Everyone who drives has had at least one run-in with a discourteous driver.  In recent years experiences such as these had led to a new phenomenon called “Road Rage.” Sad to say, awful experiences as a result of outrageous acts perpetrated against other drivers have resulted in damage to property, injury to drivers and passengers and even death.

As one who had plied the highways and streets for more than fifty-eight years,  and having been a former discourteous driver, I can say with assurance that courtesy is critical to being a good safe and, yes, happy driver.

Hopefully, one of the following suggestions will help you or someone you influence to realize that, as we drive, courtesy is critical.

1. Hand Signal Courtesy

There are occasions when we note almost universal courtesy among drivers.  This is refreshing.  I experienced one today.  I had rolled up to a light and was about the third car back.  To my right a lady’s car was poised to enter the highway from a gasoline station.  A line of cars was behind mine.  As the light changed for our lane I motioned for her to enter the lane ahead of me.  She smiled and waved as she drove out.  Probably you have benefited from this small kindness several times as have I.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this level of courtesy permeated many more driving situations?

A word of caution is in order even here though.  Any time I give a hand signal to another driver I try to remind myself of my responsibility.  I might accidentally signal a driver into a lane and into the path of a car that driver could not see.  In other words, before giving an “go ahead” signal to another driver, I need to be sure it is safe for that driver to proceed.  It takes only a moment make sure it is safe, but it is vitally important to do so.  If in doubt, of course, it is better not to signal at all.

2. Driving With the Traffic Flow

I have heard law enforcement people mention the importance of “driving with the flow of traffic.”  What is meant is that everyone is probably safer if all who are traveling along that roadway in the same direction are going approximately the same speed.  Of course, this rule of thumb, like others may be abused.  Driving above posted limits is still illegal regardless of whether or not several around you or me are doing it.  But, as much as possible, we ought not to  allow our presence on the highway to be an obstacle to other drivers who are driving legally and safely but faster than we.

3.    Courtesy in Passing

Bicycles, Amish buggies, motor scooters and pedestrians are all traveling much slower than the average automobile.  For safety’s sake all whom we pass deserve our care in their behalf.   As we close quickly on these in our driving, it is vitally important to  be alert that there is ample space available for safe passing.

It is unsafe (and probably illegal) to squeeze past a bike or motor scooter giving just inches in order to meet an oncoming vehicle at the same time.  We have all seen this, probably.  What if the biker spills at that moment—very easily a mishap, even a tragedy.  Wouldn’t it be better to hold up and pass the small vehicle or pedestrian as though we were passing an automobile?

In our area it is common to come upon an Amish horse-drawn carriage.  I try to remember two things in such cases: the horse is an animal that can be startled and may bolt into my path.  That small vehicle affords no protection for its occupants.  These are reason enough to pass with wide, generous clearance and with the least disturbance possible.

During inclement weather, often there is water on the roadway in seams or puddles.  As a courteous driver I don’t want to splash that water on the people who are depending upon me to give them a break.  You have probably been walking somewhere and have had a passing car splash you.  I don’t need to ask you how you felt.  No fair chuckling with your passengers about how the column of water you sprayed almost knocked a biker off his two-wheeler.

3. Responding to Discourteous Drivers

It took me many years to give a proper response to discourteous drivers.  If I had not been a Christian, it would probably have taken a lot longer.  Let me give a few examples.

Driving at night we are often approached by drivers who have the high beams of their headlights blazing into our eyes.  It doesn’t hurt to give them a quick flash of ours to remind them.  What happens after that is most important though.  If the person doesn’t go to low beams there is the temptation to “bright light” that driver.  Stop and think!  When I do that, I am setting up a dangerous situation.  Neither driver can see very well; there could be a head-on collision.  That is very high-priced retaliation.

In recent years this is what I do: I quickly ascertain whether or not those bright lights are really a danger to me or merely an annoyance.  In most cases I don’t even use my high beams to flash the driver—I simply concentrate on doing my part.  Usually in seconds we pass each other and the incident is over.  My reward: I feel a lot better about myself and I know  my conduct  has not endangered another.

There are situations in which overly aggressive drivers use their vehicles to “run a bluff” with us in order to be first or to take some perceived advantage.  What is the best response?  I believe it is simply to let them do it.  Vehicles are expensive.  Safety to lives is important.  Peace of mind is enjoyable.  Courtesy has hidden dividends.  Many have been the times when for the above reasons I have relinquished “my rights” in such situations only to see the discourteous driver embarrassing himself by blundering into an error brought on by his own thoughtlessness.  We ought not be courteous drivers in order to bring smug satisfaction to our lives but an occasional soft chuckle might not hurt!

4. “Have a Nice Day”

Have you ever seen a discourteous driver race an elderly couple’s car to a vacant parking place in a shopping mall only to notice him holding the door for someone on the way into the store?

What does this tell us?  To me it indicates that when we get behind the wheel of a car it is easy to forget our manners.  Most strong young men would not elbow an old lady out of the way to go through a door first.  Why would we do that in a car?

If, when we are driving, we keep ourselves aware of courtesy to others around us, it is easier to remember that peace of mind is the path to a nice day.  Usually honorable conduct does not go unnoticed.  If you are a Christian, I know the Lord will help you have a nice day as you simply do what is right.  Have you ever thought about the effect upon others your conduct has?  Negatively, the exact opposite of courteous driving, a thing called “road rage”, will not only steal your peace of mind, it has been known to take lives.  Do you see why I say “courtesy is critical?”

Yes, our conduct does impact others.  This example took place as I was walking from my car to a shopping center.  I noticed a discarded bottle on the pavement in my path.  I picked it up and tossed it into a nearby trash receptacle.  On the way back out of the store a distinguished elderly gentleman walked up to me.  He said, “Sir, I saw you pick up that old bottle.  You did a nice thing.” I felt good.  Yep, courtesy is critical.

Have a nice (driving) day!

Introduction

By the time I had arrived in the world and was old enough to know them, my grandparents Pierpont were retired and lived in the lazy little village of Chatham, a few miles north of my hometown, Newark.  Neither of them lived very far into my adulthood, so my memories of them were mostly as a child.

Grandpa (William) Pierpont passed away in 1955 while I was in the Navy and Grandma (Lily) lived only until about the time our daughter, Melony was born in 1956. Their home was simple and my grandfather raised gladiolus to make a little money selling them on the Columbus farmers’ market.  He had lost “the old home place” early in the Great Depression.  A deficiency judgment had been taken against him as a result.  They had very little of this world’s goods but always radiated peace and contentment.  They were members and workers in the Chatham Methodist Church, just on up the road from their home.  Across the corner to the south Roberts’ Grocery and filling station presided over the village as its only business.

Their second eldest son was my dad, Kenneth.  A sister had died in infancy and a brother, Elmer, and a sister, Dorothy, were older than he.  The other children were brothers Orville and Arthur.  Only my Uncle Arthur, in his nineties, is still living.

I begin my dad’s story with an experience his mother had as a young woman.

“One Of My Sons Will Be a Minister”

Whether a dream, a vision or a settled conviction is a matter of how it is remembered.  But, Grandma Pierpont always claimed one of her sons would be a minister.  And when he was, she insisted, he was to “preach the Bible and believe it from cover to cover.”

