would deny me entrance, she would go to the service; I would take a walk and smoke a cigarette or two, Afterwards, we'd go for a coke and conversation and I would explain to her why I could not possibly be a Christian what with all the derss codes and regulations etc. At least that's the way I'd envisioned the evening unfolding. I was in for a rude awakening. As we pulled into the parking lot of All Saints Episcopal Church, I noticed something unusual--there were more than a hundred, perhaps two hundred, young people, most of whom looked like hippies, milling about on the expansive lawn of the churchyard. Something was seriously amiss, especially my plan for getting barred at the door of the church. Just then, as I turned my dad's station wagon into the parking space, Cher excitedly pointed toward the lawn and exclaimed, "There 's pastor Lonnie, he's really cool." "You mean that guy with the beard, in the muslin shirt?" I asked. "Yes, wait 'till you hear him--he's really anointed" she said in a low whispery voice which seemed one of admiration. I could see that my carefully thought-out plan was shot. I hadn't come up with an alternative as we got out of the car and headed for the lawn--she eagerly, me very reluctantly. Before I knew it we were seated on the lawn, everyone singing "cum-by-ya" and a guy to my left slings his arm over my shoulder in brotherly fashion. The muscles in my shoulders and back tightened, but I sought to look cool and unimpressed. "Oh no" I thought, "The Jesus people again--I can't seem to get away from them." As I contemplated this unexpected turn of events, Lonnie began to preach a gospel message with passion and plenty of happy hippy feeling. As I listened to the young preacher tell me how Jesus had died on the cross for me and was seeking me out like a lost sheep and all I needed to do was to open my heart to him and I'd be born again and have a whole new start in life because God loved me more that I could ever imagine, and loved me even no matter how many sins I'd committed and if I were to come to Jesus He would put a whole new plan for my life into effect if only I'd open my heart and invite Him to come in and be my Lord and Savior. I was unmoved and appeared, like I had for years carefully practiced appearing, aloof, skeptical and unmoved. I felt very out of place, here with all these Jesus People singing love songs to some Jesus I know had died two thousand years ago. The whole thing I considered to be completely absurd. I couldn't wait to get out of there. It wasn't to be. Someone who knew me from Poly High came up to me, threw his arms around me and exclaimed, "Denny, praise God!--it is so good to see you here brother!" That last statement irritated me greatly and I challenged him by informing him, "Hey, I just gave someone a ride here, I'm no part of this, I just happen to be here and don't know what in the hell all you people are so excited about."

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 2: Clouds, Horses and a Plan

The mysterious beautiful guitar-strumming girl spoke to me. She told me her name was Cher--short for Sharon. She said she lived in the little house behind us with her mother and older sister. She talked of God. Her sister had recently become a Christian and now she too had come to Jesus and been born again as well. Of course I'd heard of and seen Jesus People before--had even argued with some of them in my senior year at continuation school. I softened my usual off-the-shelf anti-religion, anti-God handy arguments in an effort not to offend her and instead introduced her to my deeper, thoughtful, philosophical-seeker side. I listened to her tell of God's love and his sending Jesus and I in turn told her how, when I was in a cynical frame of mind, I didn't believe there was a God, but that sometimes, in a better mood and looking at the beauty of nature--especially a blue and cloudy sky--I felt like some sort of a Creator just might exist after all. I suppose I was desperate to find some common ground with her, no matter how small, so that this Jesus girl would not write me off and want nothing more to do with me.

