Dad's Last School Speech

James Mason is my dad. It has been his joy for many years now to share his experience and love of country at a school assembly on Veteran's Day. This year, at 94,  he decided that it was time to let that go.. But he wanted to send a paper with a few details of his service on it so they could still hear from one of the few remaining soldiers from "the greatest generation." Here is what he sent them.

JAMES L. MASON.101^st Airborne, US ARMY, WW 2

It was my privilege to serve my country in World War 2, and my privilege now to share my story and that of my brave comrades with a new generation I hope will love this great nation enough  to serve when they are called upon as well.

In April 1939, almost ten years after the Great Depression began, more than one in five Americans still could not find work. I joined the Army in 1939 in order to have a little money. I signed up to go to Hawaii. The war hadn’t started for us then, but I can’t tell you how proud I felt the first time I was on the parade ground. The band played “Stars and Stripes Forever” while we marched up and down the field. It seemed like I grew 6 inches that morning. I was so glad God led me to unite with the United States Army and serve our great country.

PEARL HARBOR

I was stationed at Fort Shaftner in Hawaii. On December 7, 1941, early in the morning, the Japanese carried out a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. That morning, my boss had requested that I take his car to drive his wife to her job. I drove her in towards town, and about 7 am we arrived in the parking lot of John Rogers Airport. John Rogers Airport, just about 7 miles from Pearl Harbor, was attacked by a large force of Japanese planes.  I could see them coming from the east in my rear view mirror to attack the ships in the bay. At this time they hit the ship Missouri and destroyed it. Because of that, over 1000 men are still in a watery grave.

We saw the smoke and planes, so I immediately turned back and went back to Ft. Shafter, about 11 miles back.  When I got there, women were in their nightgowns and robes, and enlisted men and officers were all on the parade grounds, watching the confusion, trying to figure out what was happening. Japanese observation planes with the symbol of the Rising Sun painted on their sides were swooping in so low, I could see the pilots, and even the goggles on their faces.

At the very time of this attack, Japanese officials were having a council meeting with our leaders in Washington, DC. It was such a betrayal. This is why all history books call it a “day that will live in infamy.” Because of this horrific attack, the United States was plunged into the war. This was so impacting on our entire nation. More than 2500 soldiers dies in one day, more than 1000 more were wounded, 18 American ships were damaged or destroyed, and 300 airplanes. It was a deep wound. In fact, about a dozen years later, our nation still hurt from the many losses of brothers, fathers, and sons. A young Japanese student was ill and stranded in the small town with no place the stay in the small town where I pastored. My family and I opened our home for him to recuperate. A member of the community expressed the sentiments of many when he said, “Mason is surely a better forgiver than I am. I would never let a Japanese man in my house.”

That experience led me to Officer’s Candidate School, and to paratrooper’s training. I was part of the Screaming Eagles, the 101^st Airborne. The training was very difficult—we started with 200, and ended up with 103.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Our regiment was requested to jump for Winston Churchill and the other senior staff. We were placed on a hill somewhere in England to be viewed by Churchill and his group. We gathered to positions. Half would jump and the other half would stand would stand at attention, waiting for Churchill and the group to review them. After Churchill reviewed us, our commander told us we could break ranks. We gathered around Churchill’s jeep to hear him. He stood in front of us on the passenger side of the jeep. We gathered around quickly and placed ourselves as near him as possible. I was so close to him I could have reached out and untied his shoelaces.

That man was so inspiring. He spoke with great compassion about the suffering in Europe and passion about all the people who had been hurt by Hitler. He told us how much the free world was counting on us. With hot tears running down his face and cheeks, he spoke with urgency. “We have the tools to win the war, but we need your help. Can we count on you men?”

 

He was asking us to make a commitment. I sensed in my heart this was right and I made the commitment: “I am willing by God's help to do my best.”

About 2 weeks before we would jump in Normandy, they moved us into a marshaling area with a barricade around it so no one could leave. They had built a sand table as large as a room, the exact replica of the place we were to drop in Normandy.  Houses, railroads—they all were on there. The airplanes would fly over and take photographs, and anything that changed, they would change on the sand table so we knew how to best land. We trained, played cards, wrote home to our loved ones, and tried to keep  each other cheered up.