Grandma Pierpont was not to live to see her dream fulfilled, but eventually it was.  For many years it did not appear that such would ever happen though.  The boys, my dad and his brothers, were rugged and ornery farm boys, quite accustomed to slipping around their old-time Methodist father’s strict rules of conduct.  The boys were not to be seen in public with sleeves rolled up.  There was to be no smoking and certainly no alcoholic beverage.  The occasional slipping off to the neighbor’s watermelon patch went unknown to Grandpa so far as I ever knew, to say nothing of imbibing upon their hidden-away hard cider.

Dad did know hard work, though, early in life.  At nine years old he worked for fifty cents a day hitching, working and caring for a team of horses in the fields.  The fields and woods there in central Ohio were a great love for Dad and he learned nature like the back of his hand.  Dad loved animals and had a deep respect for God’s creation.   In later years, teaching my brother and me to hunt, he insisted that we never shoot a songbird, keep an undersize fish we had caught,  or shoot game over the limit.  In my case getting any fish or game was usually challenge enough. But, to tell you more I have to involve my mother.

Mother and Dad

In the tribute to my mother I told you the story of how Mother and Dad met.  At age twenty-four my dad had dated numerous young ladies and had been around them in farm community social settings and church.  By the time little Grace Sasser came into his life he knew what he wanted.  Their courtship was brief.

On September 5, 1933, they stood side-by-side in the living room of the Methodist parsonage across the road from the church there in Chatham and were married.  Their first home was Dad’s parents’ “Old Home Place” at the top of the hill northwest of Chatham on Ohio Route 657.  A modern ranch house now occupies the place of their old house.

The young couple was not to live there long, however, for Grandpa lost the farm that year and Mother and Dad moved to Newark to stay with her parents, Grandpa and Grandma Sasser.  At this point, my dad’s job at Owens-Corning in Newark materialized.  Dad was a hard worker and not long after hiring in as a laborer he was able to obtain a place in the machine shop.  From there he gradually learned the machinist trade.

With no car and my birth coming on, Dad decided he would “build” one.  He made the rounds of the junk yards in Newark and obtained enough parts to put together a T Model Ford.  Satisfying himself that it would run, he asked Mother’s brother, Uncle Carl (Sasser) to tow him around the block to get it started.  The engine was too tight to crank it, the usual means of bringing a T Model to life.  Sure enough the old car coughed to life—they had a car.

During the winter of 1934 I was a baby and had experienced some sickness.  The old car had no heater and they wanted to go downtown.  Dad took several bricks into the house and deposited them on the coal stove.  After ample heating, he wrapped them in burlap and placed them on the floor in front of Mother’s seat.  She got herself and me into the car and we were off to downtown.

After just a few minutes, they began to smell something.  They remarked and guessed back and forth what the smell was.  Shortly thereafter they noticed smoke curling up!  It took only a few moments, then, to realize that the hot bricks had set fire to the burlap.  The car quickly filled with smoke.  Rolling the whole thing out into the snow, Dad was able to rearrange things and get going again with their shopping errands.

When they appeared in a couple of stores the noses of the clerks before them began to sniff.  “I smell something,” one said.  “Something’s burning,” another remarked, glancing around.  The young couple could hardly contain their laughter after realizing that the burning burlap had left its telltale odor on their clothing and my blanket.   Mercifully, Dad was able to get a little better car not long after.

As I also related in Mother’s story, the folks were able to get the little cottage at 151 Buena Vista Street in Newark.  It was a simple cottage with two very modest bedrooms and a partial basement at the back of the house where, on the dirt floor, Mother washed our clothing on a scrub-board over two washtubs.  Dad worked hard to keep us together.

A major incident occurred at approximately this time in Mother and Dad’s lives together.   Coming home from his second shift work one night, in their old Hudson bought from our neighbors as an upgrade in their transportation, Dad noted through the dim headlights the figure of a man in our front yard, staring through our front bedroom window.  He instantly realized the presence of a “peeping Tom,” apparently observing Mother inside the house.

Dad decided not to slacken his speed as he approached our house so as to avoid scaring the man off.  However, just as he reached the front of our house, Dad killed the ignition and bailed out of the car.  The man turned to flee but Dad caught him just as he reached the sidewalk.  I have heard my dad describe this decidedly one-sided fight many times.  Knowing as I do, my dad’s ability with his fists, I would not have wanted to be in the intruder’s shoes that night.

As those early years quickly passed, first my brother, Bill, and a year and a quarter  later, my sister, Ann, were born.  Dad’s job at Owens-Corning met needs but times were difficult and Dad took extra work to help ends meet.

Across the street from us a vacant field boasted a very large sycamore tree, not unlike the huge one in our front yard.  The owner wanted the tree removed and Dad offered to saw it up, once it was down.  As I recall, one or two others came a time or two to help Dad on the two-man crosscut but, for the most part, he worked along, removing the second handle and labored away until the job was done.  I don’t know what Dad got for the job but I am sure he earned every cent.

Dad worked night shift and got the idea to cut corn for some farmers to make extra money.  I remember the day he brought home the green-handled corn cutter, the blade was  about two inches broad and about two feet long.  When I saw it I had no idea how much hard work over several years Dad would do with it in his strong right hand.  In all those early years I never heard him complain.  Looking back now, I realize what is really meant by “moonlighting.”

Late in the evening in the fall, after dark but before his factory shift, Dad cut corn by the light of the moon.  Very few times in my life did I ever hear my dad say, “I love you,” I assure you, he didn’t have to say it! His commitment to his family spoke for itself.

The War

The old floor radio blared out the news as I sat in front of it, age seven.  “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!”  I was thrown into confusion.  Not so long before, I saw Dad go into action as he hung up the old black phone on the living room wall.  That was the death notice of Grandpa Sasser.  Now, another phone call and much excitement broke out.  We were at war!  I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but I knew it was big.

Unbeknown to me, Mother and Dad were apparently planning for Dad to go into the service.  A ride in our old 1934 Ford to see Congressman Ashbrook in Johnstown had me standing on the floor in back.  It was winter and Mother and we kids waited in the car.  Later it was warm weather and we were in a large park overlooking recruitment offices in Columbus.  Dad and Mother had bought the three of us red and black balloons portraying Mickey Mouse.  We played with them unaware that Dad was in the Navy Recruiting Office signing on the dotted line.

Just days later Dad realized that had he not signed up to be an enlisted man in the Navy Seabees, his warrant would have come through that the Congressman was trying to arrange.  He would have been an officer instead of a first-class petty officer.

We moved to west Newark, combined our belongings with those of my Grandma Sasser, and the folks sold out on Buena Vista Street.  Instead of being a third-grader at Conrad School, I would now be enrolled as such in Maholm School, just a strong block from the house at 51 Bowers Avenue.  Dad shipped out with the Seabees to train in Providence, Rhode Island.

On his first leave home Dad took Bill and me into the backyard and showed us some of his “Judo tricks.”  He became very good at it and was soon an instructor in hand-to-hand combat.  I was hoping he was not intending me to use any of it on my school guys who didn’t like me.  About that time Dad wrote home to explain that he would be a “diver.”  This meant that he worked under water in both shallow and deep-water gear.  One of his fellow trainees was killed under water during the training phase.   Later Dad told us how he passed the qualifying test to hold his breath for two minutes under water.  He rolled a pebble around in his mouth to distract himself from the lack of oxygen.

Overseas

Mother and we kids got on a train in Newark and went to Providence to see Dad.  I was not aware of all the circumstances but the last day there Mother and Dad clung to each other and us as Dad said goodbye.  He would be going overseas to help win the war.  It was most of two years before we saw him again.  He was shipped to Guam with a Seabees battalion. The Seabees was a gutsy group of skilled builders and workers who did construction in hostile-fire zones.  The initials “CB” on their dress blues stood for “Construction Battalion.”  They were deeply respected by fellow sailors.  Their motto was “We can build and we can fight.”  They took Marine combat training as a part of their preparation.

