Part  One "Shug"

 

The evangelist had been pleading with the audience for ten minutes already.  He was groping for a fresh approach.  I flipped the pages of the hymnal and modulated into E flat.  "Just As I Am," a la Hammond organ, trembled through the Women's Club Building.   

"Oh, yes, friends, just as you are!"  The preacher responded to the music.  "Just as you are, though tossed about with many a conflict, many a doubt.  Come just as you are!"   

Four more minutes and I modulated again.  "I Surrender All" gave him new ammunition.

"Surrender your all to God.  Determine now to follow Him all the way, no matter what it may cost.  Decide tonight to join with his last, His remnant people, and be a part of His only true church, which keep the ten commandments, including the seventh-day Sabbath."

The going always gets rough when the "Sabbath issue" comes around.  

Few are anxious to cast their lot with a small, often ridiculed sect.   Attendance drops drastically after this subject is presented.

Why was I, at age twenty-one, playing organ for such an organization rather than singing on a "worldly" stage?

* * * * *

Ultrasound was unheard of in 1931, but Daddy had known the baby was a girl from the minute he discovered Mother was pregnant with me.  The Christmas day that I was born, he came into the hospital room with a new bottle of "Evening in Paris" perfume (remember the pretty blue glass tube with the tassel?), pulled a chair up to the bassinet and picked up his new baby girl.  Placing her in the cradle he made by crossing his right ankle over his left knee, he performed his own brand of infant baptism right then and there, draining the dainty blue bottle of every last drop of its "holy water"!  I was his little princess.

* * * * *  

When I was still an infant we moved to Norphlet, about 500 feet from the refinery which Daddy was helping to build.  My parents had found a solid little house in need of some fixing up.  Daddy could envision what the finished product would be, so he started working on it as he found time.  It wasn't long until even the yard was looking like a little garden of Eden with evergreen shrubs, flowering bushes, and on the side next to the street, a lovely petrified wood and cactus display curving around a tiny, elegant goldfish pond.  He kept me close beside him during all my waking hours.  He sometimes worked "graveyard" shift, but when he worked days he would have Mother drive him to work just so I would be with him every possible minute.    

Life was pretty good.  Our little family was financially sound because Daddy had a secure job as head chemist of McMillan Oil Refinery.  Mother saw to it that we went to church regularly.  She was Missionary Baptist and he had been raised Methodist, from a long line of Methodists which included a circuit-riding preacher grandfather.  However, he had thought of baptism by immersion for a long time, so now that he was married to a Baptist, he was immersed and accompanied her to church, uniting the family.   

Daddy was always singing or whistling.  Mother didn't agree with the words to "Funiculi, funicula!" that he used to sing a lot: "Some think this world was made for fun and frolic, and so do I!"  He enjoyed ballroom dancing, and Mother went with him for awhile, but reluctantly, as she was afraid Jesus would come while she was there and she would be lost.  As with many Fundamentalist religions, most things that were fun were wrong.   

Answer me this:  If it's right and moral for a man and his wife to disrobe and make love together, how could it be wrong for the two of them, fully clothed, to dance together?

* * * * *

One day Mama Miles drove over from Smackover with news for Mother.

"There's a tent meeting right near our house," she announced.   "The man is preaching straight from the Bible.  I think you'll like it."  That did it for Mother.  She had been teaching Sunday School classes since her early teens, and worshipped the Lord with great fear and trembling.  Joy was not part of the religious experience in any of the churches of my childhood and youth.  Works were important.  One studied to discover something else to do, which he may have missed before.   

So off to Smackover, night after night, we went.  Daddy went when he wasn't working.   

A big sign, BIBLE CHAUTAUQUA, hung over the entrance, and wood shavings covered the ground under the tent.  I well remember sitting and playing in that sawdust during the lectures.  I hated the way it felt on my backside and when it got in my shoes.  I still do.  The huge monsters from the books of Daniel and Revelation were frightening to a four-year-old.  And not me only.  I heard a little black lady say, "Ooo, me! That's a WHOMPUSCAT!" when she saw the chart of the nondescript beast.   

And that was to be the end of life as I had known it.

* * * * *  

"We believe the writings of Ellen G. White to be inspired," the evangelist said near the end of the meetings.  That didn't mean much to Mother, as many great writers and poets were labeled "inspired".  However, in this case, inspiration comes from direct visions given by God, or is brought personally by His angel!  As is common practice, the Seventh-day Adventists had not identified themselves with their BIBLE CHAUTAUQUA.  They nearly always go incognito.    

"You have to use guile, Sister," the evangelist later explained with a twinkle.   

The "inspired" writings of Ellen White were the foundational doctrines of the church.  By the close of the Chautauqua, Mother had discovered that Saturday is the true Sabbath, the "keeping" of which is the distinguishing sign of God's true church.6  The last great conflict on earth is to be a confrontation between the Roman Catholics who, according to Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and God's little "remnant" of Sabbath-keepers.7  The Catholic Church, she learned, is the woman of Revelation 17, clothed in purple and scarlet, glittering with gold; the "great whore", the "Mother of harlots" who had committed fornication with the kings of the earth."  The Protestant churches who still "keep" Sunday are her daughters, the prostitutes.8   The Sabbath "truth" was simple, or, should I say, simplistic: God made the world in six days and rested the seventh, making it holy; the commandment to rest on the seventh day was given to the Israelites in the wilderness; those who didn't revere the day were to be put to death, and Isaiah said one should not only refrain from work on that day, but should not do one's own pleasure or speak one's own words.  Revelation 12:17 in the King James Version indicates to the Seventh-day Adventist that the remnant, the last small church of time, would keep the commandments -- which to them is mainly the fourth commandment -- and that they would have a special gift of prophecy, someone especially anointed to predict the future.  So important to the church is the keeping of the fourth commandment that their prophetess had a "vision" of the stones on which God wrote the ten commandments in Heaven where she saw a special light shining around the fourth.9  Her interpretation of various prophecies set the stage for a unique paranoia in the church.  A national, then international Sunday law will be promulgated by a combination of Church and State, and God's little group of Sabbath keepers will be persecuted by the entire Christian Church, and with government support, yet.  They are taught to prepare for possible martyrdom as a result of following "The Truth", as they call their dogma.   

"Soul sleep," the doctrine that there is no soul separate from the body, and that all there is of you after death is in that hole in the ground, is a "truth" of tremendous magnitude to the church.  Most members will become extremely agitated, or even angry, when discussing the topic.  They do, however, believe in a bodily resurrection, which, again, is the entire being, as body and soul are one entity.  They go the Bible one better on resurrection, though.  Where the Good Book tells of a first and a second resurrection, the Adventists have a third, "special resurrection,"10 it is termed.  Ellen White said, as usual, " I saw," which is supposed to indicate a "vision" directly from Heaven, "The graves were opened, and those who had died in faith under the third angel's message, keeping the Sabbath, came forth from their dusty beds, glorified, to hear the covenant of peace that God was to make with those who had kept his law."

Somehow Mother found it reasonable to follow a church founded and nurtured by a woman -- an ill woman at that -- and she convinced Daddy that they should be baptized, notwithstanding they had been baptized before.  Mama Miles came in on profession of faith.  With Mother it was "whole hog or none," so they went back into the water, giving up their God-given freedom on Independence Day, July 4, 1941.  Daddy was somewhat reluctant.  Mother always said he would not have joined had she not pushed him.   

Trouble ensued immediately.  When Daddy wouldn't take his turn at the weekend shift, he was fired from the job he had worked for nearly eight years.  He was blackballed at the other refineries.   They thought he'd lost his mind!    

The Church of Christ minister tried to straighten my folks out.  They invited us all over to dinner so they could show us that Jesus had fulfilled the law.  Mother was just discovering Ellen White's writings and had found that "the drinking of tea and coffee are a sin,"11 so when the preacher's little son said, "You didn't drink you tea," I had to say, "No, thank you."    

"Why not?"   

"I c-c-can't," I stammered, embarrassed.   

"Why can't you?" he demanded.   

"It's a sin," I said softly.  "The Lord says so."  Sister White's words are equivalent to the Lord's.  Adventist periodicals are full of:

                  Heaven sent a message;

                  the servant of the Lord said;

                  we have been told by our prophet;

                  from the pen of inspiration; and

                  the Lord says through His servant.   

Well, my little friend didn't think his family would be into sinning, so he picked up my glass of tea and poured it down the front of my dress, lemon slice and all!  Neither of us, of course, really knew what it was all about.  Just following our parents.