The something we did have in common was horses. Her mother had a big Tennessee Walker and her sister had a Quarter Horse. They were all experienced riders. I was a novice, having just bought my first horse, a Palomino mare I'd named Joplin. Before long Cher and I had arranged to go on a ride together. This was the first time I'd ridden bareback--or barefoot. This was new to me--more like hippy horseback riding than cowboy style riding. As we leisurely walked our horses through a field of soft sandy soil, my horse paused and began pawing the dusty loam with her left front hoof. Before Cher could finish saying, "Hey, don't let her lay down" Joplin had rolled over on her side, I'd slid off her back and fond myself holding the reigns of a horse who was joyfully rolling back and forth in the soft soil, snorting with delight and creating a shallow bowl-like impression in the soft ground. While I was still trying to figure out what had just happened, Joplin decided that, since her itch was now sufficiently scratched, and she'd gotten enough tan powdery dust worked into her coat, she would get back on all fours and let us continue our afternoon ride. I picked up the crumpled bareback blanket from the ground and, with a leg-up assist from Cher, managed to get back atop Joplin's back. I was somewhat chagrinned and humbled; I know Cher got a good laugh over my little equine behavior surprise, as I suspect Joplin did as well.

On our horseback ride I learned that Cher's sister was a singer in a new Christian church-based group named Koinonia who had just released an album. I could tell she was proud of her sister, but I sensed a little sibling rivalry there as well, especially since both of them played guitar and sang. Even as I was becoming increasingly attracted to her, I learned that Cher had a serious relationship with a young man who considered them as good as engaged. Of course this new information only made the Unobtainable all the more deeply desirable to me.

I'd only known her a few weeks and, living only a few houses apart, we had not exchanged phone numbers. I would often walk past her house hoping she'd be sitting out on the lawn playing her guitar and indeed I often did find her there, under the same little tree where we'd first exchanged words and first made eye contact. These walks allowed me to stroll over as if I'd just happened to pass by on my way somewhere. The first time I got up the nerve to ask, in a very offhand way so as to protect my ego, "Do you want to go get a Coke or something later this evening?" Her reply was, "OK, but do you think you could give me a ride to church too? There's a service tonight at seven." "Sure, why not? Where is it?" I asked. "It's in Riverside--at All Saints Episcopal." "OK, I know where it's at, I'll pick you up about six-thirty." I didn't show it, but I was a bit flummoxed. My folks had been members of that church in the 50's and we'd gone there most every Sunday back then--before my dad left mom for a younger woman in 1965. I knew it as a formal, rather stuffy, upper-crust sort of place. I'd sit there on the hard old wood pew, in my starched white long-sleeved shirt and clip-on bow tie and look at the big brown wood beam work up by the ceiling as a voice far up front intoned something like, "We most humbly thank and praise Thee, Almighty and Gracious Gawd, for Thy exceedingly great and precious gifts which Thou, in Thine great mercy and compassion, hast so lovingly bestowed upon us..." I just could not imagine this Jesus Person girl, with her bell-bottom jeans going to that church. On the other hand, it didn't really matter much why she went there--the important thing was that I'd be with her for a precious half-hour as we drove there. That's what really mattered. I really didn't want to go to a church service there though. I came up with a plan...

Father's Day 1972 Revisited, Part 1: The Beginning; a Summer, a Sunrise, a Seduction Begun

My very first memory is of being lost and alone in a thunderstorm at the age of four, but I will not start there. I will begin at age twenty-one, in 1971. I'd just been released from Banning Road Camp after serving 66 days of a 90-day sentence for violating the terms of my probation. The specific term I'd violated stipulated that I not be arrested while on probation. The court took note that I had gotten myself arrested in Seal Beach for possession of marijuana. This was not my first scrape with the law and my father was concerned about the trajectory my life had been taking of late.

That is why, upon my release from the Road Camp at Banning, I was met by my dad and my brother, Skip. From Banning the three of us drove to the nearby San Jacinto Mountains for a few days of camping. At the conclusion of our Father-sons camp-out, the plan was that I go live with my dad, his new wife and her three kids on their little half-acre horse ranch situated in Mira Loma, only about 7 miles from Riverside where I'd been raised.

I had not been on good terms with my dad for the previous ten years, and for the past few had been living on my own in several different So-Cal locations, most recently Seal Beach. So this new situation felt a bit strange, but at this stage in my life a change of this sort was a real ( but unrealized by me) godsend.