D-DAY, THE JUMP

After about 12 days there, it was time to board the troops. General Dwight Eisenhower came and encouraged us before we boarded at about 8 pm. There was no laughing and joking on the plane. The men sat with heads bowed, thinking about their families and home and what might transpire in the next hours. When it was time to jump, we had to run out the door of the plane, only seconds between us. There were 35 in our platoon, and we all went together; 17 on my plane. I only saw 11 of them again. We dropped out around midnight over Carentan, France,  south in the Normandy peninsula.  We were to guard the bridge there. But the air was red with tracer bullets. Planes were being shot down and burning and it was raining. It was a terrible night. We had a jump area, but now we couldn't fire because it was so dark. The pilots had to scatter the planes to keep us from getting shot down.

So we were very scattered and disorganized  when we landed. We had to find each other,  and to do it, we had a little toy cricket. We used to get them in Cracker Jacks. Walking around alone in the dark, if we heard a noise we would click the cricket. If it was an American, he would click his back and then say the password, which  was an American cigarette, like Marlboro. When someone clicked back, I would say, "I'm Lieutenant Mason, 101st Airborne. Fall in."

That's how I gathered up men. The men were from different outfits because of the scattered planes. I was only 21 years old. I've been asked many times if I was scared. Yes, I was scared. I was scared all the time I was in the war, but it didn't paralyze me. Even though I was scared, I did the best I could. I did what I was supposed to do. I remember walking across the field at one point in the pitch black, and I clicked and heard the other person clicking back to me. As we drew close, I saw it was my immediate supervisor. He was my idol. I ran up and hugged him. He didn't say anything, but his presence reassured me. I thought, "We'll be all right now."

June 7---It was a terrible night. Many died, but many of us lived to fight another day.

This was the area that the story "The Longest Day" comes from. We liberated many homes, and drove off many Germans. But on June 21, I was wounded in 11 places, and my arm was severely damaged. I looked down and saw white bones sticking out in two places. My leg was shot. I had enough presence of mind to take off my belt and put a tourniquet on my arm before shock took over. A piece of shrapnel the size of a hen’s egg had entered my side and stopped right before my liver. I was operated on in a tent field hospital right on the front line. I woke  to witness 2 German first aid men pick me up and carry me on a stretcher to an ambulance that eventually got me on a plane to Winchester, England. I was in the hospital for six months there, and then I went back to limited service for the remainder of the war. I received a Purple Heart.

I am proud and grateful to have served my country.

A FRUITFUL SUNDAY

Last Sunday was a great day at Cornerstone. Our amazing Friend, Ray Jeske, a churchman of wide experience. a sportscaster, radio manager, leadership specialist, jack-of-all-trades, was there. I wanted to share his reaction. He sent this letter out to Ohio Free Methodist leaders. I am excited as I consider what God may do. I love you, Cornerstone--you are quite a church.

So I visited the home front yesterday, Cornerstone Church in Akron.

A remarkable morning.  One of those times in a worship experience where it feels like all the boxes got checked, like all the things you hope might happen, all the evidences of God being with us, seem to take place.

And a little more.

See, Pastor Brenda began a new series about the fruits of the spirit entitled, What If We Got This Right? 

The fruits of the spirit.  Galatians 5:22-23.  You know the list:  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience . . .

Nine weeks of fruit coming at us.  Which is good.  I've been trying to eat more fruit lately.

The big question being pondered again is, What if we got this right?  

What if?  What would the impact be?  What would it look like?  What if the visible, observable, normal characteristics of a Christian were love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

What would the impact be in the world around us?  Can we imagine if we got this right?

So can't wait to get the rest of the story.  Beginning with me, I'd like to get this right.

But at the end of the service  -- all three services -- Pastor Brenda asked for us who want to be real disciples, who for the first time are saying "I really, really want to get this right," to publicly stand up.  That is, this fruit thing.  This disciple thing.  You know, one who follows and starts to look like the one we are following.

And amazingly, an estimated 400 people stood up.  People who mostly have been coming to church a long time.  Who've been Christians a long time.

Now this is the kind of altar call I can sink my teeth into.  Really juicy.

What if we get this right?

What if there is a revival of fruit?

What if we get so full of fruit that we start to become fruitful?

So I began to ponder the question how?  Like, how's it gonna happen?

And as I pondered this question, my mind began to wander a little back to the beginning, to when Charlie and Brenda first came to Cornerstone.

I'm guessing there was a time -- in fact I'm sure of it -- when Charlie and Brenda would have been besides themselves with joy had 4 people stood up at the call to be a fruit-bearing disciple.