The Church of Christ folks didn't give up easily.  Finally, after several months, two of the men left our house for the last time, shaking the dust from their feet at the front gate as they went out.  I thought they were funny.

* * * * *

Daddy's job loss was devastating to us.  "Sister White" (the church's pope-ess?), had told her "little flock" that they should prepare for the end-of-time troubles soon to hit the world by moving out of the cities and begin survival preparation such as raising their own food.12  So my parents sold the pretty house in the "city" of several hundred population and moved to a little ten acre farm a mile out.  As it turned out, it was probably a good idea, not from end-times standpoint, but because Daddy was without work, and the little farm would make it possible for him to work out a living.  It was a lot of hard physical work, but Daddy had never been afraid of work.  A few chickens and several cows gave him milk, eggs and butter to sell, and he got a mule named Frieda.  She was something!  She could open any gate, so rounding her up for work was sometimes a chore.  But she could pull a plow straight in Daddy's little truck garden.  It was always a threesome -- Frieda in front, Daddy behind the plow, and I brought up the rear, walking barefoot in the cool, rich, freshly turned soil.  It felt so good!

Daddy wasn't too proud to sell fresh vegetables or a load of manure along with the dairy products.  He was the first in the area to produce and sell cultured buttermilk instead of churned.  He delivered some to a colored lady raising a family of boys.  As he went on down the street a little barefoot fellow came running after him.

"Mr. Pine! Mr. Pine! Mamma say dis here milk's spoilt!"

Daddy was a hard worker, always remembering his own counsel to me:  "Can't never could do nothin'!" he quoted from an old fable.

Some have said he was a workaholic, but from knowing his daughter intimately, I would say he just plain enjoyed working -- creating, building, achieving.  However, at that time in his life, he was fighting a battle.  He really thought he was following truth.  After watching other husbands down through the years follow "truth" and join the church upon retirement when their jobs were no longer threatened by Sabbath-keeping, I have two thoughts: admiration for my dad, and a tremendous lack of rejoicing over those other men's "salvation"!

* * * * *

Daddy ran Heathcliff Huxtable a close second, if not a tie, for best father!  He tried to keep difficult times light by singing silly songs and making jokes.  Mother, on the other hand, felt we should follow Sister White who warns over a hundred times in her writings against joking, jesting, laughing.13  Most games were considered to be a form of idolatry.14  When Mrs. White's own sixteen-year-old son lay dying of pneumonia, he welcomed death -- the standards were so high he feared he could never make it in such a wicked world.15  In death he could escape -- a sixteen-year-old boy!  Give me songs and laughter in tough times!

* * * * *

Mother was humiliated when the church gave her clothes and supplies for my baby brother, Barclay, who came along about that time.  I was having my own problems.  My life had centered around my calisthenic and dance classes.  I had excellent rhythm, and a talent for music was inherited from both sides of the family, so dancing came easy for me.  A big recital, my first, was planned at the Rialto theater just three weeks after Mother decided they would become Adventists.  She had already bought the silky, apricot-colored fabric and yards of gold fringe with which to make my costume.  To this day, no one has considered the trauma of a little five-year-old girl who lost her greatest joy because in this new church, members were disfellowshipped for dancing.16  A five-year-old?  For tap dancing?  Give me a break!    

When Mother and Daddy would be out in the yard or garden, I would turn on the radio and dance, dance, dance!  But one day I got caught!  Out went the radio!  I could sometimes get by with dancing at Mama Miles' house while my Aunt Billie tickled the ivories -- she sounded exactly like Frankie Carle, maybe better -- and you had to be dead to sit still while she made music!

One day I got behind the door and was doing my version of the rhumba when Mother, whom I thought was safely involved in the kitchen, walked in.  I was caught in the act and thoroughly thrashed.  The Aunties were furious with Mother.    

Daddy decided that if I could take piano lessons it would fill the musical void in my life, so even though he was still being black-balled by the oil refineries in the area, he scraped up $20.00 and bought an old upright piano with most of the ivories missing.  Mother found an excellent teacher, Miss Anna Smead, who had studied under the masters at the Paris Conservatoire in France.  The training I received from her through the years was invaluable.  Forty years later she was still considered to be the finest teacher in the State.  Piano lessons filled the time, all right.  I learned to play well, and made my parents proud by playing for the church services by my twelfth birthday.  Those piano lessons paid off in a career which let me support my four children years later.  But the void was never filled.  Later, when I had my own home, I would grab up a baby and dance around and around to Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Dvorak.  My toddlers would come running, arms up, lisping, "Dance, Mommie!  Dance!"  But I didn't dare to dance any more in my parents' home.

Mother did her best to raise me by "the little red books" -- the multitudinous writings of Ellen White, most of which were in red bindings.  Girls were to learn to cook and bake; domestic duties were the richest blessings to girls.  There should be no idleness, and useful labor was the best employment of their time.  Their limbs needed exercise, but that could be obtained without jumping and playing ball or croquet; they should know how to use a saw and hammer, harness and drive a horse, use a rake and hoe, wash dishes, iron, stand over a washtub, as well as cut out clothes economically.  These things were more important than painting, music, science, fancy needlework or cube root.17  So through the years I learned to do it all.  Later when we moved to the big farm, I dutifully learn to harness a team of horses, and I baked the bread and cooked the meals for the summer haying helpers.  Mother did digress by letting me stay with the piano lessons.  It was less an evil than dancing, and besides, I could "serve" the church and maybe marry a preacher, or better yet, a missionary!   

So my training was exacting.  A switch was kept atop the piano, and if I didn't practice enough or correctly, I caught it.  A white handkerchief was used to check out my dusting of the furniture, and if there was a dirty place on it, woe unto me!  I made sure to"accidentally" knock the switch off the back side when I dusted the piano top, you may be sure!  Daddy waited impatiently for me to learn to play.  Several months before my ninth birthday he offered me a deal: if I would play ten hymns before Christmas, he would get me a bicycle.  Oh, boy!  That was hard work.  I had only been studying two and a half years, and every musician knows that hymns are harder to play than classical music, as they are written for the four voices, not for the hands!  But I really put in my time, and for my Christmas birthday I got a pretty blue bicycle.  I never gave a thought to the fact that it was used.  I thought it was wonderful, and after a few rough hours of practice in an uneven yard, I was a real cycling pro!

* * * * *

All our lives now centered around the Sabbath.  If you think the Jews had burdened the Sabbath, you should read all the rules Ellen White laid down.  She gave nearly 500 do's and don't's regarding Sabbathkeeping.  Adventists keep the Sabbath from sundown Friday night until Saturday night sundown.  And the clothes for church must be ready before sundown Friday, all of the food cooked, the car serviced, the house vacuumed and dusted, all "worldly" magazines and newspapers put out of sight.  There will be no radio (or television) during the 24-hour period.  If your slip strap breaks, you will just pin it until after the Sabbath, if you are sincere.  You are to guard even your thoughts.  I can't judge how the average Seventh-day Adventist keeps from thinking his own thoughts, but I've certainly heard a lot of them -- myself included -- forget and "speak their own words."  (Isaiah 58:14).18

* * * * *

Daddy kept pushing, and moved along in business.  Mother felt the blessings were the result of keeping the Sabbath.  I think differently.  Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another,"19 and Paul said that love, and bearing one another's burdens is the fulfilling of the law.  Daddy loved people, and didn't hesitate to put his money where his mouth was, so to speak.   

One very cold Sabbath an elderly man in a ragged coat came up to the church.  He only wanted some long johns in order to stay a little warmer in that unusually severe winter.  The deacon went running to Daddy, as everyone did, now that he was the leader of the little church.  Daddy talked with the old man and discovered that he had no home, no family, no job -- nothing.  We were still living on the little farm and had not much to offer.  But just as Peter said to the crippled man at the temple gate, I don't have much, but what I do have I'll give to you, so Daddy took old Mr. McClandless to our home and gave him a pair of his own long johns.  But that wasn't all.  We had an unused chicken house which he and Mr. McClandless whitewashed inside and out (whitewash is lime mixed with water) to brighten it and kill all the germs.  From somewhere Daddy came up with a little wood stove, an old chair and rickety table, and a cot.  A kerosene lamp on the table completed the decor, and Mr. McClandless stayed cozy in his little hidey-hole until Spring's warm breezes, when he left.  We never heard of him again.  Even though it sometimes embarrassed Mother, Daddy never, to my knowledge, turned anyone away, regardless of race, color, or creed.

* * * * *

As time went by, Daddy worked back into the oil business, and by the time I was ten years old had three or four crews in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas steam-cleaning the big oil storage tanks on the big "tank farms".     

