GOOD NEWS: THE EYES OF JESUS ARE UPON YOU [12-29-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings & Memories of An Old Man—GOOD NEWS: THE EYES OF JESUS ARE UPON YOU [12-29-24]

 

I watched a two-part PBS TV documentary a few years ago, interviewing Indiana’s well-known Hamilton brothers, Dick and Lee.

The late Dick was one of Indiana Methodism’s leading clergy persons for the last half of the 20^th century—liked, loved, respected, and appreciated by all who knew him, as a leader in the church and as a person.

He had the added distinction of being the pastor who officiated at our wedding, at St. Mark’s in Bloomington, a brand-new church at the time, of which he was the first pastor, and where we attend now, having returned to Bloomington in our final retirement years. [We are called Bloomarangs.]

His younger brother, Lee, became a lawyer, probably because their father, Frank, was a distinguished pastor in Indiana, and now his brother was carving out a leading role in that profession, too. You don’t really want to be the third wheel on a scooter.

Besides, all the way through college, Lee’s only interest was basketball. His family moved to Evansville from TN when he was about ten for his father to accept a pastoral appointment in Methodism’s Indiana Conference. He discovered basketball! He grew tall, he had some natural talent, he loved it. It was his only interest, so much so that he won the 1948 Trester Award for Mental Attitude, which carried some weight in Indiana that it might not anywhere else.

In fact, it may have been more impressive back then than the Mr. Basketball award for the state’s best player. Mr. Basketball can be fairly easily established by which kid scores the most points and wins the most games. Mental attitude is not quantifiable, and a whole lot of people have to take note of a whole lot of mental attitudes before they can declare that yours is better than everybody else’s.

It probably helped him a whole lot when he discovered, as a partner in a firm in Columbus, that practicing law is really boring, and so decided to run for Congress from Indiana’s 9^th District, which might well be the most conservative district in a most conservative state. Being a basketball star undoubtedly helped him win his first election, and every other election for the next 34 years, even though he was a liberal Democrat. His mental attitude, for which he was already known, helped him earn the respect not only of the 9^th District voters but of all his colleagues and the other folks he had to deal with as a congressman, such as reporters and academics. He earned that respect because he gave respect, to everyone. He never assumed anyone was unworthy of respect, or even of likeability, regardless of their politics. The School of Global & International Studies at Indiana University is named for him and long-time distinguished Indiana Republican senator, Richard Lugar.

He learned about respect as a PK, preacher’s kid, and also as a PB, preacher’s brother. He watched the way his parents and older brother treated people from the time he was little.

When the interviewer asked him about the problems that might come from being a PK as a youth, his father being the pastor of a large church, so that there were many people watching him to see if he lived up to the standards expected of a parsonage family, he said that he never thought it was a bad thing to have all those people watching him. Instead, it gave him a feeling of security, that there were so many folks watching and wanting him to do well, to be good.

 

It's a great gift to have folks watch you, to expect and encourage you to be a good person. Those are the eyes of Christ.

John Robert McFarland