The phone rang and immediately the precise diction of the caller tipped me off that it was a business solicitation. After a couple of opening niceties, the spiel came.
"Mr. LeMaster, I am calling to say that you are pre-approved for our new platinum Discover Card!"
Quickly I deflated the solicitor’s enthusiasm by responding, "I am sorry. my New Year’s resolutions is not to obtain any more credit cards. Thank you for calling."
I went back to my chores, but could not seem to get the call off my mind. Like most of you, we receive frequent phone and mail solicitations for credit cards, even our younger daughter Megan whose credit history is shorter than a "give-me" putt. Any day now I expect to receive a credit card invitation addressed to Miss Priscilla LeMaster. Prissy, our dog, has never charged anything, but she has had her eye on a platinum card from Wal-Mart where we get most of her dog food.
That was what stuck in my mind--the platinum idea. Gold is no longer good enough when it comes to credit cards. Only platinum cards will do now for the really discerning consumer.
Platinum, so I am told, is the world's newest, rarest metal, discovered only in the 1600s. How rare? All the platinum ever mined would occupy less than 25 cubic feet. More precious than gold, some would say. Recent metal prices had platinum at $1116 per ounce compared to gold's $628 per ounce. Just last week The Tennessean carried a front page article about the recent wave of thefts of automobiles’ catalytic converters in our area. The reason? Each converter contains a small amount of platinum that will bring up to $100 on the black market.
Platinum is all the rage today. You have not really made it in the music industry any more when your recording has gone golden (50,000 units). You must have a platinum album (100,000 units) to really be considered a top draw. Platinum wedding bands are being touted as the superior choice when deciding to "tie the knot." And the day will probably come when we award four medals to Olympic competitors instead of the present three. Gold medals will go to mere second-place finishers. The winners will have platinum draped around their necks.
Call me old-fashioned, but you will never replace the "gold standard" as far as I am concerned. To me, a man's word can be as good as gold, but no better. And a proper silence will always be golden in my book. And, please, no platinum streets in heaven! Gold will do just fine!!

Yours ‘til they ring those golden bells,

Phil LeMaster

Let Me Have Christmas

It was one of the most unusual funerals I ever conducted. The deceased woman had converted to Judaism when she married her Jewish husband. He had long since died and as she grew older she had a strong desire to return to the Christian faith of her youth--and she did. I took her confession in a hospital room and we cried together tears of joy.

But her family connections were now strongly Jewish and I was asked to share the funeral with a young rabbi.

He called me and very bluntly said, “You know, if you mention Jesus at the memorial service you will offend the Jewish people present."

Could I just do my eulogy and leave Jesus out? Of course, I replied that what he was asking of me was impossible. I couldn't preach a sermon, I couldn't offer a eulogy, I couldn't even pray a prayer without mentioning Jesus!

To be honest, I was a much more worried about offending God by not talking about His Son! To make a long story short, we compromised. I preached the funeral (and talked about Jesus) and the rabbi did the graveside service (and talked about death).

I have a few words for the ACLU, the Jewish community, the Muslim community, the public school administrators, and anyone else up in arms about the Christian emphasis at Christmas time: we Christians have feelings and rights, too! I find myself totally offended when you suggest I can't talk about Jesus or put on display the symbols representing His birth at this season of the year.

When my religious freedom and yours clash in this country, it would seem that compromise is in order. I will make you a deal. If you will let me rejoice and celebrate Christ's birth at Christmas, I won't say a word about your overt acts of religiosity on Hanukkah, Ramadan, or Wesak.

Go ahead. Light a candle. Take a pilgrimage. Chant a mantra. Put up a star of David or erect a statue of Buddha. It's a free country. But in the name of fairness, let me have Christmas!

----Phil LeMaster

Over forty years ago a cousin who was teaching in Cleveland, Ohio, at the time remarked about how unruly the high school students there had become. Her chief complaint? The boys refused to wear belts with their pants.

The recent rash of school murders reminds us once again how far we have slipped as a civilized nation in the past few decades. Hardly a school semester passes today, it seems, without another incident of tragic proportions on a high school or middle school campus somewhere in America.

A friend of a friend resigned his teaching position a few years ago, saying, “I am tired of working in a system where the teacher is afraid of the principal, the principal is afraid of the superintendent, the superintendent is afraid of the school board, the school board is afraid of the parents, the parents are afraid of the kids, and the kids aren’t afraid of anybody!”

Therein lies the problem, I believe. The kids aren’t afraid of anybody. Too many young people in America today grow up in homes where they are not taught to respect any authority. There is a hierarchy of respect that God intended for all of us to learn when we are young. It starts with a respect for Him. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” the Bible says (Proverbs 9:10). Building on this respect for God, children learn to respect the authority of their parents, governmental officials, and even their local school leaders.

The truth is that God is such a minor player in most American homes today that children grow up never knowing or understanding the importance of respecting authority. The end result is the murder and mayhem of Columbine, Pearl (MS), and Lancaster County (PA).

Moms and Dads, don’t blame the school system. Today’s public school teacher has a job that is ten times harder than their predecessors of a generation ago. They are doing the best they can with what you and I are giving them. In all honesty, the “product” teachers have to work with today is an inferior one. The new millenium’s average child is rootless and thus often ruthless. Until we begin to take God seriously again in the American home, I am afraid we can expect such carnage to continue.

-----Phil LeMaster

Raw Umber and Burnt Sienna
In late October I drove over to Lewis County, Kentucky, to see my Mom and do some work for my brothers. It was interesting to note the change in the colors of the leaves as I traveled the A-A highway. The beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows of early autumn had disappeared and in their place were darker hues that were much less pleasing to the eye.
In trying to pinpoint the colors, I found myself thinking of crayons and of the hues in the boxes of 64 which seemed to match up with the Eastern Kentucky hills’ late fall display. "Raw umber!" I thought (actually "burnt umber" is what I thought, but Crayola assured me that they had never produced such a color). Raw umber and burnt sienna are two of the colors we ignored in our Crayola "big boxes.” (Crayola tells me that they retired raw umber in 1991, but I was able to find a nearly new one downstairs in our First Grade classroom.) The reds and yellows, and even the golds and silvers, were pulled out of the box and used over and over again.
But raw umber and burnt sienna would sit there, patiently waiting their turn, but never being used. Those two dull earth tones were just a waste of space in the box, it seemed. But God needs them and uses them! There comes a time each fall when he presses them into service and they become the main players on His autumnal canvas.
It shouldn't surprise us that God has a use for every color--and every person. Maybe you are more of a raw umber than a brilliant red. That's okay--God has a ministry for you. Your job is to find it with His help. Have you?

-----Phil LeMaster