Mother wanted to finish her education, and couldn't conscientiously attend a "worldly" college.  Sister White condemned it.  So Daddy moved us up to Madison College, Tennessee, into an old house across from the campus.  He returned to the oil field to work, coming up every weekend or two.  That got old pretty fast, so he made a decision he was always to regret: He left the oil field.   

He and Mother found a cute little stone house, and Daddy began his usual beautification program.   

Some leaders in the Adventist denomination considered accreditation of their schools to be giving in to the devil, so many schools were not accredited by the State.  The Madison College location, along the banks of the Cumberland River, was said to have been chosen by the prophetess herself.  The fine sanitarium was a big plus for the college connected to it.  Adventist health organizations were "the right arm of the message,"22 their sole purpose, according to the "servant of the Lord, "for the winning of souls -- to the church, of course.23   

I enjoyed living there.  Never had there been so many kids with which to play, and so much freedom.  All the parents felt their kids were safe anywhere in the neighborhood.  And I guess we were.  I never was in any danger.  One kid I played with would swagger down the street singing, "I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle," at the top of his voice.  My mother and his became friends.   Sometimes when Daddy was there, Lanny's folks would invite us up for Sabbath sundown worship.  I hated to go because his father would read and read, then we knelt for prayer.  I was sure he prayed for everyone in the State of Tennessee by name!  My body would hurt when we were finally permitted to get up. 

Meanwhile, Mother got me started in piano lessons.  The lady who taught at the college was herself studying with a renowned concert pianist in Nashville.  After only a few lessons, she told Mother that she didn't feel qualified to teach me, and I began studies with her instructor, Mr. Goodman.  One of the triumphs of my musical life happened at Madison College.  When spring recital time came, the more advanced students, the college kids, refused to have me play in their segment.   

"She would show us up!" they protested.

On the other hand, Paderewski's Minuet certainly didn't belong in the category with John Thompson's Teaching Little Fingers to Play.  However, it surely made my Paderewski sound fantastic!  I was given a standing ovation.  Mother was sitting by one of her teachers who leaned over and whispered, "I know who deserves most of the credit!" 

Mrs. Christian, my teacher, pushed me back out on stage and said, "Go out and play 'The Flight of the Bumblebee', Pat!"  Mr. Goodman had marked the fingering for me, and because I loved the piece -- what kid wouldn't? -- I had worked hard on it.  However, I was smart enough to know that the two or three weak spots could blow it for me, and besides, by now I was shaking from head to toe, so I made a little bow to the still applauding audience and rushed off the stage, where I sat with my hands covering my face, and cried buckets.  Mother came back there, maybe to congratulate me, but she said, "What on earth are you crying for?"

My own nervous little Mother didn't understand.  I didn't know until later that the audience had been standing.  I didn't know what a standing ovation was, anyway, so it wouldn't have meant anything to me had I noticed!  I was eleven years old.

* * * * *

Madison College was an interesting place.  We had soy milk delivered to our door each morning!  (How on earth does one milk a soybean?)  Soy buttermilk, too!  Sister White had said that "according to the light given me," which to the devout Seventh-day Adventist means sent straight from God, "it will not be very long before we shall have to give up," among other items, "milk."24   Although she continued to serve milk at her own table, those within the church who took (and take) a great deal of spiritual pride in "doing," dropped milk, cream, eggs and butter from their diets, in addition to meat.  So the diligent ones invented soy milk!  "Cheese," she said, "is wholly unfit for food."25  You should see all the footnotes and explanations of those who manage her writings as they endeavor to explain that one away by saying that cheese was made in such an unsanitary way in those days!  That was so they can at least hang on to their cheese!

There was a friendly, slightly stooped man who walked back and forth to the college down our road.  He always had a smile for us, as we passed him on our bikes.  I discovered he was Elder Julius Gilbert White, who had complied recipes for Seventh-day Adventists into an attractive book with color plates of fresh fruits and vegetables.  He didn't use any animal products at all -- after all, he had known Sister White personally!  We looked at him with great awe, this thin, kindly minister who had actually spoken to the prophetess who had given all the wonderful health rules.  "Cancers, tumors, and pulmonary diseases are largely caused by meat eating," she warned.  The degeneration of the human race -- antediluvian, post-Noahic flood, B. C. and A. D. -- is mostly due to the eating of meat.26   So we knew that Elder Julius Gilbert White should live just about forever.   Not too long afterward, he died of cancer.  Years later, when I told a fanatical sister about that, she said, "Well, maybe he ate meat, once."

* * * * *

As October 22, 1941 approached, a sense of expectancy was discernable around the school.  Elder Spaulding, another who had known Ellen White, was planning a celebration on the anniversary of the Great Disappointment, October 22, 1844.  Wagons, pulled by horses, would arrive at the school to take the students and teachers to the Spaulding farm, where there would be early-Advent hymn singing talks, and prayer.  

In the early nineteenth century, William Miller, farmer and converted skeptic, began to study the Bible earnestly, his only aid a Cruden's Concordance -- no commentaries.  The entire story is well-documented by various sources, including Adventist,27 but to a ten-year-old, it was like this: William Miller's research showed him that the end of the world, the Second Coming of Jesus, would be on October 22, 1844.  He proved this with various texts in the Book of Daniel and substantiated it with texts from Revelation.  As translation day approached, the little groups around the country who believed left their crops unharvested, quit jobs, gave away property.   Some were arrested for being "a vagabond and idle person," "neglecting his employment," "not providing for his family."28   After all, Jesus was coming, and they would need none of this worldly stuff, right?    

Well, Jesus didn't come, and they were desolated.  Many left their ranks, embarrassed.  But a stubborn nucleus hung in there, and another farmer, Hiram Edson, had a "vision" the next day which explained everything.  Following a prayer session, he and a friend were walking through a corn field, and Mr. Edson "saw" heaven open, and there was a tabernacle just like the one in the Old Testament!  There were two apartments, and two phases in Christ's heavenly ministry, as in the earthly.  Eventually, this little group, most of them in their early twenties, not an educated person among them, only a King James Bible for their source material, worked out a fantastic cover for their "Great Disappointment": Jesus had moved from the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary to the second apartment, there to begin the "Investigative Judgment" -- the going over of the records of the lives of every one who has lived from the beginning of time!  So the test William Miller had built on -- Daniel 8:14 -- which says, "Unto 2300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed," did not mean the earth, as he had thought, but the heavenly sanctuary!  (Miller never accepted this theory.)  The Adventists believed, when I was a kid, that that generation would not die out before Jesus' return.  In 1941 they were saying, "There's an old black man down at so-and-so who was alive then," and similar statements.  We knew, on that October evening as we rode in the wagons, that we would never live to adulthood on this earth.  Time was running out.

The big question posed to us in the sermon around the campfire was: Are you ready for Jesus to come?  There were many, many things to do to become "perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect,"29 for "higher than the highest human thought can reach is God's ideal for His children."30  Not just our diet, dress and actions, but even our thoughts!  It always seemed hopeless to me.  Since the great theologians were of the mainline churches (daughters of the great whore!), there was no one to show the early Adventists, or even us in 1941, that we are saved by the grace of God, an undeserved gift manifested in the perfect life lived for us, the guilt lifted, and the unbelievable gift of eternal life given us -- all done, finished, completed, at the death and resurrection of Jesus.

* * * * *

Camp meeting the year I was ten had been held in El Dorado.  Daddy had really worked hard to prepare for all the meetings, children's classes, hotel rooms and food service.  One of the speakers was Elder Frazee.  When the appeal was made for those to make decisions for Christ, I went down the aisle.  "Just As I Am" and some of the other "call" songs always got to me as a kid.   However, getting baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist church is not that simple.  One must study all the twenty-seven fundamental beliefs of the church and answer the thirteen questions of the Baptismal Vow in the affirmative, publicly, before baptism is permitted.  In addition to expressing one's faith in the Trinity, Jesus as Savior, the Bible as God's Word, one must agree to keep the Saturday Sabbath from sundown to sundown, even if it means job loss; Believe that Ellen White is a prophetess whose words are as much from God as the prophets of the Bible35; that the Seventh-day Adventist Church comprises God's last, or remnant, church; agree to tithe (mandatory) and give offerings.  One must abstain from the use or sale of alcohol and tobacco in all their forms, and from the eating of unclean foods -- pork, catfish, seafood.  The latter items call for church discipline.34  A far cry from Jesus' salvation requirements, yes?

Well, Mother didn't think I should be baptized since I still read the funny paper, and Elder Frazee agreed with her.  So that took care of that!

