Nickle and Dimed

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on faith in winter years from the Upper Peninsula, the place of winter…

Jimmie Franklin is a distinguished professor emeritus of American history at Vanderbilt Univ. He earned his PhD at Oklahoma. Before Vanderbilt, he taught for 16 years at Eastern IL Univ, in Charleston, where I was his pastor. We chatted one day about the roles of pastors and the church. He told this story:

He grew up in Moscow, MS. He won a basketball scholarship to Jackson State College, but when it came time to go, he couldn’t. He did not have the 35 cents necessary for the bus fare. His pastor went around town, borrowing nickels and dimes from members of his church, until he had enough money for Jimmie to go to college.

I hope that before they died that pastor and those church members knew how successful Jimmie became. In a way, though, it makes no difference. It’s hard to imagine a smaller arena for Christian witness than Moscow, MS, but that was the only arena those folks had in which to live their faith and so they did, one nickel, one dime at a time.

Sometimes we talk about being “nickel and dimed to death.” In Moscow, MS, a long time ago, there were people who were willing to nickel and dime a boy to life.