Not 400.  Not 40.  Just 4.

Jesus told a story recorded in Luke 19 about three different servants, two which were commended, one which was not.

The point seemed to be that the one who was most fruitful was told, "Because you have been faithful in a very little (emphasis mine), you shall (be given more)."

Jesus was saying that it's about faithfulness.  Faithfulness even in a very little.  And that faithfulness, beginning with that very little, yields fruitfulness.  And fruit begets more fruit.

In other words, the more fruitful you become, the even more fruitful you will become.

I've only been around Cornerstone for three years, so I'm not exactly an expert about them.

But I think I know this about them:  It has never been easy.

Cornerstone majors in kingdom sweat equity.  They do a lot with a little, over and over again.

Cornerstone majors in faithfulness. In pick yourself up, smile even if you don't feel like it, remember who you belong to faithfulness.  Then pick yourself back up and do it again.

Faithfulness.  A God-created culture of faithfulness.

Fruitfulness.  Becoming a God-created culture of fruitfulness.

Cornerstone.  Faithfulness.  I'm telling you, they got this one right.

Faithfulness.  It's a fruit of the spirit.  To see what it looks like, go to 578 Killian Drive in Akron, Ohio.  They got a whole warehouse full of it there.

Lord, teach us to be faithful in a very little, like Cornerstone, over and over again.

Man, I love fruit salad.  Big Mama's making up a whole batch of it.

And I'll bet she gets it right.

Much love,

Ray

When Saturday is the Worst Day of the Week

Saturdays can be so hard. Saturday can be the most gut-wrenching day of the week. It was for the friends and loved ones of Jesus. The interminable trial, the false witnesses and attacks that never seem to end. But they did end. They ended with "Guilty!" They ended with an excruciating, humiliating, incomprehensible death. There was the hasty burial, taking his battered body down from the cross. There was their own cowardice and fear, and absolutely no sense of closure. No time to say "I'm sorry." No time to process the sudden swing in circumstances. And now it was Saturday.

Saturday. When you know for sure the thing you most dreaded really, truly happened. Saturday. When you have no evidence for hope. The dream is over. Saturday. When the spectators who felt sorry for you and wept with you, but didn't actually experience the loss you have experienced have gone back to their normal lives, and you are more alone and devastated than you could have ever comprehended. It's THAT Saturday.

They didn't know. They could not see, and surely could not imagine that in the bleakness, under cover of the darkest night, God Himself was working. On Saturday. While demons danced, Satan sneered, and the shards of broken hearts pierced their lungs with every ragged breath, God was working. On Saturday, God was staging the greatest come from behind victory this world, the world above, and the world beneath would ever see! He was doing all that was necessary to resuscitate and resurrect all that was dead and broken.

But on Saturday they didn't know. On Saturday they were on the verge of torching their futures because of what had happened Friday.

Sunday came in the nick of time. The rays of Saturday's afternoon sun were not comforting, only intrusive. As Saturday's daylight slowly faded to dusk, and their swollen eyes craved rest that would not come, their dread intensified. Tomorrow. Who needed it? Another day of pain, despair.  Saturday was only the firstborn of the futile future...stretching out into grey nothingness. Endlessly.

If only they could have known what Sunday would bring! If only they could have seen past Saturday, anticipation would have replaced agony. They would have known that Life and Truth won't stay buried. They would have realized that Jesus was about to restore joy...the unspeakable, undeniable kind.

But it was Saturday. They were in the process of giving up. Is it Saturday for you? Stretch yourself to hold on in the darkness. Take hold of hope. God has a perfect record for doing his most amazing miracles in the night. See past Saturday and believe for Sunday. Joy comes in the morning!

Hijacked

The German Airbus that crashed in the Alps, taking 154 precious souls immediately into eternity, was not a tragic accident? Seriously? Could it actually be that a co-pilot, sharing the same eternal soul as the 154 innocents, deliberately chose to end his own life,  AND take all of them without their choice into that mountain with him? It seems impossible. The stuff of a horror drama.

Yet it is true. The black box tells the story. The crew and passengers wailed and screamed with only moments to grasp the magnitude of what was happening, to try to make last minute preparations to grieve over faces they would never again see, words they would never once more speak, hoped for experiences they would never live. Only moments to push those thoughts aside and prepare for the most important moment in life and eternity--meeting their Maker face to face.Oh, the agony. Oh, the anguish.