Meanwhile, Daddy and Elder Frazee had become fast friends.  Strange, when they were so different.  Daddy, laughing at himself and everyone else, the Elder bound with hundreds of "works" trying to achieve his "perfection."  Elder Frazee came to Madison College on some mission, and he and Daddy renewed their friendship.

"Come down to Wildwood to see us, see what we're doing," Elder Frazee said.

"Just might do that," Daddy replied.

So before long we were driving down to Wildwood, Georgia, not far from Chattanooga.   

The Frazees had started a self-supporting missionary work in the area.  A large older home was functioning as a little sanitarium, and a couple of Registered Nurses and several practical nurses cared for the patients, using the water treatments so strongly urged by Ellen White.  The church still believes these instructions to have come from the throne of God, or say they do.  Although I doubt you could tell the difference in a visit to an Adventist doctor and any other AMA doctor, now. 

In actuality, most of the church's "health message" was copied from the lectures and writings of Sylvester Graham, Dr. Larkin B. Coles, Dr. James C. Jackson, and others.35  Following the "counsel of the Lord" -- and I promise you, Mrs. White's counsel is referred to this way -- the residents of Wildwood ate no meat, since "those who continue to eat meat will not be translated"36  (Hitler was a vegetarian -- d'you reckon he was translated?); they ate no fish, no fowl, no dairy, no cheese, no eggs.  They ate only two meals a day,37 at 6:30 a.m. and at 1:00 p.m.  There were no snacks, as "not one morsel should pass the lips between meals."38  No beverages were served with meals except occasional soy milk.39  No soda or baking powder was permitted in bread-making.40  Breakfast consisted of boiled soybeans, boiled whole grainheat, heavy brown bread, and whatever fruits were season.  Lunch/dinner differed in that vegetables replaced the fruit.  Fruit and vegetables were never served in the same meal.41

Daddy once talked the cook into baking him a birthday cake.  He brought her some walnuts which he had shelled, and she made a pretty good cake, raised with yeast.  After the meal he told her he had a birthday every Wednesday!  She just twinkled at him, but we got some yeast raised cake occasionally after that.

The women wore dresses nine inches from the floor.42  Sister White had recommended that length in an endeavor to get the skirts up, off the streets, but this didn't seem to affect Wildwood's interpretation.  Slips were three inches shorter than the dresses.  No half slips, as Sister White said all the clothing should hang from the shoulders.43  Hose were heavy cotton or cotton lisle, wool in winter.  Sleeves were wrist length, but could be rolled to the elbow for work.  The endeavor to relate the nineteenth-century codes to a late-twentieth-century lifestyle would be hilarious if it were not so sad.  The Review, the official weekly paper of the church, carried a picture in the late 1970's of an outfit, a regular length dress over pants, which should satisfy the "reform dress" which was, according to Ellen White, "designed by God"44 a hundred years earlier.  Pants suits were in vogue in the 1970's, so the outfit was not totally embarrassing.  Tall, slender women would look good in it.  The rest of us would surely look like blimps!  Preachers (males, yes?) get all in a stew about women wearing men's clothing.  Anyone who can read should know that the men were wearing skirts in Bible days!   What Moses had to have in mind was cross-dressing for the purpose of perverted sexual activity.  Furthermore, the great Apostle Paul said if one is going to insist on keeping part of the law, he is obligated to obey all of it,45 so read the rest of that twenty-second chapter of Deuteronomy.  He must build parapets around the roof of his house; never wear blended fabrics or plant different seeds in his vineyard; if he sleeps with a married woman, kill him!  Wow!  Moses done stopped preachin' and gone to meddlin' now, ain't he?  I bet we'd even lose a preacher or two that way!

Since Sister White condemned the "bonnet which exposes the face" as immodest,46 the ladies of Wildwood wore large brimmed hats to church with their long dresses and flat-heeled shoes.  Snapshots in my old albums look like a gathering of the poorer class in, maybe 1890.  This, remember, is in the 1940's when slacks and two-piece bathing suits were in vogue for women!  Oh, well, were we not to be a "peculiar" people?  What a pleasant surprise I had when years later I discerned that God didn't mean we had to look like drowned, gray rats, but rather, that the word "peculiar" in both the Old and New Testaments meant special treasure; one's own; jewel!  Hoo--ray!  We don't have to be ugly to be saved!

I was in the room with one of the "sisters" who was receiving some fomentations -- hot and cold water treatments -- on her chest when her husband walked into the room.  She jerked the covers up to her neck.  I wondered about it.  Later, I read where Sister White said a woman should not excite the "animal passions" of her husband as many "have no strength to expend in this direction."47

* * * * *

We stayed at Wildwood only until Thanksgiving.  One Sabbath Mother came out dressed for church in a new pink dress she had made.  It had tiny rose and gray flowers in it, and she had done some special effects with the stitching.  It was really pretty, BUT: it had three-quarter length sleeves, it was an inch or two longer than her dresses usually were, and she had on a wide-brimmed hat and low-heeled shoes.  Daddy exploded.  They quarreled all the way to church.  Daddy said we were leaving Wildwood now!

"That does it!  You are a good-looking woman, and I'm not going to stick around here and let you start looking like them!"

So they loaded up my brother, left me in the charge of Sister Alexis at the San, and took off back to Arkansas to find a new home for us.

* * * * *

It was good to be back with my family.  Now my problems would be familiar ones.  Sister Alexis had known nothing of kids.  I had been pretty sure, as I shared her sparse attic accommodations and listened to her legalistic religious musings, that she had never been a child herself.  The one neat thing I remember about her was her heavy black hair.  I had never seen such marvelous hair.  Of course, to let it down would have been worse than worldly -- maybe even sensual -- so she kept it braided and pinned up.

* * * * *

Several years later.

A goat farm was a lot of responsibility and hard work, but not without rewards.  There were the early and late milkings, the chilling and bottling of the milk, cleanup in the milk preparation room as well as in the milking rooms.  The joy of milking was the personalities of the goats.  They lined up to be milked, fighting to be first to jump upon the concrete block which made them high enough for us to work with.  Rarely did we have to lock their heads for milking, as they loved us so much.  They would turn their heads back toward us and nibble at our ears, or in my case, grab a mouthful of my braid and give it a jerk, all the while whinnying softly.  The Nubians were very picky eaters.  If one of our little bantam chickens just ran through the manger the goats wouldn't touch the feed for which Daddy paid over $8.00 per 100-pound bag back then!  So Daddy had to fence in the feeding area with chicken-wire, and he installed automatic watering cups, which solved the problems of clean feed and water.

In time our goat farm become a tourist attraction, even eleven miles out.  The sightseers were not disappointed.  A young doe would edge up to a lady absorbed in watching the milking process, and would ever-so-quietly nose under the hem of her dress, grab a mouthful of her slip and -- jerk! -- at which the poor lady would lunge for the nearest human being, shrieking in fear!  Our babies could never resist satin or silk!   

They had developed a taste for the crumbled chewing tobacco which Daddy had placed in a special feeder box in the barnyard as a vermicide.  Dapper fellows in their gambling duds would get edgy when a goat began to nuzzle their pockets until one of us would laughingly say, "She wants a cigarette!"   

The gingerly proffered gift, enthusiastically receiver, brought laughter from everyone.  Often we were asked to sell a kid for butchering, but we could never do that.   

"Would you eat your pet dog?" I demanded of one gentleman.  He looked at me as if I were nuts.  But those were my little rascals, from the creaky arthritic old lady we called Whiney to the tiny auburn male kid which I had nursed through the scours.   

No, we would never eat a goat or any other meat, but Sabbath noon meal was the time we "dished up" the preacher, or anyone else that merited our criticism that week.  Any religious organization held together by hundreds of rules rather than by love for God and concern for the welfare of the individual -- well, the rules are going to dominate.  Invariably, those members judge the other person by those rules, and not himself.  I heard Daddy say more than once, "Look, I'm going to need the Lord to go easy on me.  Let's take it easy on other people."

I have never known such cannibalism as in the church where I grew up.  Someone came in with a feather in her hat.  "Sister White says we shouldn't wear feathers!"52

One young mother discovered her child had just been given a bite of tuna sandwich at a church gathering.  She yelled and stuck her finger down the baby's throat in a attempt to cause her to throw it up.  Not only does Sister White say meat causes cramps, convulsions, apoplexy and sudden death,53 but it causes animalism!54  Who would want all that for her child?