Enter the beautiful neighbor girl. I first saw her on a misty morning in May as she walked past our house on her way to school. I was intrigued and enchanted from the first. Her long, straight chestnut-brown hair and slim figure were the easily identifiable outer allurements which got my initial attention, but of course there was, in addition, that deep and difficult-to-pinpoint intangible something--was it something in her bearing?--which captivated me. In the next week or two I made a point of being where I could watch for her in the morning and evening hours when I knew she would be walking to or from school.

Although I'd seen her walk down our street, I had never seen which house she had come from. A week or so later, on a warm Saturday afternoon as I walked down the street I saw her sitting on her front lawn, playing a guitar (these were semi-rural properties with deep yards and no curbs or sidewalks). As painfully shy as I was, my feet seemed to instantly overrule me and walked right up to where she was sitting. I sat down and listened as she finished strumming and then somehow I found a voice and introduced myself. Unwittingly I had just set a tentative foot into one of God's cleaver and loving traps. To be continued...

Calvary Chapel(s) Then and Now

Lonnie Frisbee was preaching at Calvary Chapel Riverside when I first began going there in the summer of 1971. In the days ahead, I will be blogging about my experience there in the early 70s and also about Calvary Chapel Chino in the late 70s and early 80s. I am interested in contacting a few people from those days so, if you happen to know anyone who was involved in either church back then please send them to this site or have them contact Allen "Denny" Randall at First Presbyterian Church of San Diego.

Here in the Lap of Luxury

As I pulled my socks on this morning it hit me once again--I live like a king and am surrounded by luxuries galore! Here I sit, my feet luxuriating in clean soft white cotton socks casually tossing words out into a peaceful little cyber-pond like some monarch reclining on pillows and absentmindedly casting cherry pits into a lake. I have it all! A mere few steps from where I sit, a pair of servants patiently await my wishes. One with a bucket of clean, fresh cold water, and a companion who stands at the ready with steaming hot water for my every need. On the other side of this very wall is a room which half the world would likely walk a hundred miles to find, for it is filled with the finest food from around the world: grains of all kinds, exotic fruits, nuts and spices. Fresh crisp vegetables of all sorts, different kinds of oils, sauces and dressings, each with a different and delightful flavor. Oh my--I see the time has arrived for me to take my royal carriage to town and attend to some court affairs. This will therefore have to be continued another time, for I have but begun to innumerate the many luxuries which fill our dear castle here. Until then, adieu...

This Day

Thank you Lord for granting me yet another day of life. Let me have and express gratitude for everyone and everything I experience today. Save me from the hurry and distractions which would blind me to who and what you would want me to see today. Father, may I be a blessing in some way to each person I encounter, even those I pass on my way from here to there. In the midst of the city help me to be mindful of your creation all around--the sun, sky, trees, birds and every living thing. Please help me to order my thoughts such that my mind will not be filled with clutter and clamor, but instead will follow the threads of thought which lead to true wisdom and understanding. Let my words today be measured, thoughtful and loving so that I may encourage those who are weary and discouraged. May I use the gift of this day to draw closer to you and to bring you glory. May it be so.

Comment Goose Eggs and a Mother Hen Blogger

You'd think I was watching for eggs to hatch. In the hours and days after I've laid a--I mean written a post, I'm checking, checking, checking to see if anyone has read or had any response to it. Perhaps I need to get up, rustle my feath--I mean edit it a bit to coax it to life. Now whole days have gone by and the goose egg sits there with not even the slightest little crack appearing. Oh you poor little post, no one has anything to say about you. You have apparently delighted no one nor roused any-one's ire. I suppose it is the same principle in action as the watched pot. The funny thing is, people have given me feedback in person to some of my posts, indicating which ones they've read or enjoyed. This is gratifying but still... I just can't stop fretting over those goose eggs. Perhaps I should simply chalk all this fretting up to New Blogger Syndrome. I need more patience and to be content to let some of these little posts fend for themselves and garner comments--or not--as they deserve and as time goes by. What do you think? Want to hatch an--I mean, leave a comment?