The Mason Dixon Gulf

 

 

  America has become two nations, and “we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure”.  In that 1st civil war, there was the Mason Dixon line.  In the present, that line has become a gulf, and the man who tries to straddle it will be ripped apart`.  Bear with a couple of stories from long, long ago.

 

  It was the best of times;  a banner year at the Sidney, Iowa rodeo in 1966.  Colored posters had bedecked the store fronts in every little neighboring cow town for a month.  My Grandpa would have been my age then.  I didn’t get much of his bodily genetics.  He ate more than I did.  I remember Grandma saying, “Land sakes Leslie!  You’re a gonna bust!”  He stayed spare and tight though;  workbrickle and tough as hedge.  Couldn’t tell he was Caucasian ’til he took off his hat. 

  I think it was a ’55 Ford,  bare bones 223 with 3 on the column;  no radio;  4/70 A/C. Narrow concrete roads with drainage curbs.  Bias ply tires would climb right up them and onto the dirt shoulder if you got too close.  No seat belts.  Steel dashboard.  Glass that broke into deadly shards.  The speed limit was 70 in daylight and grandpa didn’t care.  He ran his tractor full throttle, and his car almost.  I was in the passenger’s seat with my bare elbow out the window,  flexing my muscles for, but never looking at the cowgirls we passed.  There were plenty, all headed for Sidney.  Barrel racers in big hats with horses in tow.  Both of us sat deadpan.   Jake Blues with Elwood at the wheel and we were on a mission for ourselves!   A little reward after a Summer of hard work.  Didn’t talk much.  For him, it would have been like talking to a clod.  I knew how to say “Yeah.  Nah.  Dunno.  Please pass the taters” and that’s about it.  Highballing Northward, the tar expansion strips, swollen by the early August heat hammered lightning up our spines but we had put up hay all Summer.  Maybe as tough as the bronc and bull riders we were going to see, but it’s for sure we were smarter.   Just him and me on a little holiday. 

  Sidney is one of those towns where the elevation is higher than the population but it still plays host to a championship rodeo.  It is a “must” stop for all the top competitors if they want to amass winnings toward a national title.  Superstars like W. G. “Freckles” Brown (then aged 45, he would compete for another 8 seasons) and Larry Mahan were there.  We enjoyed the events, but there was always an intermission while they prepared for the bull riding.  Suddenly, over the loud speaker came the theme from “Gunsmoke”;  you remember;  the one they played while they showed a coffee pot on the stove.   Everyone jumped to their feet with wild applause.  Ambling out of the chutes and into the arena they came.  True corn ball rock stars.  I had been watching big animals explode out of that 7’ gate all afternoon so they looked a little frail and smaller than life.  In full costume, Festus (Ken Curtis) did his bow legged strut, grinning his signature facial expression: One eye squinted, the other brow raised high.  Doc (Milburn Stone) shuffled along beside acting cranky as usual, rubbing his hand over his mustache and daubing the back of his neck with a hanky.  They reached into their pockets and slung hard candy into the crowd, creating a melee amongst the youngsters and not a few adults.  They sang some old Western ballads.  “IIIII’ll keep rolling along;  deeeep in my heart is a song;  heeeere on the range I belo  ong;  drifting along with the  tumb a ling tumbleweeeeds.”  (Curtis was with the “Sons of the Pioneers” for a while and Stone could harmonize.)  It was pretty good.  Real good.  And then they did a comedy routine.  If you watched any Gunsmoke reruns you know what a chemistry those two had.  I read somewhere that a lot of the dialogue they did on the show was ad lib.  They just sat down at that table in the Long Branch over a beer (which Doc always wound up paying for) and the director simply turned them loose.  They said sometimes Matt (James Arness) and Kitty (Amanda Blake) couldn’t look at them without laughing so they had to quit filming for the day and come back the next after they had all settled down.  I thought my Grandpa, sitting next to me, was going to pop a rib .  His laugh was a long, wheezy exhale and a very audible catching of the breath that sounded like a six cylinder with a straight pipe.  I elbowed my way down to the fence to get a black and white autographed picture of Doc and Festus, suitable for framing.  $2; almost half of what I spent that day.  I shook their hands.  They were soft and some of Festus’ makeup came off on my thumb.  I guess he had drawn me a little too far into his character.  Grandpa didn’t care if he met them.  He grew up with guys like that so it was no big deal.  I took the picture to Bible College with me, and after I got married, I hung it opposite the commode in our bathroom so I could look at it while enthroned.  It disappeared shortly thereafter of unknown causes.   I’d give anything to have it back but she won’t say.  Stone and Curtis were in sync, on and off stage.  It is difficult to think of one without the other.  They represent the antithesis of the next event that transpired, which speaks more to the subject of this article.