One of the Elders sat on the aisle every Sabbath to better check hemlines and hose.  One little lady, bringing up a houseful of kids by herself, seldom had money for hose.  "Sister White says we're supposed to dress modestly," Elder C. would remind us.  When seamless hose came out, they were sinful because they made the legs look naked.  Thirty years later when seamed hose came back they were immodest because they attracted the eye to a woman's legs!  The tiniest bit of lipstick was noticed and condemned.  We had one little lady who just grinned and kept right on wearing her lipstick.  All these years later she still wears it.  She is the one who stayed by my Daddy when he was dying.  She is the one who was awarded special recognition by the community for her compassion for the elderly.  The unadorned, unpainted, hypocritically plain members are still bickering and criticizing each other.

Never, in all my life in the Adventist Church, did I hear a sermon preached on Galatians 6:2.  That'll be the day!

"You shouldn't celebrate Christmas.  It's pagan!   

"She used candles in church.  That's Catholic!"    

At fellowship dinners: "Does this bread contain oil?  Sister White we should use oil only 'as it is in the olive'."55  That was the big issue when I finally saw the light of grace and left the confusion (Babylon!) behind.

"Easter is a pagan holiday!"  So the celebration of the resurrection of the Savior goes by, practically unnoticed.  I don't remember ever hearing a sermon centered around the resurrection at any time, much less at Easter time.

"You shouldn't bring guitars into the church."  Especially not drums.  "Sister White condemns drums."56

I really had it out later with one aging fanatic.  She insisted that I "swung" my music, that there was too much rhythm in my playing.  It all started because she had seen my little daughter patting her foot.  I said, "So?  I could pat my foot to the 'Hallelujah Chorus'."

"Oh, my," she said primly.  "That is absolutely sacrilegious."

"No, it is not!" I insisted.  "There is rhythm in everything God made.  The entire universe moves in rhythm.  I can sit by a waterfall and find a rhythm I can pat my foot to!"

I was wasting my time.

* * * * *

 

 

Part  Two "She Made Her Bed -- Let Her Sleep in It"

 

 1947.

Keene was frightening to a small-town girl of fifteen, at least to this one.  Some of the kids acted like they owned the place.  I found out later that they were the ones who had been there a year or more.  Dorm and campus life was the norm for them.  Since Seventh-day Adventists can't permit their children to attend public schools, especially the minister (he would lose his job), the academies and colleges hold a tremendous position in the denomination.  The small churches do well to afford an eight-grade school, so the off-spring are sent away from their parents at a crucial time of their young lives, just as the frustrating, decision-making years come along, and are placed in the care of those who, no matter how devoted and well-meaning, cannot replace a parent.

Students worked at the College Store where there was a fountain where one could get sodas, ice cream, and Vegeburgers.  No meat, of course, only fake hamburger meat made from wheat gluten and soy beans.  We thought it tasted wonderful, though, especially served with corn chips and a chocolate shake!  Some of the constituency didn't approve of the ice cream, but Mrs. White had not said to stop milk products, only that the time would come when we would have to quit using them.  Interestingly enough, she didn't mention chocolate at all.  We asked her grandson about this once when he was visiting the college, and he said that chocolate shouldn't be placed in the category with coffee and tea since she was not "shown" anything regarding it.  I'll bet she liked chocolate!

Skating was the most fun I had at Keene.  It replaced dancing, although music was not played for our skating periods.  The faculty tried it one time, and all the kids began to skate in rhythm.  That convinced them that it was a bad influence on us, and would lead to dancing.  Never mind.  They couldn't keep me from humming the music that was in my head!  Later on, trying to hang on to "the truth" with one hand and help my children enjoy life with the other, I took them to the public skating rink where we took the classes together and learned the steps.  As I've said, if it looked good, sounded good, tasted good, felt good -- it was wrong!

* * * * *

One night after we had enjoyed the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, we were at the "eatery".  Most Adventists were vegetarians, but I discovered that their kids would usually digress when out from under parental control.  I was so sure that Sister White had been "shown" that I could not be translated if I ate meat, that I didn't eat meat.  It was just that simple.

"Do you want a hamburger?" Bryan asked.

"No, thank you.  I don't eat meat."  His look was unreadable as he ordered cherry pie a la mode for each of us.  Later he said that he began making plans for us at that time.  After all, if you are aspiring to be President of the General Conference, the top of the Adventist totem pole, you should have a wife who believes the whole ball of wax, shouldn't you?"

I guess when they passed out brains, I thought they said trains, and said No thanks!  I sailed right along, assuming everything was going to work out fine.  After all, I was a good Seventh-day Adventist, eating no meat, drinking no coffee, tea or cola drinks.  I didn't wear jewelry, make-up or immodest clothing, not even feathers or artificial flowers!  I was in an Adventist school.  Everything had to be all right, didn't it?"    

Out of six weddings that year, there was not one that seemed happy years later.  Three ended in divorce.  One couple "had to" get married, and the last time I saw the other couple he was yelling at her, and she had lost the bounce and pizzazz she had in school.  Her hair was dull and her clothes looked as if they had come from the twenty-five cent table at Goodwill.  Well, at least they were safe "in the truth".  Daddy said one reason the kids married so early in our era was because we wouldn't sleep together before marriage.  I know that I and my friends were very concerned about "doing right" in every respect.  "Standards" was the main topic of conversation among the more serious of us.  Being good was what was going to save us -- and I don't mean just for marriage, either.  One of my friends wrote in my Yearbook: "Hold your standards as you have and you will be assured of God's leading hand."  Even the most naive of us knew we would be saved or not-saved according to our behavior.  None of us had ever heard of salvation by grace alone.

* * * * *

Much of the classical material in English Literature class was deemed to be unfit for Seventh-day Adventist children, so we were assigned only key phrases from carefully chosen poetry and essays.  Sister White had fallen apart to the point of becoming sick in bed from just seeing a picture of Shakespeare and an article about him in a denominational paper!

I was asked, years later, where on earth I had received my education.  I knew nothing of the greats of literature, or of their works.  Perhaps Ellen was intimidated by those with more education.  She also refused to take any medication which had a Latin name.  "I would not touch their nostrums, to which they give Latin names.  I am determined to know, in straight English, the name of everything that I introduce into my system."2

She was very negative about students learning biblical languages.  She somewhat grudgingly admitted that a few might benefit by studying Latin, Greek, and even Hebrew, but "It is folly for students to devote their time to the acquirement of dead languages", and "Those who think that a knowledge of Greek and Latin is essential to a higher education cannot see afar off."3  I have sung in Latin, and have learned the Latin names of my plants and flowers with ease.  It goes to show her semi-literacy.  Those who contend that she received all her "wisdom" directly from God should note her fear of higher education.  On the other hand, if she did receive directly from Heaven, who needs Biblical languages and other research?

Sister White's counsel to two young people was to read only the Bible and spiritual material which, of course, would be Seventh-day Adventist material.4  The church was instructed to give her books the widest possible circulation and translate them into many languages.5  Adventist books were a means of quickly giving "truth" to the world.  (And a quick boost to the checking account?)   And a severe warning: many an inmate of the insane asylum got there because of a novel reading habit.6

* * * * *

Sex training in all our homes had been limited to Don't you ever..., and Never let a boy...  At school it amounted to the faculty "beating the bushes", as we called it, after every social event.  So 360 kids tried to figure everything out.  Bryan told me that every boy in the dorm masturbated.  I wasn't sure what that was, but I recalled hearing about it on several occasions.  At a Home and School meeting once when I was thirteen one of the mothers asked a question pertaining to that evil habit.  And I remembered a pale little girl in church school some years before, big allergy circles under her eyes and a constant post-nasal drip, whose mother told the teacher, who told her daughter, who in turn told her girlfriend, me, that she thought her child was masturbating.  The mother knew that Sister White described some of the symptoms that way.  Dear Lord, how many have suffered untold agonies at the hands of such stupidity!

Sister White called self-abuse, masturbation, "a hellish practice."7   She claimed this information was given to her in vision in mid-1863, notwithstanding Sylvester Graham (of Graham Flour fame) had published on the subject in 1834.  She also had in her possession in 1863 books by both Doctors Trall and Jackson on sex.  "I have been shown," she wrote, "that persons of apparently good deportment" were "guilty of practicing secret vice nearly every day of their lives.  They have not refrained from this terrible sin even while most solemn meetings have been in session.  They have listened to the most solemn, impressive discourses upon the judgment, which seemed to bring them before the tribunal of God, causing them to fear and quake; yet hardly an hour would elapse before they would be engaged in their favorite, bewitching sin, polluting their own bodies."8  Parents who "have abused their marriage privileges" produce children "easily excited", "born with natural irritability of the sexual organs" whose early secret vice cause them to become "puny and dwarfed".9  Masturbation is the cause of complaints such as "dizziness, headache, bleeding at nose, palpitation, and a sense of lassitude and weakness,"10 and is "killing thousands and tens of thousands."11  In a "vision", everywhere she looked, she saw imbecility, dwarfed forms, crippled limbs, misshapen heads, and deformity of every kind" caused by the practice of solitary vice, which was the reason "a large share of the youth now living are worthless"!  In addition to all of the above, continued masturbation causes hereditary insanity and deformities, liver and lung problems, neuralgia, rheumatism, spinal problems, diseased kidney, and cancerous tumors, frequently resulting in early death!12  Remarkable!

