Third In A Series . . .

SOME CHURCH OF CHRIST HEROES

This time around I want to tell of some of the couples that I know in the Lord, married folk that exemplify so beautifully what it means to be a disciple of Christ. But the two couples I introduce to you here are not even a tithing of the many fine families I know in the Church of Christ across the land who are among my heroes in the Lord. Surely our people are among the sweetest, dearest, and most dedicated Christians in the world, and they are intelligent and responsible people, helping to build a better world by means of a more spiritual church. But I cannot tell about them all.

I select these two couples to tell you about because they stand for those values and ideals that brought this country greatness, principles that I fear are slipping from us in this undisciplined age. The first couple I will introduce exemplifies to me those values that are most to be desired in the advancing years of life and retirement, so they have something to say to those in the sunset years, if not to youth as well. The other couple is much younger and still within the throes of rearing a family in these difficult times and of making a living, but they are both handicapped by life’s cruel vicissitudes, one by deafness and the other by lameness.

I met Al and Johnnie Weeks for the first time here in Denton. They had parked their trailer in the shopping center near our place of business and had eaten the best chicken in town without realizing who owned the joint. There they spent the night before continuing their homeward trek to Oregon, but not before we had a good visit together. Al was passing out samples of Mission magazine, which was then still new, endeavoring to pry open some minds through responsible journalism. I could tell then that Al was a kind, gentle and unassuming man, while his wife was quiet, dignified and easy to be around.

We corresponded some along the way, but I was able to get better acquainted with them while in their home this fall for mini-meetings in Eugene. As is often the case, the visit did me more good then it did them. I was impressed with people who had their priorities straight and who had learned the fine art of living. Johnnie is just plain Johnnie without show or pretense. You can take her or leave her, but she will remain her own honest self, busy being the woman she sees herself to be. She loves cooking and is pleased to be in the kitchen, and this is her gift from God. Many women begrudge time spent in the kitchen, and cooking is boring. They had rather work out somewhere and give such domestic chores a lick and a miss and let it go at that. But Johnnie’s kitchen is her laboratory. There she uses her creative talents in continual experimentation, and I just love for her to experiment on me!

Living near some of her children, she is also busy being a loving mother and grandmother, but always in a quiet and simple way. She reminds me of an electric power plant near my home when I was a kid. Its generators churned out enough power to illumine the entire neighborhood, but they never made any noise. The plant was quiet, clean and powerful. We kids played on its rich green lawn while the dynamos grinded on in silence. Johnnie is like that. Her presence is refreshing like the rich green grass, but one senses that there is power there, the power of love, wisdom and understanding, wrapped in quiet dignity.

There was something of a family crisis while I was there. Their daughter in faraway Arizona was ill and they were receiving periodic calls through the day as to her condition. One such call came early in the morning, but at an expected hour. The phone kept ringing, so I decided I had better answer it for them. It took some rather firm raps on their partially open door to arouse them. I thought then: these folks have learned to live in crisis; most people would have climbed the walls all night. Theirs is a life of simple trusting faith. They have learned to “hang loose,” confident that everything is going to be all right, so when it is time to sleep, they sleep.

Al is nearing 65, but he is much younger than that in body and spirit. He takes early morning runs around the block, reads a lot, writes letters, and serves as a quiet rebel in the Church of Christ, really believing that what we do today will make a difference tomorrow. Al worked hard as a contractor and builder earlier in life, but once he had saved sufficient reserves to live his unpretentious kind of life, he decided to retire and give his declining years more fully to the Lord. This is wholesome to behold in this money-mad, pleasure-crazy world. Many a man, trapped by materialism, chases money all the way to the grave and never really lives. I t is good to see a man who knows what he wants, which isn’t too much, and is satisfied when God grants it. Al could still be in the rat race, still trying to meet time schedules, still haggling with subcontractors, still tearing down barns and building bigger ones. Blessed is the man that can lean back in his chair in peace and enjoy a good book. Blessed is the man who realizes that the abundant life is more than making money — and does something about it.

Al and Johnnie live in what I would call a double mobile home, but which they call a coach. It makes for lots of room for two people, and even a guest room for folk like me. It is neatly furnished and very homey. They also have a travel trailer, which has everything the coach has, except that it is much smaller. Part of the year they remain at home in Eugene, but when the weather is less desirable (according to Oregonians it is never undesirable!) they take off for elsewhere, visiting friends and relatives and otherwise enjoying life in the Son.