 

  On the far side of the arena appeared a family of trick riders with a bevy of beautiful  Arabians.  (Horses, I mean)   The father, leader of the troupe, explained over the P. A. system that he was going to attempt to “Roman Ride” (put one foot on one horse and one on another as they run flat out side by side).  He explained that one of the horses had been in training, so there may be a wreck, but that’s what the people came to see anyway and he knew it.  He said the horses needed to do this in front of a crowd to perfect their synchronization so we were all to whoop and holler so they could get used to it.  I thought he was a hippie with his flowing blonde hair, pastel blue silk jump suit, and ballet shoes with no socks.  No socks!  Even the women wore socks back then!  The horses stood motionless.  Bareback with only decorative bridles.  Not even the flick of a tail to shoo a fly.  I had seen a Roman Rider at a circus once but he used reins.  I had never seen it done before without reins nor have I since.   This rider climbed the fence and deftly leapt aboard. A knee on each horse and a fistful of mane.  Seemingly of their own volition, the equines bolted.  Up he stood with his arms outstretched like a bird of prey, his billowed sleeves flapping in the wind as he leaned into it.  I watched as his knees independently absorbed the undulations; his head perfectly still.  Halfway around the arena things were perfect, but as they neared the grandstands on the South side the cheering got louder.  This seemed to spook the younger horse who was on the inside.  He got out of sync a little, then a little more.  The rider’s legs stretched farther and farther apart.  I thought he was beyond the point of salvation, destined for a 30 mph slide in the “mudnure”.  I wondered if the dainty seam in those sequined silk breeches would hold.  What lie beneath?  Will the men have to shield the ladies’ eyes with their Stetsons??  A public exposure like that in Iowa in ‘66 with women and children present would make the Omaha Newspaper just a little ways up river.  My grandpa, sitting beside me said with increasing volume;  “He’s gonna…...whoops.  Whoops.  WHOOPS!”  Finally the rider pushed off with one foot to the older horse and the younger one went plumb loco.  He lost his bearings altogether, loped to the middle of the arena and stood facing the crowd, shaking his head as if to get the noise out of his ears.  Grandpa took off his straw Fedora and waved it by the brim and laughed that wheezy laugh while slapping his knee.  He had milker’s hands that were those of a man twice his size.  They looked out of place on his willowy frame.  I was afraid he would break his own leg!  I didn't have my license yet and driving my grandpa home from a rodeo with cracked ribs and a dislocated kneecap would be hard to explain to a statie.  The crowd cheered anyway, because the man didn’t wind up with a mouth full of dirt and the crotch of those pants held out.  High entertainment for a hayseed!