The poor lady was so horrified at the thought that she might accidentally ask God's blessing upon a "self-abuser" that she even began refusing requests for prayers of healing.13

We girls couldn't figure out how females could get caught up in that horrible trap, but thought boys probably could.  At least we knew we weren't among the 99 percent of children Sister White said were "corrupt as hell itself!"  Whew!  What a relief!

Bryan didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the practices going on in the Boy's Dorm, though I knew Sister White had to be right.  But where, I wondered, were the puny dwarfs, the crippled limbs, misshapen heads and imbeciles?  I thought the guys looked pretty healthy, myself!

* * * * *

1948 wedding.

There was no ring, of course.  For nearly a century Adventists didn't wear rings, and many still do not.  Sister White said that not one penny should be spent for a circlet of gold to state that we are married.  A woman's deportment will take care of everything.16  During the years of school to come, we wives got together and traded stories of men expressing anger that we had no ring to signify our marital state.  I discovered that I was not the only young wife who was embarrassed about the situations we got caught up in because of this rule of the church.

* * * * *

Honeymoon at 1948 Houston
Youth's Congress.

The theme of the Congress was, as usual, the Gospel to all the world in this generation, the Gospel being the Sabbath, the Spirit of Prophecy writings and the Investigative Judgment.  At all meetings, Seventh-day Adventists must be reminded of the lateness of the hour, which puts them on a guilt trip, so they will work harder toward two goals: reaching their own personal perfection, and convincing the world, not of the forgiveness Jesus offers, but of the importance of keeping the Commandments, that is, the Sabbath commandment.  You'll hear them bearing false witness, coveting, see them dishonoring their parents, and yes, even committing adultery.  But never, never would they turn the TV on or buy a loaf of bread on the Sabbath.  Once, after I left the church, an Adventist gentleman (?) said he would like to make love to me.  Before I could respond, he said it would never work, though, because I no longer kept the Sabbath!  Can you believe it?

* * * * *

Since the Church teaches that between the time Jesus finishes "going over the books" in the Heavenly sanctuary and the time he actually returns to earth the believers will be without a mediator, it follows that at every convention they must be exhorted to "get ready", since they do not know at what instant "probation" will close, and never after will there be a chance to come to God.   (What do they do with Jesus' own promises to be with us always, even till the end of the world, and that He would never forsake us?)17

* * * * *

Assisting in evangelistic meeting in
Austin, Texas, 1951.

Elder Winders was a pleasant bachelor who always had time for a person.  One of the church sisters, married no less, said, "He could sure eat crackers in my bed!"  Many years later, in another conference, we heard he had experienced an unfortunate marriage early on and for reasons never disclosed had decided he was not marriage material.  The thing I remember most about him was the cheese.  He had mentioned, in a sermon, that as a kid his favorite dish was macaroni and cheese, so all the little ladies were trying to bring back those childhood memories with a plethora of macaroni and cheese dishes at the church dinners.  This really caused a dilemma for him.  He could talk to us about it since we were part of the "ministry".  You see, he had "given up" cheese since "the Lord through His messenger" had stated that "the effect of cheese is deleterious".21  He would eat a small amount to keep from offending.  I liked him for that.  Only eternity will tell how many have been turned away from religion altogether because of harsh, unbending "Christians."

Another incident I appreciated was the way he handled a situation in which the entire church was up in arms over the request of an older man to be permitted to "come back to the Lord."  Many years earlier he had left his wife, and eventually remarried.  Elder Winders gave it some thought.  Finally he announced that in any event he would rather err on the side of mercy.  Maybe he was remembering a sad experience from his past.  He baptized the man.  I never again saw in the Adventist church such genuine compassion as in that minister.

Pastor and Mrs. Beck were our "overseers" at this (another) series of meetings.  The fellows put up a tent which, of course, attracted a lot of attention.  Since Seventh-day Adventists don't identify themselves when they enter a community, the guys were surprised to see a sign in front of the local Church of Christ:

ADVENTISM EXPOSED!
SUNDAY, 11:00 A.M.

Our two preachers went to the church that Sunday and heard, among other things, that "Ellen White got hit on the head with a brick and thought she saw visions, when all she saw was stars."  In fact, Ellen White was hit in the face at the age of nine years with a stone thrown by an angry schoolmate, and her nose was broken.  The cause of the anger has never been revealed, to my knowledge, in any of the dozens of books written about her life.  Ellen lay in bed for three weeks in a stupor, some have said in a coma, and when she came around her face was badly disfigured, her body wasted and weakened for life.  Some students of the life and works of Ellen White feel that this disfigurement may have motivated her condemnation of women who wore beautiful clothing and jewelry.

The Church of Christ itself is considered by some to be cultish because of certain of its doctrine, especially on baptism.  Of course, since music is my thing, I especially don't care for their teaching on church music.  Every response I have received to my question, Why no instruments in your churches? has been, "Well, the New Testament doesn't mention instruments, and we are a New Testament church."

Come on!  Let's be serious!  Neither is there any mention of the kind of edifices the Churches of Christ are erecting now.  The last Psalm not only permits, but commands the praise of the Lord with all kinds of instruments, (even the dance! Wow!)  The book of Revelation is full of the trumpets and harps of Heaven.  I have often felt pity for my Church of Christ students who would never know the deep spiritual thrill of listening to the sounds of a great pipe organ leading the people of God in praise and worship of the One Who loved them so much.

And they can be harsh.  One minister of that church, in a debate with a Christian Scientist, hauled off and kicked his opponent.  When the man yelled, "Ouch!  What did you do that for?" the Church of Christ man replied, "You didn't feel that.  You aren't even here!"

* * * * *

After the tent came down, Bryan continued studies with a small group of interested people in a rented building.  The daughter of one of the new converts attended for awhile.  Her husband had recently given her a pair of real diamond earrings -- small, but genuine.  Bryan preached on the sin of wearing jewelry.

"Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.23  If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.24  Complete surrender is required!"  Complete surrender, in actuality, means agreeing to following a set of rules.  Take off your jewelry; don't drink tea or coffee; don't eat meat; don't turn on the TV on Sabbath or sew on a button or buy gas for the car or cook your dinner.  You must accept Ellen White as a prophet equal to the Biblical prophets, and in buying that you will also buy everything she wrote, hundreds of "testimonies" and rules.

So Bryan preached with growing intensity.  The favorite text is in Isaiah three.  He started with the sixteenth verse which states that because the daughters of Zion were haughty and walked around in a seducing manner God was going to take away all their ornaments: Tinkling ornaments about their feet, their cauls, round tires like the moon, chains, bracelets, mufflers, bonnets, ornaments of the legs, the headbands, tablets, earrings, rings, nose jewels.  Several other places where the Bible mentions jewelry in a negative way provided him more ammunition.  Then he replaced the ornament word with "idols" and "Other Gods," and all the wrath of God against His people "going a-whoring after other gods" came down on those who wear jewelry.  There were only fifteen or twenty of us there, and everyone knew to whom he was preaching, the only attractive young woman there.  He pled and pled at the call for a "full surrender."  When no one came forward, he took the text concerning Ephraim in Hosea four, and changing two or three words, declared:

"She is joined to her idols.  Let her alone!"

The young lady never returned to the meetings, and was estranged from her mother who was very defensive about "my pastor."

* * * * *

Bryan had a sermon based on the story of the Alamo.  In telling the romantic and tragic tale, he built to the point where General Travis drew a line in the dust, inviting everyone who was willing to stay there and die with him to step across that line.  All but two stepped across, one of which was Jim Bowie, lying very ill on a cot.  He requested they lift his cot across the line, which they did.  The point, Bryan expounded, was; "They may not have been happy, but they were right.  God has drawn a line which you must cross.  You will be right.  You may not be happy, but you will have done right."

* * * * *

1954.

