To Be of Influence

The news spread quickly last week: The Reverend Billy Graham had died. The New York Times headlined their obituary, “Billy Graham, 99, Dies; Pastor Filled Stadiums and Counseled Presidents.” Born and raised on a dairy farm in North Carolina, Graham grew up to travel the world, preaching the gospel to millions and becoming an iconic twentieth century public figure.

 

As a young man, Graham was nearly expelled from Bob Jones College, and Jones’ warning proved prophetic: “At best, all you could amount to would be a poor country Baptist preacher somewhere out in the sticks . . . You have a voice that pulls. God can use that voice of yours. He can use it mightily.”

 

In his years of active ministry, God used that voice mightily. Whether viewed from the top row at a sports stadium or on a home television screen, it is estimated that 3.2 million people responded to Graham’s message over the course of his ministry, and his lifetime audience topped 2.2 billion people.

 

Graham was known for his willingness to use modern technology, moving from radio broadcasts to the early days of television, and utilizing satellite coverage to extend his reach around the world. We can only imagine how he would have responded to the opportunities provided by social media, had he been well enough to take full advantage of that medium. However, it’s highly unlikely that, as some reported, “Just hours before his death, Billy Graham makes one final post to social media.” Might someone have posted to his Facebook page? Of course. Did Billy Graham reach for his phone from his deathbed? Probably not.

 

Many have personal stories to tell of Graham, of singing in the mass choir, of working with other pastors to welcome Graham’s crusade to their city, or of responding to his oft-repeated song of invitation. “Just as I am without one plea . . . I come, I come.” We may not have met him in person, but we knew him.

 

I knew of his crusades and his personal relationship with U.S. presidents from Truman to Obama, but I didn’t know that he was instrumental in the development of the International Congress on World Evangelization (known as Lausanne) with John Stott, or in the publication of Christianity Today. I also didn’t know that in the early 1950s, Graham was determined to end segregation in his crusade audiences, and he tore down the ropes at a Chattanooga crusade, telling two ushers to leave the barriers down “or else you can go on and have the revival without me.” As if Graham needed a claim to fame, he even bailed Martin Luther King, Jr. out of jail.

A perfect man? He would not make that claim. But as Paul Prather suggests, “when he messed up, he admitted it, accepted responsibility and made amends.” As Graham told Newsweek in an interview in 2006 (at age 87), “Much of my life has been a pilgrimage – constantly learning, changing, growing and maturing.”

Will there ever again be a man or woman of such influence? A “no” answer to that question is probably more reflective of the cultural changes that occurred over Graham’s lifetime than of the character, ability, or anointing of a man or a woman in the twenty-first century. The hundreds of cable channels are only one indication of how segmented our society has become, and it is hard to imagine one person being able to appeal across so many cultural divides.

 

Yet what is influence? Graham himself said, “The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”

As for the question of our own influence, we may never rub shoulders with kings and queens, or be invited to pray with popes or presidents. But Parker Palmer’s words provide needed perspective for me: “In the midst of a world where everything needs to be done right now, we can be famous for never forgetting what we can do — refusing to be overwhelmed but persistently making our small and yet vital contribution to the common good.”

R.I.P., Billy.

 

We Didn't Have School Today

On the eve of our granddaughter’s eighth birthday, the lovely Madelyn Simone stood at the end of her driveway, waiting for the school bus with her young friend. It was already a warm, spring-like day in mid-February, and the afternoon temperature promised to climb to 70, a perfect day to play hooky. But after a four-day weekend, it was time to head back to school, to the reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic of second grade. Fortunately for Madelyn, those subjects are no longer taught to the tune of a hickory stick.

But on Tuesday morning, the school bus never came. Were they late? No, they’d even been a few minutes early. They’d watched other buses go past, so they knew school must be in session. So where was their bus? Would one of the dads have to drive them to school? Before they could load up the car, the automated messages began to arrive.

“ . . . self-inflicted gunshot wound . . . safety services . . . lockdown . . . all four elementary schools will remain closed today.”

According to local law enforcement, a seventh-grade child brought a “long gun” to school, along with “distractionary devices,” and they weren’t talking about fidget spinners. The subsequent lockdown was triggered by the discharge of that rifle, reportedly a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the days since the Ash Wednesday massacre in Parkland, Florida, much has been said and written about school shootings. Those of us of a certain age remember the Columbine school shooting in 1999; the West Nichol Mines shooting at the small Quaker school in Pennsylvania; the young children killed at Sandy Hook; those being buried this week in Florida.

And now, a week after the murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, this became personal for me. This was not the duck and cover drill of my elementary classroom, in hindsight a rather foolish response to the threat of the cold war. This wasn’t lockdown practice or A.L.I.C.E. training. This was a live shooter in a middle school, the same school Madelyn will attend when she is in sixth grade, when she is eleven years old. These were our neighbors’ children, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, under lockdown for almost four hours. These were our neighbors, scared to death that the specter of Parkland has descended upon Jackson. The rumors were flying, with trolls and bots on the rampage. The network news picked up the story, thrusting my granddaughter’s school district into the spotlight, at least for one news cycle.