 

  I said all that to say this:

 

  After 50 or so years’ awareness concerning this nation’s gees and haws I have seen it settle into two fairly well defined blocs on moral issues and fiscal matters.  It seems to have little to do with political party affiliations.  Neither Republican nor Democrat;  these blocs are now conservative (right) or liberal (left).  I plainly believe Biblical Christianity (there is no other kind)  has more in common with present tenets called conservative than those called liberal.  To say an individual is “liberal” or “conservative” may be an over simplification.  Personally, I am an extreme conservative on moral issues, I am equidistant between center and extreme right on fiscal considerations.  I am glad to pay the government a fair salary to defend the Constitution, and I am glad when my taxes go to help those who can’t help themselves.   There are some social issues that do not compromise my moral compass;  and on those I am yet farther toward center.   You can see that conservatism and liberalism may come in shades and hues depending on application to individual topics;  nevertheless, moderation is less feasible than it has ever been.  I may have to drink some of the “bathwater” of radical conservatism to protect the moral and religious matters that are my “baby”.   In a broad stroke, we shall say that these two major creeds are found in both parties, and conservative party platforms are moderating in a vain attempt to span the gulf;  and a bridge with too long a span collapses. 

  Pinning one label or the other on a politician may be an exercise in futility.  Campaigns give one identity, incumbency produces another.  How can you tell who is who with all the vote trading and deal making over pork?  There is more vicissitude in the halls of congress than on the street.  Amongst the constituency, the labels are clearer and the contrast is coming into sharper focus.  We are obligated to choose and get both feet firmly planted in one or the other.  No honest man can ride them both.  The Mason Dixon line has become the gulf of Hades which no man can cross. 

 

  The major factor in our recent general elections is that slightly more liberals came to the polls than conservatives (duh);  but I think the reason that happened is that our president appeared more transparent about his convictions, be they right or wrong.   His competitor did not present a bold enough contrast to engender confidence among enough conservatives.  It was the same in the 2008 election.  I believe “conservative” political analysts and advisors are dead wrong when they tell their candidates to appear more moderate.  The issues are so polarized that there isn’t enough rope to build a swing for a “swing” voter anymore, so why try to capture their vote?  I surmise that for offices higher than State Representative, straight ballots based upon liberalism or conservatism are cast.  How I long for a conservative candidate who will say, “This is where I stand!  If you agree, vote for me.  If not, vote for my opponent.  Either of us will do our best.”  Unless a conservative like that can garner the funds necessary to run a campaign, then America’s day in the sun is over.  We’d better renew our devotion to our Heavenly citizenship and remember Who truly grows, bakes, and butters our daily bread.  Conservatives had better prepare to live as a tyrannized minority (that is only barely a minority).  True Christians have always been a minority, so what’s new?  Conservative Christians have enjoyed a modicum of toleration in this nation for quite a while.  World history will show that to be quite abnormal;  but remember that the church waxes or wanes regardless of it’s approval by the outside.  The church waxes or wanes due to it’s internal health and according to God’s plan which either incorporates or stands above the ebb and flow of politics.

 

  As I have said in previous kommuniques, we cannot go out of this world for now.  The chasm is ideological, not physical.  Conservative Christians must walk, talk, work, and play side by side with non believing liberals.  (There are some “liberals” who are “believers”,  but the terms are oxymoronic.  These folks just don’t know it yet.  So there.  I love you but there are times when I can’t be nebulous.)   They may want to get off this planet of “knuckle draggers” so they can go evolve, unhindered.   We may want to go to Heaven before it’s time and let those with gods of their own machination go extinct down here, which they surely would PDQ.   But we’re crowded into the same pig pen for now.  Christians need to be concerned and participate in the debate,  but never fearful;  for we are well equipped.  We have the most complex and astounding piece of matter in the universe right inside our skulls, we have a will, and we have the Spirit of our Creator that is strengthening and urging that will.  We are well educated.  We have the printed and readily available Word of God which is absolute truth.  We eat persecution for breakfast.  We are not like instinct driven animals who have to be fenced off from each other.  We can refrain from biting off the tails of other pigs we don’t like.  There are areas where we can defer without compromising the essentials and if we want to be the pig with more largess, we should.  As Paul said, he was made all things to all men that he might by all means save some.  However, there are lines we cannot cross.  I doubt Paul got gassed at a Greek bacchanal or copulated with temple prostitutes as part of his evangelistic method.  If our wills are malleable to the Spirit,  He will stick our nose to the Book and our conscience will show us where the line is every time.

