After being assigned to a small Army Security detachment (ASA) stationed at Fort Richardson, just outside Anchorage, Alaska, when I left that assignment, I had less than a year left on my enlistment of four years. I was reassigned to a unit at Ft Bragg, North Carolina. It was not a happy place for me. What made it bearable were frequent trips back to Tennessee and an approaching separation to return to civilian life. As a result, I was assigned to the USO to be friends with whoever came in. As a “short-timer,” I was less than expendable to the operation of our national defense. So, I played a lot of pool and ping pong. I was also put in charge of the dust mop. It didn’t take many hours for the on-duty hours to become long and tediously dull. To top it off, neither my pool nor ping pong playing improved.
The summer of 1972 was an explosion of freedom for me. I got out of the Army in the spring and started college. I met Jan that July. The shortest distance between my house and hers was three wonderful ninety-degree corners in Abbots’ subdivision. During the day and late evening, there was very little traffic within the subdivision.
The corner where Primrose Avenue crosses Hillcrest Drive was my favorite piece of pavement to drive. The corner was ideally suited to downshift and accelerate going to and returning from Jan’s house, putting my Datsun 2000 roadster into a stimulating drift. At the time, my car was not the quietest on the street. The area’s citizens could hear me down-shifted and accelerate into a drift at that corner. I saw a man hurrying toward the street. As I slid past him, I caught him in my mirror, throwing a red brick in my direction. I decided then that I needed to slow down because that man might improve his aim and range. At the time, I had just enough wisdom to avoid what would be a most unpleasant confrontation.
This memory came to mind during an early morning Bible Study with my guys. We enter into this world incredibly self-obsessed. At least I did. It’s even more incredible that most of us survive our early adulthood passions with few visible scars.
We do not all learn from our non-sense years, often leading to massive relationship catastrophes and high guilt, shame, and consequences during our “mature” years.
Having lived a long time, I have noticed that I have changed a lot. Mainly for good, I think. I am at least a more contentious citizen of my community. But I desire to be more than just a good citizen. As I have grown in my walk with Jesus, he has exerted a force on my life that gently and methodically movers me from the person I am to the person he wants to make me. At the time, it doesn’t always feel like that is a good thing.
Sometimes his work in my life is not so gentle. Sometimes what I want is so deeply set in my nature that he is forced to use rather dramatic and intense means to get my attention. It’s not pleasant. But it is effective eventually. Yet he never stops methodically moving me to his goal. Sometimes my attitude borders on, “Just leave me alone!”
Nevertheless, he keeps his full-court press on my will. My “feelings” are not all that important to him. My character is!
I think this idea is an often-overlooked application of the last words Matthew recounts to us in his Gospel. Jesus is speaking, “…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (28:20b)
P.S. I still get a kick out of driving my 1974 Porsche 914 around corners fast. The centrifugal forces exerted on the driver in a semi-controlled drift are exhilarating. But, these days, there is an increasing level of deliberate caution to be more careful when and where.
Photo – A small collection of old cars is rusting away on the edge of the woods near my house. This is the emblem on the trunk of one of them.
Baldwin Heirlooms 