Last week, it was personal for Dr. Abbie Youkilis, aunt to Jaime Guttenberg, murdered in Parkland. Jaime was in the ninth grade. Her aunt describes her: “She was intelligent and feisty and she danced with beauty and grace. She always looked out for the underdog and the bullied, and she probably had been kind to the student who shot her.” Youkilis continued: “Fred and Jen are the world’s most loving and over protective parents but they could not protect Jaime from the sickness that has gripped our country. Unless we change, nobody can protect us.”

I have strong views on nonviolence and gun control, which have garnered the harshest criticisms of my columnist days. Because of those convictions, I will march in solidarity with my young friends, joining in locations across the country to “March for Our Lives” on Saturday, March 24, either at the event being planned in Ashland or perhaps near Jackson Middle School. This is a public health crisis that cannot be ignored. Youkilis is right – we must change.

As I write, the news helicopters have flown on to their next crisis, and the incident in Jackson Township, Ohio will only be a blip on the nation’s radar by the weekend. But the fear born in Columbine and Sandy Hook, and rekindled in Parkland, knocked on our door this week, an unwelcome visitor for sure.

“Nana,” Madelyn said as we grilled burgers on a glorious winter evening, “we didn’t have school today. Do you know why?” What could I possibly say in response to our family’s precious little girl on the eve of her eighth birthday? 

Olympic Dreams

The notes are so familiar. When we hear the iconic mi-so-so-do-re-mi-do trumpeting forth from the television, it’s time for the prime-time Olympics coverage of the day. With eighteen days of athletic prowess from Pyeongchang, South Korea on view for the world, Olympic enthusiasts can satisfy their cravings with 176 hours of live coverage on NBC. And for the addicts, streaming offers over 1800 hours of coverage. I’ll stick to the nightly recap myself.

Since I’m not a rookie viewer, I’ve heard of the Lutz, the Salchow, and the Axel before, although I have no clue as to the differences between them. But this year’s Olympic competition has already added some new phrases to my vocabulary, especially from the half pipe event. It took me a bit to figure out that the event takes its name from a huge pipe, cut in half, coated with ice. That spells disaster in itself. As the competitors fly into the air, their gyrations fall into two main categories, either backside or frontside (the direction of rotation of a spin). Often named by the snowboarder who first invents the trick, some of my favorites are the nose blunt, the tamedog, the chicken salad, and the rusty trombone, which is a roast beef and nose grab performed at the same time. My contribution to the lexicon, were I to attempt the half pipe at my age, would be the face plant.

I ice-skated a bit as a kid, both on a makeshift rink in our backyard that my dad constructed out of 2x4s, and sometimes at Ives Pond, across town in Tonawanda. I never did manage to skate backwards, thus ending my fledgling gold medal pursuit before it began. I’ve also never been able to figure out how the skaters can spin with such speed, sometimes nearly 300 rotations per minute. I get dizzy just watching them. Apparently there is a large physics component to skating, another reason I was no Peggy Fleming or Dorothy Hamill.

I chuckled when I read a friend’s Facebook post: “Every Olympic event should include one average person competing for reference.” I could probably pull off the role of the person yelling at the stones in curling, but the thought of hurling down a bobsled run at eighty miles an hour is not on my bucket list.

While my dreams of Olympic fame are long gone, I’m still in awe of the achievements of these young athletes. Watching them march in the opening ceremonies, they looked like typical teen-agers and young adults, healthy and happy, with phones in hand to capture selfies for posterity. Yet behind those smiles are hundreds of stories of grueling early-morning workouts, career-threatening injuries, family sacrifice, and the “agony of defeat,” much more common than “the thrill of victory” over the course of an athlete’s career. For every athlete who proudly stands on the medal platform as the national anthem fills the arena or the hillside, there are thousands whose Olympic aspirations end in a torn hamstring or a lack of resources.

My original intention was to conclude this column on a “proud to be an American” note. The Olympics certainly provide that inspiration, even if we’re not on top of the medal ranking. But then it happened again. This time, Parkland, Florida. I already knew that twenty children from Newtown, CT would never have a gold medal placed around their necks. Now, more of our children will never perform a rusty trombone or a triple Lutz, or even don a graduation robe.

Writing in the New York Times, David Leonhardt puts it bluntly: “Here’s the truth: The teenagers killed in Florida yesterday [Wednesday] had the misfortune of growing up – of trying to grow up – in a country that didn’t care enough about their lives.”

Over the next few weeks, we’ll honor our Olympic athletes with medals and applause, well-deserved due to their incredible achievements. But as we do, I plead and pray that we might also honor the dead of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In Leonhardt’s words, “May we honor them with anger that does not cease until the unnecessary deaths of children do.”