From Guam Dad wrote home as often as he could.  One Christmas, he was able to send home a $5 money order for each of we kids.  We used it to go Christmas shopping for weeks!  Dad’s stint on Guam lasted until the end of the war.  Early on, he reported “the Japs run through the camp pitching hand grenades, yelling ‘Banzi’ – a guy could get hurt.”  But, eventually American air power, including the dropping of two atomic bombs, finished the Japanese Empire forever.

On one occasion, an officer came to Dad’s shop.  He needed someone who knew blasting.  He heard dad was a demolition diver and blaster.  Dad tried to explain that blasting under water and “topside” were probably far different.  The officer insisted that Dad blast for him to cut out a road up a mountain there on the island.

Over continued protest, Dad set his charge as he would below water.  When he detonated the powder he said “Rocks as big as pianos flew everywhere.  It took two days to fill in the crater.”  After that he wasn’t asked to blast anymore!

Dad’s eldest brother, Elmer, a Seabee Chief Petty Officer was stationed on Tinian, another of the Marianna Islands.  Dad and, perhaps, Uncle Elmer, were allowed to fly in a B-29 at least once, even though they had nothing to do with the air wing of the military.  But the Seabees were very good at “commandeering” all kinds of things—food, equipment, fuel, et cetera.  A ride on a military aircraft by an unattached serviceman is not unheard of.  It was from the island of Tinian that the atomic bombs were delivered.

When on September 2, 1945 “VJ Day” (Victory in Japan) came, our family all rode round the square in downtown Newark to celebrate as did thousands of others.  I was in the rumble seat of an Model A.  What a time it was.  Tears,  hugs and kisses all round, wildly honking horns, shouts of victory, just about every means of celebration took place not only in Newark that day but throughout the world.  The war was over and “our boys were coming home!”

Dad Back With Us

With a wife and three children at home, Dad had a priority number by which to “muster out.”  In just a few weeks after war’s end, we noted a big man in a white uniform with a huge duffel bag making his way proudly down little Bowers Avenue.  We were ecstatic.  The war was over, Dad was home and would soon be back to work at Owens-Corning.

About this time the factory came to be called by most “Fiberglas”.  Dad always felt that years and years of exposure to the “glass wool” contributed to his eventual poor health.

I bounded out of bed on Dad’s first morning home to rush downstairs and join the action where I heard Dad talking at the breakfast table.  I slipped on the floor and put a nasty slice in my left knee due to the presence of the floor heat register.   Dad’s first order of business at home was to administer first aid and to take me up the street to the doctor for stitches!

The next few years were filled with experiences with Dad that now flood my memory.  He always had a big garden at the end of our street.  He pushed a hand cultivator, with its steel wheel in front, over the big stony garden, many, many times during the course of a summer.  I learned to work there as did the whole family: setting out plants and bulbs, sprinkling seed, taking weeds out by hand, row after row.  Dad had an eye for flint and the garden soil yielded many artifacts from Indian days.  Dad seemed to know the various kinds and even made educated guesses as to their differing usage.

Life was full of berry picking expeditions featuring my Grandma Sasser against Dad for most berries with the rest of us distant third, fourth, fifth and sixth.  I have seen them both pick gallons of berries never raising even one to their mouths.  Dad considered “picking and eating a disgrace.”  No matter how hard we tried, we kids could not disguise our purple lips from his disapproving glance.

One Sunday afternoon Grandma had fixed us Kool Aid from the kitchen sink for our afternoon family fishing trip.  She did not go.  After a blazing afternoon on a creek bank, few fish to show for our efforts, we broke out the picnic fixings with a burning thirst.   The five of us, as one, began to gulp down the drink.  In seconds we were all sputtering, “Lifebuoy!”  Grandma had inadvertently swept the bar of hand soap into the jug as she made the Kool Aid.  Our soapy and thirsty throats put a permature end to our day of fishing.  Of course we kids jockeyed for position upon arriving home to register Grandma’s error to her.  Our much wiser parents contained their bemusement

Brownie, our old Beagle rabbit dog lived through the war to once again hunt with Dad.  By now I was eleven and Bill was nine.  Dad said, one fall day, “Shoot Bellerin’ Betsy and you can have your own shotgun.”  The old twelve gauge had a much-respected recoil that we called a “kick.”  Nevertheless, Bill and I both shot it that year and Dad got us each a shotgun.  Mine was an Iver-Johnson single barrel sixteen gauge.  Bill got a single barrel 410 with a modified choke.  He quickly got very good with it and always came home with game.  My gun was much more powerful but I wasn’t as good but did manage to be carrying a few rabbits in my coat from trip to trip.  Dad’s love for the out-of-doors took us hunting numerous times every year — in the fall for squirrels and in the winter for rabbits.

Dad went fox hunting some also — usually alone due to school for us and the bitter cold in which he usually hunted them.  He was known to be able to start out through a snow-covered field, pick up a fox trail and follow it all day to get a shot at it.  After trailing a fox many hours he would walk up on one from downwind and kick it out of a sleep before shooting at it.  “They deserve a chance,” he would always say.  Fox pelts he had taken provided a wrap for Mother but she seldom wore it.  She always said, “It’s looking at me,” as she glanced over her shoulder and the impressive wrap stayed in the closet.

Dad always seemed to have nerves of steel. On a trip in our old ’38 Buick to New York to visit our aunt and uncle we topped a mountain only to slip on the hot rainy blacktop highway.  The old sedan, packed with the five of us, instantly spun out of control and started down the mountain road backwards.  Dad deftly let the car come all the way around before applying the brakes.  A Plymouth coming up  the steep grade stopped as we slid toward it.  Dad brought the big maroon Buick to a stop about six feet from the other car.  He calmly got out, walked back to the terrified driver, whose hands were locked on the wheel,  and said, “More fun than a rolly-coaster,” got back into our car, turned around and drove away.

On yet another trip to Cincinnati where my Uncle Jim Sasser lived with his wife, Jean, and my cousin Bonnie Jean, Dad’s first aid skills were again tested.   My uncle was talking to Dad as he showed off his nice ’39 Buick coupe.  He had the right side of the hood up and, at fifteen, I was looking into the engine compartment with my left thumb resting on the hood cage.  Uncle Jim gunned the engine and the vibration kicked out the hood brace.  Instantly the hood slammed shut with my thumb smashed in the works.

They got me out of the closed hood.  My cousin Bonnie, a first-year nursing student , at the time, insisted that I go to the hospital.  Dad calmly asked if they had a Band-Aid.  With it he fashioned a “butterfly tie” as he called it.  They cleaned me up, he applied the tie and I was put down on their guest bed with my hand above my head.  The thumping went on for hours.  As I glance down at my thumb now, forty-nine years later, I note Dad’s handiwork.  He didn’t quite get the end of my thumb back on straight so there is a major indentation. But, it still works!  Though left-handed, I was able to do my work as clean-up boy at the Jean Frock’s dress shop back in Newark the next day.