 
The other trip we made that summer was to Colorado for a vacation.  It wasn't done in the greatest of styles, as we hadn't much equipment.  Mainly a tent and camp stove.  But inconvenience nonetheless, I thought it was the most breathtakingly marvelous spot in the world -- at least in what I had seen of the world!  Looking up at those marvelous heights, I was reminded that Sister White said where the earth was torn up the worst by the flood was where the antediluvians had been most idolatrous.  Addressing the devastation following the Noahic flood, she stated: "Everywhere were strewn the dead bodies of men and beast."  The book of Genesis states that God sent a wind over the earth, a violent wind, according to Sister White, which, she said, blew trees and rocks over the decaying bodies, and even blew the tops off mountains to bury them, along with the gold, silver, and precious stones "which the inhabitants had idolized".  I wondered, but didn't dare question the geological "science" she expounded:  That the earth is 6,000 years old;28 that at the time of the Noahic flood "immense forests were buried.  These have since changed to coal, forming the extensive coalbeds that now exist, and also yielding large quantities of oil.  The coal and oil frequently ignite and burn beneath the surface of the earth.  Thus rocks are heated, limestone is burned, and iron ore melted.  The action of the water upon the lime adds fury to the intense heat, and causes earthquakes, volcanos, and fiery issues.  As the fire and water come in contact with ledges of rock and ore, there are heavy explosions underground, which sound like muffled thunder.  The air is hot and suffocating.  Volcanic eruptions follow; and these often failing to give sufficient vent to the heated elements, the earth itself is convulsed, the ground heaves and swells like the waves of the sea, great fissures appear, and sometimes cities, villages, and burning mountains are swallowed up."29  Since these words were given to Ellen White by God, who needs geologists, seismologists and other scientists?  (I've seen a lot of other close-minded Christians on the subjects surrounding the age of the earth.  Personally, I have never opened my mind to possibilities like, maybe there were millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, without seeing God as bigger, not smaller.  I don't want to ever be guilty of creating God in my image!)

The sin that is above all others "which called for the destruction of the race by the flood...was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God."30  The Ellen G. White trustees have printed a seventeen-page paper to try to satisfactorily explain what she meant by this statement, but it has never meant anything more or less than what it looks like, to me, especially when she follows it with a statement concerning amalgamation since the flood which may be seen "in certain races of men."31

As I sat looking at the magnificent scenery in Rocky Mountain National Park, my mind would churn with all this information (disinformation?) and I could only wonder.

* * * * *

Most of our neighbors had televisions and would invite our boys over to see "Lassie".  Bryan didn't object to that.  I was glad they had the chance to see the harmless little show, and would like to have had a TV myself.  But we never were permitted to own one.  I have known of dozens of Adventist families who would not have a television set in their home, but would let their children go bug the neighbors.  In fact, I've known of some families whose kids practically lived at their neighbors' homes after school, while mommie and daddy refused to have such "evil" in their own houses.  The denomination made a strong statement against several shows, particularly Gunsmoke.  But I still get a kick out of the continual rhubarb between Doc and Festus in the re-runs.

One week Elder V. came to the school to hold a seminar.  In the course of his message one day, as an illustration of our inherent tendency to sin, he told of going into a restaurant with his two sons.  A fellow walked over and put money in the jukebox.  As the music started playing, one little son stood up from the table and started moving to the beat -- horrors!  I have a hard time with that.   Shouldn’t a little boy feel like dancing?  The word "dance" or tenses thereof, is mentioned twenty-seven times in the Bible.  Two of those times are in reference to the daughter of Herodias dancing for King Herod for the head of John the Baptist and one time refers to the Children of Israel dancing before the Golden Calf.  All the rest of the references are to dancing for joy, and with God's approval.  Check it out.  Many years later I read in the newspaper that this very minister's son tried to kill his father.  I do not know why but one does wonder, doesn't one?

* * * * *

Meanwhile, back in Arkansas, a situation which had been developing over the years was coming to a head.  That "medical work" which the Conference had told Daddy about when we left Tennessee, that little hospital where Daddy lay so ill when I was called home from Keene -- let me tell you about it.  The brothers and their wives, one of whom was a doctor, and the mistress of one of the brothers (a relationship not yet known by the church), were all members of the local church, and so fanatical that none of us kids growing up there could stand them.  They quoted Sister White in more ways than even she intended.  One of their followers scolded mother for letting me take off my long, heavy stockings in summer!  A shock to the system she said!  After his testimony at each Wednesday night prayer meeting, at which time he invariably thanked God for his personal humility, the elder of the brothers then took up most of the prayer time.  One of the boys clocked him at nine minutes once.  We were mostly sitting by then, as we had no padded kneeling benches to protect our knees from the bare tile floor.  On Sabbath, in this area where the church had many visitors, this brother loved to interrupt the preacher with an Ellen G. White quote, "Brother so-and-so," he would whine in his nasal voice, "Sister White says thus-and-so on page 326 of Volume one of the 'Testimonies'."  We kids could not believe the church would permit this to go on and on. 

Finally, Daddy had enough.  Next time it happened, Daddy contradicted him.

"No, no, Brother Fake.  It's on page 461!"  It only took a couple of those to halt the little drama.  Daddy got a kick out of discomfiting the old geezer.

* * * * *

1957, eastern North Carolina.

 
A number of people in the district would have been baptized except for their use of tobacco.  You have to quit smoking or chewing or any other use of the weed before you join the church.  Some people do get in before they quit, and try to hide it.  You may believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you may believe that He has redeemed and saved you, but you may not be baptized until you conform to a set of rules, thirteen, in fact, in the Baptismal Vows, and twenty-seven in the Summary of Doctrinal Beliefs.  If baptism is essential to salvation, then what is the condition of one who, though a believer, dies while trying to conform his life to the thirteen requisites for baptism?  Believe me, Adventists lie when they sing "Just As I Am."  In fact, some other fundamentalists do, also.  They do not really believe one can come to Jesus just as they are.  They must get prepared to come to Jesus.

The church where Dan and I found "grace" treasures and nurtures the brother with a drinking problem, the woman who has been divorced.  Is there any other way?  There they grow into the person God has in mind for them, surrounded by the warmth of God's other children.

So there were folks we couldn't baptize.  One really special little lady who chewed the fresh leaves out of her commercial tobacco patch.  (Everyone raised tobacco, which presented another problem for the church.)  Growing and selling tobacco are frowned on, also.  I only hope those sweet people found a church where they could experience the warmth of the love of Jesus and an environment conducive to Christian growth.

* * * * *

Other than singing the song, "Blessed Assurance" in church, I had never heard the word assurance in the Seventh-day Adventist Church until Mother used it in this context.  Nor do I remember hearing it since.  Salvation was once described in a sermon as an umbrella which God holds over our head.  As long as we keep ourselves under it, we are safe -- saved.  But when we walk out from under it, we lose our salvation.  Never, wrote Sister White, should one dare to say, I am saved.34  No wonder the Seventh-day Adventist lives in perpetual fear, in and out from under that umbrella, singing, "Am I ready for Jesus to come?"

* * * * *

Thanksgiving, 1958, after a
visit in Arkansas with
my dying father.

 
A sweet little Adventist lady had accompanied me, to help with the baby daughter.  We stopped at a little cafe that looked clean to give ourselves a Thanksgiving dinner of sorts.  It was pretty good.  All vegetables, of course.  Suddenly Sister Bea left the table and hurried outside.  A few minutes later she returned, looking pale.  After we were on the way again, she said, "Didn't you taste the pork in the string beans?"  I really had not notice.

"The Bible says we mustn't eat the swine or the broth thereof.  I have to throw up when I get even a taste of it."

* * * * *

Bryan had found a friend in Elder R. A. Anderson, of the Ministerial Association of the Denomination.  The advice he gave was that Bryan had better apply for mission service pretty soon, as one wouldn't have a chance for the position of running the denomination if he hadn't put in time outside the United States.  Bryan asked Elder Anderson to come down to our little church and hold a week of lectures on the Book of Revelation.  He thought he would enjoy that, so we had a house guest from the General Conference that January!  His wife joined him the first weekend, and I enjoyed her a lot.  Imagine playing hostess to such dignitaries!  We had interesting discussions.  One was concerning the church ruling -- actually Sister White's -- against wearing a wedding ring.  More rings are seen nowadays, but back then you didn't dare!  The Andersons were from Australia, where not only did they wear them, they had double ring ceremonies in the churches!  Mrs. A. said the Australian Adventist ladies, married to men who were transferred to headquarters, were so embarrassed at not having their rings on they wouldn't let their husbands put an arm around them in public.