You can learn something about people by finding out who their heroes are. I sometimes ask new acquaintances about the people they admire most, and I find the answers revealing. Al is an admirer of Whitaker Chambers, made so by the reading of Witness, his autobiography. Chambers, you will recall, was the Communist who renounced the party and was the famous witness against Alger Hiss, who was convicted in part because of the adroitness of a young congressman named Richard Nixon. Al sees in Chambers a man of deep character and sensitivity, one who suffered immeasurably for the good of his country. His life as a witness against Communism is a lesson for anyone who supposes that truth always has its place on the throne, for Chambers was derided by everyone from President Truman to the officials in the State Department. Though a respected editor of Time magazine. there was a concerted effort to destroy him as a man because he dared to tell the truth about Communism in the highest echelons of government.

It says something about Al Weeks that he would come to identify with the story of Whitaker Chambers. He has me reading the book, and I must say that I have never read anything that so well explains why Communism holds sway over so ‘many people in the world, and why so few ever come to renounce it as Chambers did.

Thank God for the likes of Whitaker Chambers and Al Weeks.

David and Helen McCormick are among the new friends I have made this year, having been in their home while in meetings in Amarillo. Making new friendships like theirs is akin to striking oil, for they are such a blessing to all who know them. They are a testimonial to the truth of God’s tender loving care as promised in Rom. 8:28: “In everything, as we know, God cooperates for good with those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” David McCormick can say as did another David who was also a man after God’s own heart: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted,” and Helen could say the same.

Helen has spent many of her years in bed due to a birth defect seriously impairing the use of her legs. It was only faith and perseverance that got her out of bed onto crutches. Even though everyone supposed she could never marry, and certainly not be a mother, she has done both gloriously. DeAun is her lovely junior high school daughter, while Tolley is younger and has a big time being a real boy. School had just started when I was there, and I had a lot of fun walking DeAun to school each morning, carrying her books and meeting her friends.

Those who have known Helen all these years say that it was something to behold to see her making her way down the aisle at the meetinghouse on a crutch with a baby in her arms, denying all that fate was suppose to have done to her. She married a strong, handsome, intelligent guy that wasn’t suppose to marry a handicapped person, having none himself except a minor hearing problem. Friends could not understand why David would marry Helen, which only shows that love has not as yet been convincing enough to enough people.

In those earlier years of his life with Helen, David made his living in watch repairing, a trade he still follows, and he was busy in the Lord’s work as a singer and music teacher. In another respect he was like his namesake in that he was a beautiful singer in the congregation, some saying his was the loveliest voice they had ever heard. He loved his work as chorus director for the Training School directed by the non-class Churches of Christ in Amarillo, and he traveled with them over the country, encouraging many people with their gift of song.

Then tragedy struck David’s life as it had Helen’s. Surgery that held promise of relieving him of a minor hearing problem (He wore a hearing aid all along) left him totally deaf. This ended his career as a singing teacher and silenced him as a singer, for all he can manage vocally is to speak sentences that he himself cannot hear. So the dear woman he married became his ears, further complementing their oneness even amidst handicaps. David has learned to read lips fairly well, and especially those of his wife, for he reads Helen’s lips almost without looking!

David and Helen well illustrate a point that I have often made in teaching philosophy to college students. In dealing with the problem of evil and suffering we have to face up to the question of Why do such tragedies befall good people? God has given us the kind of world in which the gross tragedies often produce what nothing else will, beauty of soul and strength of character. Great poets, artists and musicians would never have been had it not been for the hardships they suffered. While God did not intend that David and Helen McCormick be smitten as they have been, He nonetheless stepped in and created something beautiful in their situation. Even Jesus was made perfect through what he suffered, the scriptures assure us. It is somehow in the tragic drama of our lives that God does His creative work in us who love Him.

God’s beauty is evident in the lives of David and Helen. There is a sweet patience and a living hope that makes one oblivious to their handicaps. They love life, love each other, and love people. Helen, who was not expected to live when she was but a girl, illustrates what Jesus must have meant when he spoke of “having life and having it abundantly.” While visiting with Helen, I read to her C. S. Lewis’ new book about the grief he suffered in the death of his wife. I could tell that she was relating to Lewis on a level beyond my reach. She is on a wave length of higher frequency than mine when it comes to what Paul speaks of in 2 Cor. 1:4: “He comforts us in all our troubles, so that we in turn may be able to comfort others in any trouble of theirs and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God.”

My friend and brother Thomas Langford, who has known David McCormick all these years, says that the beauty now in David’s countenance is even greater than the loveliness that was his as a sweet singer in Israel. Thomas speaks of his patience and quiet persistence amidst difficulties and of a bearing that is hard to account for except that God has touched him with His grace.

In all this David and Helen have become free people in Jesus. In recent years they have read widely, moving beyond the confines of Church of Christ literature to a larger world of concern. They have visions of a more spiritual and more responsible brotherhood, believing that their place is where they have always been, the non-class Churches of Christ. Here they do their labor of love, walking by faith and listening with hope, trusting God to give victory to His people in a world acquainted with grief. — the Editor