I learned to drive from Dad instead of the school driver-education teacher and got my license about ten days after my sixteenth birthday.  During the early days of my driving though, Dad was instructing me from the right side seat of my old, green  ’33 Plymouth.  On this particular day we arrived at the end of Bowers Avenue with me going a little too fast to make the corner.  I froze on the wheel unsure of whether to go straight ahead or to try to turn.  Dad began yelling, “Turn it! Turn it!.”   Crash!   I went on across the corner and knocked down the sign to the photography studio of Shirley Childrens’ parents.  The impact knocked the left support off my front bumper and it fell, unceremoniously onto the curbing.  Dad got under the wheel and drove the car down the street slowly as I walked carrying the end of the bumper—right past Shirley’s house.  I liked her but was fairly sure the feeling was not mutual and I am certain  this escapade didn’t add anything to my image.

The Later Years

In 1952, just seven years after Dad came home, I joined the Navy Reserve at Port Columbus using Dad’s old uniforms to trade for some that fit me.  Some time later I was taken on active duty and was transferred to Glenview Naval Air Station near Chicago.  Hence, my “combat” during the Korean Conflict was with a typewriter in a Navy mail office.  I found Christ as my Savior through the witness of Christian buddies and knew I must win my mother to the Lord.  Thank God she was saved before long and I finally got up enough courage to face Dad with the claims of Christ.  Obviously Dad was a strong and decisive man and I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Really, I expected extreme anger.  Was I surprised!

Sitting at our kitchen table, Mother on my right, Dad on the left, while at home on leave, I took my dad on with the witness of Christ.  After a few minutes going through the gospel, to my astonishment, Dad began to weep.  Then he, in very manly fashion told me and Mother that he knew what I was talking about and that he had been saved at the Old Methodist church in Chatham when he was twelve years old.  No one, that he remembered, had dealt with him at the altar and he seemed to attribute that fact to his lack of growth all these years.  “Dad,” I thought to myself, “if you were saved during all the years we were growing up, it was a well-guarded secret!”

Dad, as well as the rest of us, had taken  part in the activities of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Newark during our growing-up years.   We kids and Dad sang in the choir.  All three of us took catechism classes and were in church every Sunday.  In later years Dad taught our pastor to hunt rabbits with him.  But, the gospel was not preached and we all had to find the Lord, through His grace, from others who knew and witnessed for Him.

From that day at the kitchen table, when Dad’s tears fell softly to the old oil cloth,  to the day of his  death, he was a changed man.   After I was released from the Navy we were able to help Mother and Dad get into a good Bible-preaching church under godly Pastor and Mrs. H. E. Doyle, at Pine Street Christian Union Church, just one block from Bowers Avenue.   In a couple of years Dad got the victory over the cigarette habit, became a trustee at the church and grew strongly in the Lord.

In 1964, while visiting us in our pastorate in Michigan, Dad confessed to me that he believed God was calling him to the ministry.  He and I immediately began a two-year study course with a core library of about twenty-five books I recommended.  I had never dreamed that one of my earliest tasks after graduating from seminary would be to teach my dad to be a pastor.  God’s grace is truly amazing!

During most of the last years Dad lived he pastored Linnville Christian Union Church, worked his way to ordination in 1967, raised Hereford beef cattle on the farm they bought while I was in college,  and continued his romance with the things of nature. Dad had a name for each of the 47 white-faced cows and steers he raised.   It was common for Dad to pile off his old tractor to pick up a four-leafed clover twenty feet away.  He had amazing eyesight.  He loved to play with snakes, which, to show off, he would thread around his body when horrified bystanders were watching.  On one occasion a six foot black snake was on the side of the house one day when we were all present.  This time the snake was big enough for him to pluck it off the house and fashion a knot at the front of his waist using Mr. Snake’ s unfortunate body and head!

Over the years of Dad’s younger adulthood he had a very short temper.  I have seen him advance on men over some argument or traffic altercation.  If they didn’t back down he would begin pulling them out of their vehicle until they apologized or sped away.  Today he would probably be shot.  Thank God, after he began living for Christ he displayed the heart of a child.  His previous capacity to tell dirty stories was replaced by the keenest of memories for funny songs like “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” and good clean jokes.

Finally, after seventeen years fulfilling his mother’s prophecy that one of her boys would be a minister, Dad’s body began to run down.  His great heart began to fail.  He grew tired from simple tasks in stark contrast to his zest for backbreaking work in the past.  Short jaunts with his modest fishing boat became fewer and fewer.   Near the end, our son-in-law, himself an avid out-of-doors-man, found Dad sitting against a tree in very cold weather, out on a deer crossing.  Dad was unable to rise from his position.  Jim probably saved his life that day.  Knowing Dad as I do, he would not have minded going to sleep in a woods he loved so dearly “to meet Jesus,” as Dad would have put it.

Honorable Christian gentleman, great talker and listener, deeply faithful to my mother, gutsy and humorous  preacher that he was, Dad spoke from a stool to his prayer meeting group on Wednesday October 8, 1980 for what was to be the last time.  Shortly after, he was hospitalized for the final       time. Dad’s heart failure was complete.  I walked slowly down the hallway to the nursing station in the Newark Hospital and, speaking for the family, agreed with the medical team that is was time to let Dad go.  At the prayer meeting hour on October 22, 1980, the greatest man I ever knew slipped out of this life into the presence of His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  If there is nature to explore in Heaven the old champion berry picker, hunter, fisherman and student of God’s creation is sure to be on the job when I get there.  I love you, Dad.  I’ll never forget you.

Have you ever ridden with someone who seemed to think his or her car was a wild bronco with the driver’s only responsibility being to hold the reins? It’s a fun experience only if you are a young kid and the driver has promised to let you drive next!

Most passengers in a motorcar, I believe, appreciate a driver who is thoughtful of them. In fact, I honestly believe safety itself is a good reason to practice smooth driving. In this day of gasoline’s astronomical price rise, I am sure your fuel efficiency will improve, too, with the mastery of some simple but important principles of smooth driving.

First, let’s talk about motion. A sure sign of either an inexperienced or thoughtless driver portrays itself as the driver approaches a stop light or sign. When the driver toes the brake to a stop and holds firmly to the pedal to the absolute stop, the auto will lurch, at least slightly. If you are coming down from a higher rate of speed and “pin” the brake pedal this lurch will be very pronounced. The forward motion of passengers (and the driver too, of course) will tend to continue as the vehicle beneath them lurches to a stop. That rocking back and forth, to me, creates the feeling that I am part of a rodeo on the receiving end of what is being dished out by a contrary horse! There is a better way.

With a little practice, during routine stops, the driver can let up the brake pedal, ever so slightly, just before complete stop. You will still come to a complete stop but the motion will be absorbed as you ease the brake and the passengers will experience a smooth ride during your stop.

The same is true as you accelerate. I have ridden with enough of those who practice “pedal to the metal” acceleration away from a light to wonder if they believe the purpose of the head rest is to prohibit the snapping off of the heads of the passengers. This is probably the single most expensive bad habit you can develop as a driver.

Fuel efficiency drops dramatically as the RPMs (revolutions of the engine per minute) spike. Two other bad things happen in this case as well. First, every engine has only so many RPMs available in its life. Wear on piston rings, rod and main bearings plus cylinder wear all contribute to the eventual demise of the engine. In a sense, the more you ask from an engine determines the length of its life. Secondly, greater stress on the rest of the auto’s systems will come into play. What starts must stop with respect to driving in traffic. Constant unnecessary use of the brake pedal places excessive wear on brake pads and linings and, to a lesser degree, the whole brake system. Remember what the man in the car care commercial said? “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.” Car work is expensive. Why not pay later? The whole drive train, especially the expensive transmission, is adversely affected by “jack rabbit” driving. Ugh!

