We're Different

I went to lunch with John Cowart and his daughter-in-law, Helen, last week to talk about “the books.”

The books are collections of the columns I wrote to run on the Religion page of the Florida Times Union back when I was employed there.

But I don’t want to talk about the books, at least not right now. There is something else on my mind.

While John and I were driving to the restaurant to meet Helen, he commented that after reading my columns, he had decided we were very different kinds of Christians. Very different.

And he is quite right. We are different.

I’m older. He’s younger.

I talk and he acts.

I like music. He doesn’t.

I write sporadically. He writes daily.

We both believe in the Gospel as revealed by God in the Scriptures.

But I think the difference he was referring to is that I talk about feeing God’s presence and he says he doesn’t.

I talk about having faith and he wonders if he has any.

I think he’s just a much more humble Christian than I am.

I have experienced some dark nights of the soul, one that lasted several years. He has lived most of his life in a darkness that relies on knowledge that God is, but not on experience of Him.

I have led a few retreats, spoken to a few women’s groups and taught a few Bible studies. He has done all that and served meals at places that feed the hungry and delivered clothes to places that clothe the not quite naked and responded to requests for all kinds of help. He has stood on street corners and taught about the Lord with stick drawings. He has also taught a blind man how to do the same thing by making a board with nails on which colored string can be strung to make pictures.

All based on a firm conviction that God is and that the Bible tells us so.

I think John finds my emotional relationship with God quite “other.”

Years ago I worried about his lack of a warm and fuzzy relationship with God. According to my haphazard journal keeping, I even spoke to Ginny about this. Fortunately I can’t remember the conversation now. I just noted at the time that she said quite nicely that I shouldn’t worry.

My relationship with my Lord is not just warm and fuzzy. It is painful and joyful, life-giving and death over-riding. Most of what I have learned about being a follower has come through painful encounters with the truth of who I am and Who he Is.

I don’t know how to describe John’s except as I did above – you know Him by what John does.

John serves Him continually. It why he does whatever he does.

It’s why he has put in hours turning my thoughts about trying to actually BE a child of God into a book. He thinks there are a lot more Christians like me out there in the world and that they could benefit from reading about my efforts, failures and successes, my failing and getting up to try again.

I hope he is right.

It would never have happened if it depended on me. I told him I couldn’t deal with the articles any more. That time was past for me.

So he told me to bring it all to him and I did.

He has put an enormous amount of himself into getting the books made. I would never have done it. And I really would like his efforts to be rewarded. Especially if he is right and the columns can still minister to people.

I actually pray that the books will be successful, that people will want to read them and in doing so will find ways to draw nearer to the source of all joy.

I also pray that people will read John’s blog, Rabid Fun, and learn some other ways of doing the same thing.