Who has the right to do such a thing? Right. No one. It is unthinkable. Unthinkable to remove another person's choice and send them into certain destruction. Yet it happens daily. Not with Alps mountains and Airbuses---in moments less dramatic and public, but with the same weighty consequences. One person without regard for the hopes, dreams, and soul of another makes a choice that forever alters the other person's destiny.

There are the drunk drivers, the reckless drivers. There are the drug dealers, the drug users---making choices that drag their entire circle of love into the flaming wreckage of lives out of control. There are  the abusers, the enslavers, who in one act forever change who that child victim is and will be. There are the name callers, the vicious attackers, who in a verbal assault, generally over something trivial in the grand scheme of things, curse, pillage and vandalize the spirits of their targets beyond recognition. The ones who brand weaker spirits with names of shame, disgust, and dripping bile...setting their auto-pilot to eventually crash into the jagged and unforgiving walls of self-hatred.
These terrorists are parents, spouses, lovers, supposed friends. People who are supposed to be the providers and guardians of heaven heading their helpless life passengers into the hottest of hells.

All of these hijackings that occur on a daily basis in some way involve the world's most potent weapon--the words we say, crafted by the tongue we are entrusted to steward for good. With it we make choices and requests that forever change our lives and those of the people around us. With it we speak words which dominate and direct not only ourselves but the people who share life with us. A book of ancient wisdom that never grows old, the New Testament Book of James, testifies about the destructive ability of our words, "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one's life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."  On the opposite end, Solomon, wisest of all the men who ever lived, said that the right word spoken at the right time is beyond beautiful and incredibly valuable.

We all are flying at a high altitude in the intense and demanding environment of 2015 life. No one has the right to lock themselves in a personal cockpit of self-centered oblivion, subjecting others to their arrogance, desires,frustration, or even pain, depression, or disappointment. My prayer today:
"Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips." (Psalm 141:3) May those who travel with me travel safely.

Brenda's Beef Stew

So, I made beef stew for family dinner this week, and served it to rave reviews. It looked beautiful, smelled even better, and tasted pretty good, if I have to say so myself. But here's some inside information. Every time I make beef stew, it does well when it is fresh and new, but Charlie never appreciates it quite like he does the third or fourth time around. When the stew is a few days old, the meat has pretty much fallen apart, the carrots and potatoes are so integrated into the gravy that nothing lacks the full flavor of the beef--that is when Charlie declares it a masterpiece. It doesn't LOOK as good as it did when it was fresh and new, but it has truly developed into a delectable wonder.

I think that really wonderful women in our culture are a bit like my beef stew. We get the most attention when we are new and fresh and a feast for the eyes. We often get the most appreciation and admiration then we will ever get. We look good, we smell good---everyone wants something we have to offer.

Then it happens. When the newness is gone, when the bowl is not as attractive and shows a little messiness left by all who have been blessed by the She-Stew (husbands, children, friends, jobs, endless housework and community service...you name the diners, many double-dippers), She is often set on a shelf, pushed to the back and forgotten. What a shame. Hungry people, needing just what she has to offer, go without, and she is wasted. That's why so many women in our high demand for "fresh this morning" culture obsess over aging and grab at anything that promises to restrain reality.

But, thank God,  there are those who know what's good when they taste it. They look past the no longer pristine presentation, and they see a masterpiece, an incredible blend of flavors that could only come to perfection over time. The tender meat is treasured, the vegetables are savored, and the She-Stew is prized for what she has to offer she didn't have at an earlier stage. No sitting on the shelf for this bowl. This one will be handled with honor to the very last drop.

Frankly, the She-Stew named Brenda was initially on the menu quite a few years ago now. I will be the first to admit I don't look like I used to; if you are looking for pretty as a picture and "just cooked this morning", keep walking. You won't find that here. :-)

I am so blessed, however. My husband, my family, and my church family encourage me to believe that I am better than ever. They don't focus on what I no longer have; they applaud the new flavors life and service have given me. Frankly, I know me best, and I know for certain I am a far better version of me than when I started. My Heavenly Father keeps seasoning me up, and seems to plan to keep using me at His table as long as I am willing.

That's my hope for all older women. If you have an older woman in your life---mother, sister, co-worker, neighbor---don't discount her or put her on a shelf. If you give her a chance, you may be surprised at the unexpected flavor she will bring to your life. She may be much better than you remember, better than you knew, improved with age and seasoning. It's worth a taste.