The automobile I presently own, my wife and I bought used as a “one owner.” Every sign I could read of the car from its past told me it had received good care. Since I bought the car four years ago I have taken it to 159,000 miles from the 95,000 it had at the time. With just the decent maintenance we have given it, today you can barely hear the engine run. It burns no oil between changes. “Why is that?” you ask. The primary reason, I believe, is that I avoid high RPMs as I drive. Not only do I not drive at excessive speeds, I keep the engine turning at ample but not unnecessarily high speeds through the lower gears.

A driver can also contribute to the comfort of his passengers by paying careful attention to the grade you are on. As you round a curve and note a drop or rise in the grade, as you continue through that grade, you can minimize the discomfort of centrifugal force by alert driving. Stay within your own lane, of course, but practice “driving across the curve” you are approaching. That is, minimize the amount of “turn” you must place on the wheel. By dropping down to the bottom of the curve as the pitch of the roadway becomes more pronounced, you can gradually give way to the higher side with less effect upon your passengers (and yourself). The reverse is also true. As I said, stay within your own lane. But, most roadways are wide enough for a little latitude. Use it. None of your passengers will notice your thoughtfulness enough to say so, probably. But, if they have to “hold on for dear life” because you are ignorant or thoughtless of a few ways to enhance their comfort, you may hear about it.

Have a safe and happy drive!

My mother was born Grace Geraldine Sasser on February 12, 1916 in Newark, Ohio, the youngest child of Charles and Anna Sasser. Mother lived with her family “in the south end.” If you were from Newark, as I was, everyone there was pretty much categorized by the end of town in which you lived. “The south end” was always a workingman’s neighborhood with humble homes and narrow streets.

It is the smaller end of town so students in Junior High School went to Central as Mother did. My mother then went to Newark High. She had a quick mind and shared the Sasser family attribute of a saucy tongue. She did all right in school but dropped out at the end of the ninth grade.

My Grandpa Sasser was never in very good health after he was injured in a training accident during the Spanish and American War. It was a challenge to provide for the family of three boys and three girls. He and my grandmother were paper hangers and got a little money for their needs this way. Grandma baked and cooked and sold things at a stand on the market on Saturdays at the old market house in downtown Newark. Grandpa had a crippling stroke in early middle age and that further challenged the family’s ability to sustain itself. His disability did afford Grandpa a tiny pension as an injured war veteran that was eventually to be my Grandmother’s sole income.

One Saturday in early 1933 my mother was helping at the family market house stand when the eyes of a young man whose parents had an adjacent stand fell upon her. Over a few days’ time they became acquainted.

Not long after, the family decided to go swimming at a water hole in the nearby South Fork of the Licking River. It was a nice warm day to swim and be outside and Grace, called “Tiny” by everyone because of her diminutive size, was sitting on the sand watching the family have a good time in the water. She didn’t know how to swim and so coupled with an inherently cautious nature, she had a certain dread of the deep water.

As the merriment continued the young people, including Andy Taft, married not long before to Grace’s eldest sister, Martha, were diving down into the water. They would raise their hands in mock distress from time to time. None was an especially good swimmer but they were all having a good time scattered around the large water hole.

Suddenly, my mother was startled from her gazing around with the realization that she had not recently seen her brother who was one of the young people frolicking in the water. Instantly her Sasser family impertinence came to the fore: “Where’s Fred?” she called in alarm. “Has anyone seen Fred?” Next to her in age, he had always been rather small and a bit quiet. Where was he? He was there a minute before. Now where was he?

Everyone began frantically searching around in the dark water as best they could. A minute went by, then two. No Fred! Calling his name as they searched, the family soon arrested the attention of two young Boy Scouts who were swimming nearby. They rushed to the area and offered their help. They began immediately to dive here and there for the missing young man who was about nineteen at the time.

Terrified, the family looked on as the young Scouts searched. In about another minute they dived down and emerged pulling the limp body of Fred from the water. They gave artificial respiration and a doctor was called. The doctor came to the water’s edge as the youth was reviving. The doctor administered help and after a time the danger had passed. Shaken, the family retreated homeward. Fred seemed to be all right.

The young man at the market house came to the Sasser home, that evening, just hours after the accident. “I wonder if you’ll go out with me?” he asked as he was invited in. Tiny’s lifelong vigilance asserted itself. She thought she liked the young man but instantly told him: “My brother almost drowned this afternoon. He needs to be looked after. If you want to stay here with me as I watch him, you can. But I’m not leaving.” The hazel eyes of the young man looked over this pretty seventeen-year-old. He accepted her offer. That was twenty-four-year-old Kenny Pierpont’s first date with my mother. Ironically, had the swimming party been a couple of weeks later, my dad undoubtedly would have been with the family. He was a very strong swimmer.

On September the fifth, just a few months later, they were married at the Methodist Parsonage in Chatham on a cool fall evening. “The belling,” as they called it, was to include a ride in the rumbleseat of a Model A Ford down the road toward Newark and around and back to Dad’s parents’ home where they were to start life together. Les Bell, a cousin, was to sit astride the bridge works across the run near Dry Creek and administer the community’s bucket of water on the newlyweds as they passed under him. He knew the young bride had a cold and somehow “missed” as they came.

At their wedding a few simple gifts were given the young couple. The most significant was a five-dollar gold piece. Mother put it back during those first few months of life on the old Pierpont farm. The Great Depression was in full swing. Grandpa lost his farm that year in foreclosure. Dad had tried valiantly to save the farm by putting in a large field of corn, with horses, of course. Then he used the corn to feed out to the pigs he would send to market. When he sold the pigs they didn’t pay for the corn seed. Grandpa moved into Chatham. Mother and Dad moved back to Newark and lived in the south end with Mother’s parents.

In January of 1933, a near miracle happened. Dad got hired at “Owens-Corning” as a laborer. It was a bitter cold winter. Long lines of men stood daily at the factory gates to take the place of any man who had hired in but showed little inclination to work. Mother took the gold piece to the bank. With the five dollars she got Dad a winter cap, gloves and a dinner bucket. He walked the two miles to Owens every morning.

After a few months it was time for the arrival of the one to be known as “little Kenny.” I was born in a house on Second Street in Newark. A few weeks after my arrival I developed “the Quincy and Gathered Ear” as they labeled it in those days. The doctor came to the house. “When he sleeps, don’t you sleep,” he told Mother. She reached back for the strength to see me through it.

Dad made forty cents an hour. The couple was able to save a little money. Dad went to the junk yards and got together enough parts to put a “T Model Ford” together. It became their first car. Eventually they did better and were qualified to buy a house. When I was a little boy, I remember them pointing out to me a few houses they could have bought that were very nice. But Mother and Dad picked out a small humble bungalow on Buena Vista Street in Newark about a mile and a half from Owens Corning. An old patched up barn stood at the back of the lot on an alley and served as a garage. A coal stove presided over the living room as the means to heat the house. As I recall none of the interior rooms had a door except the bathroom, so Mother put up curtains to give some privacy.

One morning, Dad got off work after night shift and slipped quietly into the house. He wanted to surprise Mother. He heard her working in the bedroom just off the kitchen. He jerked aside the curtain and stuck his head into the room calling “Boo!” The surprise worked. But that is not all that worked. The Sasser mentality took over. She instinctively swung her small right fist up towards Dad’s six-foot frame and caught him on the nose. After that he always announced his arrival.