 

  I got a John Wayne coffee mug for Christmas.  It is oversized with a handle that I can get three chubby knuckles through.  On one side is a picture of the Duke, and on the other in bold letters it says, “A man’s got to have a code;  a creed to live by.”   That line did not originate with a script writer.  It is his personal statement cited in a biography written by his wife.  (For what it’s worth:  I met Stuart Hamblen at the Kiamichi Men’s Clinic one year.  He was a good friend of and fellow actor with Marion Morrison, a.k.a. John Wayne.  They were also drinking buddies off screen, until Hamblen became a Christian.  Hamblen and Morrison remained fast friends.  He wrote “It is no Secret” and some other lesser known Christian music.  Hamblen told us that he baptized Morrison two years before his death in 1979.)  I am urging you now; draw up a personal code.  You know the Bible.  You ought to be able to write your constitution based upon it.  Make a list of things you must always do and things you must never do, under any circumstance.  Plant both feet on it and don’t step off it.  Live with people of other codes.  It is more likely that you will be living with people who don’t have a code at all.  You have to live with them;  but have the lines clearly in mind of how far you will go;  and if they go too far, keep your mouth shut!  You ought to approach a brother with meekness, but dressing a non Christian down, especially in front of his peers, never has a positive outcome.  Just don’t do the sin with him or show your approval of it.  Believe me, that says a big plenty.  Once in a while I remember who I am and behave like it.  I was at the café with friends  and a guy came in whose breath smelled of alcohol at 9:00 in the morning.  He was loud and vulgar.  He told a dirty joke.  My peripheral vision saw everyone looking at me.  They still call me “reverend”.  Once a “reverend” always a “reverend” I guess.  I sat silent with the brim of my hat shadowing my face, staring into my coffee.  The only one who laughed was the man who told the joke.  People are keeping score.  If you “claim the Name”, there are more people who will take their lead from you than you know.  Until the Lord returns, there will always be those who are taking notes.

 

  The horse that went awry;  did they take him out back and put him down?  Of course not.  He represented a great expenditure of time, energy, money.  I can say with certainty that they took him out of the trailer at the next rodeo and made him do the same thing.  I can guarantee that he became the lead horse and they trained other young ones beside him.  They knew he would eventually put food on the table for them!   You put up with your kids because you know they will get big enough to push a lawnmower and scrub the floor, and eventually lead you by the hand to places you should go but may not want to.

  Friend, please don’t give up on this world yet!  There are those you come in contact with every day in whom God is investing.  He foreknows that they will opt to follow Him.  The Holy Spirit is riding drag behind them, goading them toward salvation.

  God may purposely  put you together with them if He can trust you as the lead horse.  I don’t know how you train a horse to run in perfect harmony beside another, but I doubt that they are trained by whipping them after a failed attempt.  It would only confuse them, for they are yet ignorant.  As Jesus said, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  Keep on walking amongst them. 

 

  CWII is on!  1 Kings 18:21  And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal , then follow him.  There are only two horses and they are severely out of sync.  There are only two kingdoms.  There is no survivable middle ground.  Walk and talk among the enemy’s hapless slaves calmly, unafraid, dressed in the whole armor of God.  Take a bullet.  Heal up.  Go back and do it again.  Of course, the gulf of which I speak is not a physical one;  therefore, we walk and talk among those who bear little resemblance to us.  It is a separation of mores and values.   God knows those on the other side who will defect, and that’s why we must walk in their midst.  When they want to be granted asylum, we must be there to take them in;  to give them a new circle of comrades;  with God’s power, protect them;  and show them that there is another “alternative lifestyle”.

 

  Unlike CWI, brother is not fighting brother here.  The non believing world has morphed into some sort of new species;  bipedal hominids like us but that’s about as far as it goes.  Impacting our society is not the pink tea pastoral visit to Aunt Bea’s anymore.  It’s raw, rugged, rough and risky.  If you’re a fake, you’re going to eat dirt.  A man’s got to have a code, a creed to live by.