The continuing discussion that week, however, was the story of the General Conference encounter with Walter Martin, a young theologian and cult-watcher, who had published a book called The Rise of the Cults.  I listened attentively as Elder Anderson described the cover of the book, illustrated with an octopus whose tentacles were named Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, Christian Scientists, and -- you guessed it -- Seventh-day Adventists.  Martin was contacted by one of the brethren, T. E. Unruh, and eventually a discussion was set up between several of the church leaders and Dr. Martin and Dr. Barnhouse of Eternity Magazine.  The outcome of the dialogue, after thousands of hours of research, was the publishing of the book, Seventh-day Adventists Answer Questions on Doctrine,35 which satisfied Martin and Barnhouse that Seventh-day Adventists were not an anti-Christian cult.  While the General Conference president and several others, including Elder Anderson, were pleased with the encounter and the resulting book, many others were not.  Many actually considered themselves suffering for Christ to be labeled a "cult".  Many in the Evangelical community, also, were not pleased.  Eternity Magazine lost 11,000 subscribers.37  I will never forget the light in the eyes of Elder Anderson as he talked of the project.  There are two kinds of church leaders, I decided.  One wants to dictate, to have the devotion of his constituency, and the less educated, more gullible his constituents are, the easier it is to dupe them.  The other type encourages an intelligent search for truth.  I believed Elder Anderson searched for truth.

* * * * *

  
My father died,
1958.

 
It was a typical Seventh-day Adventist service.  That is the only church I have ever known to use Psalm 126:2, "He giveth His beloved sleep" to indicate death.  It is so plainly referring to rest from daily labor.  Over and over the "sleep" part of death was mentioned in the service, including two lengthy poems.  Those who believe in "soul sleep" sorrow at a graveside as deeply as those who have no hope.  I discovered that when I started playing professionally for other churches where they believed that to be absent from the body was to be with God.

I remembered Daddy singing a song from an early Adventist hymnbook which had the words in the chorus:

                   In a look there's life for me,
                   In a look at Calvary.
                   Blessed thought, salvation free,
                   By a look at Calvary!

It was taken out of future books.  Too true to the Bible, I guess.

After the funeral I walked in the yard and looked at the daffodils Daddy had planted.  The irises were showing buds.  The gardenia bushes he had placed under each bedroom window would blossom in the summer and perfume the air, the dahlias flaunt their color.  But the joy, the laughter, the songs and the whistling -- they would never return.

A letter from my Mama Miles the following week stated,

I have never stood by the casket of anyone that I felt more sure of than he.  I only hope that when my time comes that I can feel that sure.

* * * * *

Several years ago, an old Bible which had been Daddy's in his youth was discovered, and his family graciously sent it to me.  On the fly-leaf, in the beloved handwriting, was written:

I vow I will never go against this Holy Book in any way.

Oh, yes.  He was ready.   He knew Where his salvation came from.  And I know where he is!

* * * * *

The test of a man's life is not his birth.  It is how he ends it.

* * * * *

One day Bryan came in and said, "I need you to make me some additional visual aids for my black light display."  He had display boards, two 4 x 8 foot plywood sheets covered with black flannel on which those frightful beasts of Daniel and Revelation; the time charts which "prove" the year 1844 to the beginning of the "Investigative Judgement"; the woman sitting on the scarlet beast of Revelation seventeen, and many other colorful subjects, paraded as he spoke.

"I want a picture of Adam and Eve clothed in fig leaves, and another of long white robes which can be placed over the fig leaves."

I told him what I would need, and he brought the supplies from town.  I never considered myself an artist outside the field of music, so I set up the slide projector, focussed an appropriate slide from his religious slides file onto the double length of poster board, and outlined Adam and Eve in fig leaves.  Then I took the black light paint and finished them out.  The white poster board, unpainted, comes out blue under the black light, so even the white for the robes had to be painted.  The figures looked pretty good, and were nearly life-sized.  The topic which necessitated these helps was "Righteousness by faith."  The denomination had been struggling with this subject since 1888 when they heard their first sermon stating that Jesus had done it all for us; We can't do anything at all toward our own salvation.  Many accepted the joyful news of the Gospel, but those who did either left the church or were gradually sucked back into the old way of trying to get themselves ready for Jesus.  What is "grace"?  What is "justification"?   "Sanctification"?

Justification, according to the Adventists, is forgiveness for past sins only, at conversion, and "In order for man to retain justification, there must be continual obedience," Ellen White states.5 

It is by continual surrender of the will, by continual obedience that the blessing of justification is retained."6

So, using my art, Bryan explained how we are like Adam and Eve clothed in fig leaves.  When we come to believe in Jesus, He covers us with His righteousness.  So far, so good.  But then, Bryan continued, we begin to weave our own righteousness underneath that robe of Jesus', until one day we don't need His covering!   Sister White agreed. 

By His perfect obedience He has made it possible for every human being to obey God's commandments.  When we submit ourselves to Christ, the heart is united with His heart, the will is submerged in His will, the mind becomes one with His mind, the thoughts are brought in captivity to Him; we live His life.  This is what it means to be clothed with the garment of His righteousness.  Then as the Lord looks upon us He sees, not the fig leaf garment, not the nakedness and deformity of sin, but His own robe of righteousness, which is perfect obedience to the law of Jehovah."7

Perfection is required.  While most Christians understand that Jesus is their substitute, that His perfect life substitutes for our imperfect lives, Ellen White tells her followers that "God requires perfection of His children."8  And "when the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own."9  It's a "Yes, but..." situation.  Yes, Jesus is our substitute, yes we are Justified by Faith, but we conform to the image of Christ until in spiritual growth we attain unto the full stature in Christ.  This is the way Christ ends the curse of sin!  Only by continual obedience is our justification retained.10  Discouraging, isn't it?  I know the harder I tried, the more I messed up my life, and the less likely it seemed that I'd ever make Heaven.  And guess what!  In the hundred and fifty years or so since the "Investigative Judgment" began, they haven't produced one perfect person yet!  At least, if they have, they've kept it quiet.  As kids we used to look around and try to spot some perfect ones, but then those persons would end up saying or doing something which we would decide a perfect person wouldn't do!

There is an interesting passage of scripture in Isaiah 28.  God has said "this is the resting place, let the weary rest, but they would not listen.  So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:  Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here and a little there, so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured."  (NIV)  I didn't know that it is a lot easier to "Come unto me and I will give you rest."11

* * * * *

 
November, 1960, missionaries
to the Middle East.

 
Our very worst seas of the entire trip occurred in the middle of a Wednesday night in the Mediterranean out of Genoa, more accurately, the Ligurian Sea.  I slept right through it!  Good sailor by now, huh?  The pilot had come out to bring the Taleb into harbor, and due to the roughness of the sea he banged our ship up when docking it.  Our Captain was really unhappy about his new vessel having a big dent in it.  He announced Thursday morning that we would be in port over the weekend so that he could contact Concordia's insurance company and have someone come and assess the damage.  We were wishing we were not so far from Rome.  Bryan asked a few questions and discovered that we could take the train to Rome and have Friday and Sabbath to see Rome!  Not very long, but absolutely worth it!  The steward helped Bryan locate the proper person and have our passports stamped so we could go.  Seating in the train was different from our trains in the United States.  We were in a little compartment which our family almost filled by itself!  We rode through the night so missed the scenery.  On arrival in Rome Bryan called the headquarters of the Church and a nice young man came out and took us to a hotel "for one night", he said, "and a better room will be available tomorrow."  He left us and we prepared to rest.  There was no tub, just a sink, basin and bidet.  The kids didn't care -- they seldom minded missing a bath.  The hotel was not bad, but it wasn't heated well enough for me.  Next morning we discovered the "Continental Breakfast."  Hard rolls and coffee.  The poor servers had five non-coffee drinkers on their hands, so they very graciously heated milk for us, and brought out some butter for the rolls.  I bet they never had folks consume as many rolls with hot milk as my little family did!  We were used to a large breakfast.  Sister White had said that breakfast should be the largest meal of the day,14 and I tried hard to follow her counsel.    

The Communist headquarters in Rome was in the same block as the hotel.  It didn't feel right to have that sign on out in the open.

The young man from the Conference Office was very kind, and took us around at a fast pace to some of the interesting outlying places: the catacombs, the Appian Way, the Circus Maximus.

The catacombs, originally called "coemeteria" -- cemetery -- were the original burial places of the early Christians.  Burial or burning of a dead body in the city of Rome was strictly forbidden, so subterranean tunnels at several levels were cut into the tufa stone outside the old circle of walls.