One lonely night when Dad was working I was in bed, across from my little brother who was asleep. When you’re five years old strange shapes and shadows can easily infest your bedroom. This particular night, at the end of the room, I began to make out the looks of a man, a scary man. It looked like he was ready to spring out of the corner and get me. As I lay in my loneliness, I began to think of the awful prayer my mother had taught me. In her Bible ignorance it was the only one she knew: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

“But what if He doesn’t take my soul,” I thought. “Then what?” Terrified, I called out: “Mom, Mom.” At that she pushed aside the curtain and came into the room. The light from the living room revealed the “man” who was going to get me. It was Dad’s hunting coat!

“What is it, Kenny?” she spoke, looking at me from the end of the bed. “Mommy,” I stammered, “What’s going to happen to me when I die?” She sat down beside me and looked at me, rather helplessly as I recall. Then, still looking at me she said, “I don’t know, but you need to go to sleep.” At that she left the room. Little did I know that the question my five-year-old mind conjured up that lonely night would be answered for both of us someday in the future the same year.

While Dad was away fighting the Japanese from Guam, Mother tried bravely to be both parents. As a mother she did great: able to get upset over my many transgressions and those of my brother and sister, and to be tough enough to be Cub Scout Den Mother in my Pack from our home. Mercifully, though, she wasn’t big enough to spank very hard. However, she could talk and, at times, I preferred the action option! As a father, she had to work pretty hard to cope. But, there were times when she was up to the task.

One Saturday afternoon, she stopped by the little “Grand Theatre” to pick up we kids after the picture show. She was double-parked and stepped out of the car momentarily to ask the lady at the window when the show would be out. In the seconds it took her to return to the car a local police officer sprang across the street and reached the car just as she slid back under the wheel. “I’m going to give you a ticket for double-parking,” he announced. “No, you’re not,” Mother shot back. After a minute of heated debate, the officer ordered her to drive to the police station. As she put the car in gear the officer stepped up on the running board and held out his hand for oncoming traffic to stop. Mother accepted this as a galling humiliation.

This particular officer Mother knew so well that I could give his name yet today, having heard it from my mother’s lips in a very uncomplimentary manner not a few times. He also grew up in the south end and my mother considered him “a crook.”

As she drove toward fourth street and the police department she arranged her route to place the officer on the curb side of the street opposite the police department. The instant they arrived, she shot out of the car, ran across the street and by the time the portly officer got there she had explained the story. The officer lumbered in after her shouting, “She’s under arrest! She’s under arrest!” After a few moments with each “combatant,” the desk sergeant dismissed the case and the saucy lady made her exit.

Halloween came and all the neighborhood kids in the “West End” pulled tricks on their neighbors. I nagged Mother to “go out Halloweening.” After chipping away at her resistance to the idea for many days, the night before Halloween came and she relented. That is I could go out while Bill and Ann stayed with Grandma. She would go with me!

To my never-ending surprise, she agreed to pin a car horn with me. We sneaked up on this forty-one Ford at the front of a house three streets over from ours. We quietly pulled open the door. “Yes,” I thought, “a nice big horn ring.” I slipped the stick across the steering wheel as Mother held the door, looking apprehensively at the people’s front window. Flipping the stick under the upper part of the steering wheel, the horn began to blare. We slammed the door and ran for our lives.

That was the good side: we succeeded in pinning somebody’s horn. There was bad news too, though. When we reached home some six or seven minutes later the horn was still sounding the alarm in the distance, albeit, noticeably weaker. We looked at each other and, without saying it, we knew: nobody was home. We ran down the car’s battery!

For two and a half years Mother wrote a letter to my dad every day! Every day! Once in a while Mother must have felt rich enough in the rationed gasoline to take our old ’34 Ford downtown and mail the letter to Dad before we “parked on the Square.” We went there to watch what was going on with the other people who had parked to see what was going on.” On those days I was not involved in winning the war. On other evenings, though, as the eldest child, it was my solemn responsibility to fight the Japanese from a bus seat as I made my way back and forth between 51 Bowers Avenue and the post office. Dad’s letter, if not ready for the mailman at either the morning or afternoon mail delivery, would need be taken to the post office. At nine or ten years old, it often crossed my mind that I might be waylaid by some stranger bent on interrupting the war effort as I performed my courier service, it seemed like, nightly! But finally, the war ended and Dad came home safe and sound.

Just a few years later, during the Korean Conflict, I took Dad’s uniforms to the Navy Station at Port Columbus, and was allowed to trade them for smaller sizes that fit me so I could enlist in the Navy Reserve. I was called up to Active Duty in 1954. Finally, stationed at Glenview Naval Air Station, in Glenview, Illinois, I was asked to fight another war. This time I “fought” from a typewriter in Chicago.

While at Glenview, I was confronted by several young sailors, both at my place of duty and in the barracks. These guys knew Christ as their personal Savior. Through my Grandma Sasser’s death I got hold of Billy Graham’s book Peace With God. Before many months had passed, I stepped up to my rack [Navy name for bunk bed], put my head on the cold metal piping and turned my life over to the Lord.

Immediately, I became concerned for my mother. My constant thought: “I’m not going to let my mother go to Hell.” I began bombarding her with letters explaining about Christ in a personal way. We had always gone to church, were faithful members and all the rest but knew nothing about real salvation. Now, I explained to Mother about Christ. I sent her tracts giving the plan of salvation. About three or four months after Grandma Sasser’s death, Mother wrote to me to tell me she had claimed Christ through reading one of the Gospel tracts I had sent home.

Now we could both look back on those days on Buena Vista Street. “Mommy, what’s going to happen to me when I die?” God had, in His grace and mercy, given us both the answer. “Since you have claimed, in faith believing, in a conscious act, Christ as your personal Savior from sin, you will spend eternity in Heaven.

Mother and Dad, you will recall, started their married lives with five dollars. By careful, disciplined spending they raised three children who never knew what it was to go without what they needed. To be sure, we were poor. But, somehow, Mother and Dad were able to mask that fact and we were all happy in what others probably regarded as poverty. They took care of my grandmother as we shared her home for many years. Later they bought a farm, then a house in town. Mother outlived Dad by twenty-three years and one month to the day. When God called Mother home, every penny of her care was covered by their savings and a small amount was left for we three children.

I didn’t always appreciate mother’s cautious nature. “You’d better think about that for a long time,” she would say when she learned that one of us was about to spend some money or set off on some demanding task. But her Christian generosity was always at our side as adult children who would have a need. Unselfishly, she gave from her savings. She gave with caution. But she gave with love.

If you watched Mother out of the corner of your eye at the meal table, you would see that she always managed to take the smallest piece of meat or dessert. At the restaurant when others of us ordered steaks or other big meals, she would be “too full to eat anything but a hamburger.”

One day during mothers final years she said to me, “Ken, if I had been a Christian when you kids were growing up, things would have been different.” I knew what she meant. I am sure they would have been different because, the moment she claimed Christ things were different. She began carrying her Bible to church, unheard of in our sadly Bible-deprived church setting. She prayed for Dad and before long he turned his life over to Christ and became a preacher of the Gospel.

Mother did a good job as a pastor’s wife. She kept her negative observations to herself and encouraged folks in the positive ones. In private conversations to one of us she would explain some deep feeling or conviction about something that involved someone else. Then, always, she would remark, “… I see things but I don’t say anything. I wouldn’t say a word.”

