Can You Make The Buttons Even?
Lessons Learned Along Life's Spiritual Path
by
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3 Echoes from the Past
I was serving my first congregation, a student charge in Napoleon, Michigan. It was a quiet, Saturday morning, and I planned to spend some of the little free time I had with my young family. However, the telephone rang. It was one of the young girls from the congregation calling for me. She was a fragile, lovely, young lady of about eighteen years of age. Her voice was urgent - almost desperate: “Rev. Cheatham,” she said, “I need your help.” She quickly explained that her father had shoved his automatic 45 caliber service pistol into her stomach and told her, “I probably ought to shoot the both of us and just end it.” Then he had gone into the kitchen and was sitting there as we spoke, trying to decide what he should do.
I gave my wife, Diane, a special hug and headed for the girl’s house. I had never met her father. She was new to the congregation. I barely knew her. I had no idea what sort of man I was about to meet. From her words I assumed there was no mother in the house. I arrived and found the father, still in the kitchen, sitting at the table, gun in hand . . . staring blankly at the wall. I pulled up a chair and sat down across from him, thinking to myself that seminary had never prepared me for anything like this. He looked at me, silently sizing me up. Then he placed his pistol on the table, and slowly began to tell me his story. He had been a master sergeant in an intelligence unit in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II. It had been his task to select two members of his unit to accompany the first wave of troops to hit the beach in every invasion landing.
The two men always were slain.
He repeatedly attempted to give this task back to his unit commander. However, the commander wanted the task no more than he did and simply declined. So before every landing he had to select two men he knew would be killed. He knew they would die, and he knew them personally as friends. Still he assigned them. They went. They died. He managed to return from the war without any physical wounds. The damage to his soul, however, was enormous. He continually heard echoes from the past which told him he should not be alive, that he did not deserve to be alive, and that he was unworthy of anyone’s love.
I tried to draw upon his faith, but there was none available. Still, he calmed a bit as we talked. Finally he arose and put his pistol back in the drawer. I sensed the crisis was past. I left the kitchen, gave a word of assurance to his daughter, and returned home.
On the return home I reflected upon what had tr
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About the Book
I believe our true spirituality is worked out in the market place, the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, and all the other hallways of life. The church may serve as our guide through these personal labyrinths. Still our spiritual pilgrimage is distinctively our own. It is the very stuff which determines what we ultimately call “character.” Our spirituality, for better or for worse, determines what kind of person we become, whatever meaning we find in living, and what we leave behind as a witness that we once walked this sacred earth.
There is a second dimension to the spiritual quest, equally significant . . . perhaps even more so. It is hinted at in Acts 17:28, when Paul speaks of God in this manner: For in Him we live and move and have our being. As surely as there is a physical realm of existence, there is a spiritual. The second dimension of the spiritual quest is to live as fully in that realm as we do in the physical. It is when we reside in that realm, even partially, that we experience God’s Presence, that we gain fresh awareness of the sacredness of all of life, and that we discover powers of understanding and healing which normally evade us.
About the Author
Dr. Richard (Dick) Cheatham grew up in Detroit and Grosse Pointe, Mich., during the 1930’s and 1940’s. He attended Wentworth Military Academy high school and jr, college in Lexington, MO. and received his BA from Adrian College, Adrian, Michigan. He served as an artillery officer in the Korean War and attained the rank of Captain. At age thirty he left the family boat business to become a United Methodist minister, when he experienced a powerful call to preach. Designated a Wells Scholar he received his Masters Degree from Garrett theological Seminary and, as a National Preaching Fellow, went on to complete his doctorate at Garrett and Northwestern University. During his professional career he served several congregations in the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church. He also taught at various colleges and seminaries during his “spare time.” His real avocation, however, is his clarinet. He has played with dance bands and jazz combos from the time he was eleven. In his high school days he was principle clarinetist in the All State Band. Running 5 & 10 k’s has taken the bounce out of his knees, but he still works out regularly . “Good for the mind, body and spirit,” he claims. He lives with his wife, Diane, in San Antonio, and teaches at the University United Methodist Church. Can You Make the Buttons Even? is his first published book.