It took my wife quite a while to get used to Mother’s “Sasser mentality.” Just after we were married Jane remarked one day, in her presence, “Oh, I have an idea!” Instantly Mother shot back “Frame it!” If she heard a loud sound behind her, as maybe somebody dropping something, she’d call out instantly, throwing up her hands in mock surprise: “Don’t shoot, I’ll marry your whole family.”

Time and age eventually took their toll on my mother. Each of we three children helped take care of Mother in her last years in our homes. Finally her health complications became too much for any of us. She spent the last two years of her life in a care home in Newark. On what turned out to be the last time I saw my mother, I accompanied my sister, Ann, as we wheeled her back to her area after a visit. Mother’s mind was all but gone by this time. Her precious life and personality, only a shell of what she really was. But, as I said goodbye to her to head back to my church in Michigan she turned toward me and, to my amazement, gave me what I can only describe as a million-dollar smile. Just four days later, on September 22, 2003, she left this life with my brother, Bill, at her side and entered the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Mother never really had what a lot of people would call “a life of her own.” My dad’s work companions were household names in our home. She knew every detail of their lives that my dad knew. She knew and discussed their personalities. One day, many years ago it suddenly dawned upon me. Mother never really knew Dad’s work or his buddies and bosses but she lived to know them through Dad. His life was her life. His struggles were her struggles.

One late fall night out on the old farm near St. Lousiville, Mother and Dad were struggling together to get hay into the barn before a rain. Finally, she turned to Dad and in disgust at their bone-jarring work called out, “You know, we’re stupid. We don’t have any business doing this at our age.” Dad apparently agreed. Not long after, they sold the farm and moved to town. There my mother continued to lay down her life for my dad as he got weaker and weaker with heart failure. The day came when we had to pull away from their home to head back to our parish with Mother standing alone in the doorway. Now, they are both with the Lord.

If Mother were here in church today, she would be sitting quietly with rapt attention to the preacher, regardless of who he was. She would still be cautious. She would still have a quick wit. But there is one question she could help anyone through: “What’s going to happen to me when I die?” I’m sure her swift answer would be: “Well, that depends upon what you do with God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” I hope you can answer her retort in the affirmative!

Every Sunday morning since Mother and Dad have passed away, I have touched their picture as I am getting ready for church. When I do, I always say the same thing: “I love you, Dad. I love you, Mother, I’ll never forget you!”

Dear ones, let’s be mothers and fathers with a faith that can never be gainsaid or forgotten. And just before you walk away to reject my plea, please remember Mother’s words: “You’d better think about that a long time!”

Amen

Kenneth F. Pierpont, M.Ed, M.Div, D.Min.

On April 3, 2008, the State of Texas raided the compound of the Fundamental Church of Latter Day Saints near Eldorado. Child Protective Services (CPS) with a signed warrant was the authority for the raid.

Local authorities claimed that they had suspected the ranch called “Yearning For Zion” was actually a polygamous community operating in violation of Texas law. The local sheriff was interviewed on television and indicated that he had an “inside person” giving him information about the group. He denied that the person was actually a member of the group, however.

The basis for seeking authority for a raid by the CPS was the claim that a sixteen-year-old girl had made a frantic call to an aid agency, identifying herself as in a captive marriage to a fifty-year-old man who was abusing her and by whom she had borne a child.

It has since been discovered that the phone call was traced to Colorado Springs, Colorado to the apartment of a young woman who had a history of making false reports to police. The young woman is said to have had a twelve-month prison term pending at the time the call was made.

The Texas State authorities were reportedly shocked at the large number of persons they discovered in the compound. They had estimated the number of children they were intending to rescue from sexual and other abuse at about 100. Instead, about 400 children were living there in all age ranges.

Now, one month later, about 437 children have been placed in state foster care. Over the weeks since the raid the number of persons in state custody has continually changed in that the state has reclassified some of the older teenage girls as “children.” In one case a young woman so classified has given birth to a baby.

The action of the State of Texas raises numerous questions for Bible-believing Christians who are concerned about their children with regard to state control. It is too early in the development of this occurrence to know all the ramifications for those of us who cherish both our children and our Christian freedoms but some issues need to be addressed even at this early stage. There are several issues vital to the interests of our country. I will deal with just four of them.

I. THE ISSUE OF DISAGREEMENT WITH THIS LATTER-DAY SAINTS GROUP

First, the group that was raided is an avowed Mormon group. It identifies with Mormonism which Bible-believers regard as cultic since it adds other authorities along side the Bible which, in turn introduces a host of doctrinal errors abhorrent to Christians everywhere.

At one time Mormons in the large Utah group advocated and practiced polygamous marriage. The founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. was known to have had a minimum of twenty-seven wives. Brigham Young, who took over the movement at the death of Smith is known to have had at least fifty or sixty wives, conservatively speaking. Other authorities cite the number of wives “sealed” to both men in the hundreds! These Mormons are said to have abandoned the practice of polygamy about the time President Buchanan was ready to send troops to Utah to enforce federal law against it. In 1890 if officially abandoned polygamy.

In the most adamant terms it needs to be said that Bible-believers absolutely reject the teaching or practice of polygamy in any and all its disgusting forms. This paper is certainly not intended to protect or excuse this group or any group from such horrendous sin before a holy God.

In addition, it has been alleged that the Texas Mormon group has been abusing young girls by pushing them into marriage while still in their mid-teens, often with men far beyond the girls’ ages. It is further alleged that the young men are being raised in an environment that fosters “male domination” and sexual predatory conduct. Again, if such is the case, the Bible Christian absolutely rejects such practices in the firmest of terms. True Christianity aims for the highest standards of personal conduct and respect for all men, women, boys and girls. Let this be underscored. No approval of this group, or any groups’ anti-biblical teachings is implied by anything further written in this paper!

II. THE ISSUE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the Congress (and hence all branches of government) from “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. In other words. freedom to believe and carry out one’s faith or to refrain from doing so is an absolutely private matter safeguarded to the preferences of each citizen. This right is so sacred as to have led the “parade” of amendments to the Constitution, called the “Bill of Rights” that was ratified and made a part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791.

Granted, this right must needs be balanced with the prohibitions of criminal law which preclude anyone from flaunting such laws in order to exercise his or her “religious freedom.” In cases where criminality or insanity are at the heart of so-called “religious freedom,” it should be understood by all citizens that religious rights do not eclipse the rights of others.

This would mean, in the setting before us, that the “Fundamental Mormons” there in Texas, are not free to break the law with impunity, such as is alleged to be happening. It would further mean that the various agencies of the government do have responsibility in upholding the laws of Texas and of the United States just as they would in any other case of wrongdoing. Religious freedom is crucial to a free people. But, of course, the protection of citizens is equally important. When the exercise of religious freedom becomes an abuse to someone else’s freedom and wellbeing, the state does have an obligation. The Bible teaches that the “higher powers” [government authorities] are the “minister of God” for good (Romans 13:1-4).

On the other hand, regardless of how outrageous the various teachings of any group seem to be, it is still true that such beliefs are to be safeguarded to those devotees. Regardless of how much from the mainstream of modern society a religious people seem to deviate, that in and of itself is no justification whatsoever for attacking, thwarting or abridging the rights of such persons or groups. The right of a cultist to teach error is protected by law in our country. My right to teach the Bible is also protected by the same laws. We cannot have one without the other.

When Adolph Hitler began provoking, attacking and subjugating small groups of people in Europe in the 1930s, it raised little serious attention at first. Even brazen and merciless attacks upon Jewish people did not arouse many to action. Only after it became clear that this madman was intent upon ruling the world were his intentions seen as the destruction of everyone’s freedoms. By that time persuasion of words had to be replaced with a call to arms.

Much of my observation of the “news” regarding this raid and the people at its center has been to see and listen to outrage against these Mormons for what is being said of them by people on the outside. Critics of them dominate the news. Coverage of their defense counsel, on the other hand, has been sketchy at best.

What little television footage has been made available inside the compound (referred to by critics of the Mormons as a “fort) has portrayed modern clean and humble quarters where the children in question have been living. Interviews television reporters have made with a few of the mothers have registered in my mind the agony these parents must be experiencing at the sudden loss of their offspring. As a father of four, the very thought of having any one of them torn from my arms to face an uncertain future in the hands of people who neither understand them nor hold a parent’s affection for them is terrifying.

The excuse the CPS has publicly given for taking all the children, even down to toddlers less than two years old, is to avoid the possibility that the children would “be coached to protect their parents.” And what is the implication in this remark? It is altogether obvious: the CPS personnel will be subjecting them to its own brand of interrogation instead. And all this because a group dared to practice a religion out of the mainstream of modern acceptability.

Both my wife and I practiced Christian schooling for our youngest two children because the corruption we saw and knew in the public schools to which our children would otherwise attend was an unacceptable breach of our Christian principles. We decided to go to jail, if necessary, to protect our religious freedom. We, being educators, were not in opposition to others, Christian or not, who did not choose our path. We honored the attempts of other Christians who stayed in public education with their offspring to give them an “accredited education.” Nevertheless, I left public education to administer a Christian school where both my wife and I taught. We did not seek to be law-breakers but our God-given religious freedom dictated to us the necessity to follow what we believed in our hearts to be the best for our children. Do these Mormons have the same right that my wife and I and many other Christian parents exercised? Do they have the same rights as you? Or are they inferior citizens?

III. THE ISSUE OF PROBABLE CAUSE

Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution reads in part as follows: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The Fourth Amendment, coupled with the above, form a bastion of freedom guaranteed to every citizen. Note the powerful wording of this amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.”

So, what of “probable cause” with respect to the Fundament Mormons? Well, there was the supposed “frantic telephone call from the sixteen-year-old girl.” But a number of sources have alleged that the authorities had already traced this phone call to Colorado, not to the inside of the Mormon compound hundreds of miles away, and had done do before launching the raid. If this is the case, probable cause would have to have hinged upon something else. At this point, numerous complaints have been lodged challenging the propriety of this phone call to establish probable cause. To date no probable cause has been brought forth. Therefore, there may have been no probable cause. This is a very sobering thought for Christian people who find themselves out of step with the value system of the lost world around us that is far from Christ.

Could it be that someday, maybe not that far away, you or someone you know may fall victim to a rumor that will eventuate in a raid upon your home or church? It looks as though it has happened in Texas. It may happen anywhere.

IV. THE ISSUE OF PARENTAL RIGHTS

To whom do your children belong? In recent years numerous laws have been passed that have impacted the influence parents may exercise over their children. Numerous attempts have been made to deny parents the right and responsibility of exercising corporal discipline over their children. Now the laws dictate which seats in YOUR vehicle your children can ride in. Laws dictate the necessity of immunizations for your children. Laws dictate to teachers, counselors and clergymen a mandate to report even the suspicion of any form of child abuse. In numerous places children are subjected to sex education without parental permission. On and on it goes.

Probably a case can be made for the supposed protections the above-mentioned laws may afford for children. But, is it not possible that by these the stage is being set for a whole host of “child protection laws” that will leave parents at the mercy of the State with regard to raising their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord? Am I overdrawing the danger here. I think not.

What if the day comes when teaching one’s child about the reality of Hell becomes looked upon as “child abuse”? What if the day comes when insisting that your minor child attend church with you becomes “abusive”? What if the day comes when your neighbor picks up the phone and reports you to “Child Protective Services” because he saw you give a few paddle strokes to your child’s behind? For the person who says, “It can never happen” I respond that it already has. The children in Texas were torn from their mothers’ arms “for the good of the child.” I wonder how many of those terrified children taken away April 3rd this year believe what is being done to them is “for their own good.” Who decides what is in the child’s best interest?

The Bible says the children of one’s youth are as arrows in the hand of a mighty man. The Bible says parents are to train up their children. The Bible says that at the knee of the parent the child is to learn the holy Scriptures which are able to make him or her wise unto salvation. The Bible says that the one offending one of these little children which “believe in me [Jesus]”. ought better to be drown in the depth of the sea. The Bible says that one’s children are the heritage of the Lord. That is very strong language. What a strange paradox that a mother can legally decide to slay the baby in her womb but cannot even keep the baby only two years outside her womb if the State claims custody. Is there danger over the custody of children in this country when a parent’s religion or cultural preferences conflict with the majority of the “experts” in child-rearing? From where I sit I see grave danger.

Conclusion

So does the State of Texas have no responsibility when it comes to investigating these reports of suspected abuse of children at the Mormon ranch? Of course, it has responsibility. Authorities in the greatest country in history have the collective means to monitor and investigate any matter that seems to be illegal. By following the law, the State of Texas could have continued investigating this matter if it so chose. If polygamy laws have been broken the men, not the children, ought to be the object of the authorities’ concern. We are a nation of laws, none of which include subterfuge as a means of fulfilling a government’s legal obligations.

In 1972 the Supreme Court case Miranda versus Arizona established that every American has the right to the presence of an attorney when questioned by authorities and may exercise the right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination. Not a few criminals have escaped prosecution because some law enforcement person forgot to “read him his rights.” One wonders what rights the 437 children of these Mormons were apprised of just before they were subjected to the interrogations that were intended to incriminate, perhaps damn, their parents.

How very vigilant we must be to protect our children, our rights and our country from would-be mere human “saviors” whose motives may be pure or they may be something far less.

This and related articles of the Christian faith at: www.kenwalks.com

GRANDPA’S TALL (TRUE) TALES

Tale #7– “Night Rescue”

Ken and Lois had married a few months before. They were trying to decide what the Lord wanted them to do. Ken had completed one year at Baptist Bible College (BBC) in Springfield, Missouri. He and Lois planned ministry but the details of education and future place of service were still unknown to them.
Keep reading →

Of course, most people know the Bible was not originally written in English. Most of the Old Testament books were written first in Hebrew, the mother tongue or language of the people of Israel. Toward the end of Old Testament history Aramaic became the common language of the Jewish people. So, certain books of the Bible, written after about 600 B.C.,were written in Aramaic. Among these, for example were the books of Daniel and Ezra. Keep reading →

Scholars who have investigated the lives of people the world over and through many centuries have discovered that everywhere they go, the people there have some form of worship of a divine being. In many places their worship is of trees, animals, and objects they have made themselves which Christians know as “idols.” Such worship sometimes involves bowing down to the stars, the constellations and other heavenly bodies. Keep reading →

In our first lesson we showed the meaning of “Old Testament” and “New Testament.”

These two sections of the Bible tell how God began dealing with man on earth (Old Testament) and how He continues to do so today (New Testament). Keep reading →

Kenneth F. Pierpont, M.Div., M.Ed., D.Min.
Bible Teacher and Pastor

“Bible Facts, Mysteries and Secrets Made Plain as Day” is a series of brief Bible lessons made available to everyone who has ever had an interest in the Bible but has found the going a little tough. Each lesson has a number and a name for easy reference. Keep reading →