Apr 22
11
Shouldn’t a Guy Going on 95 Be Allowed to Reminisce?
– by d/”b”
A true story, circa 1975 (to the best of my recollection).
I had been hired to coordinate an advertising program for a company in the Pacific Northwestern U.S. that specialized in producing a variety of live motivational and training seminars for the sales personnel of client companies.
Larry Allen (name changed), the president, of that company, wanted to showcase one of his top seminar performers in some T.V. spots, billboards and a direct mail campaign aimed at businesses as a way of bringing to them the impressive statistics proving business gains for companies that had employed Larry’s company’s services.
Buddy Graebel (name changed) was the top guy among about twenty platform performers working for Larry and the first thing he wanted to have happen was for me to watch Buddy in action to see what ideas it might engender in me for the campaign.
Buddy had been a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church pastor for over twenty years. The Missouri Synod is considered to be one of the more “conservative and evangelical,” of the various Lutheran denominations in America with a strong doctrine regarding the “inerrancy” of the Christian Bible.
Buddy was of medium height and build, full head of hair, dressed well, but conservatively; he carried himself with utmost confidence yet presented an almost aura of sincere humility.
Watching him work with a group of about forty salespeople was fascinating. He had the ability to draw out and make comfortable the most introverted people in the group and to help them absorb and demonstrate the “win/win” sales techniques the company was promoting as a way to increase sales and achieve personal success.
Afterward, I went up to introduce myself and to explain that Larry had contracted with my company to produce a publicity campaign featuring Buddy.
“That’s pretty flattering for a defrocked preacher,” he said disarmingly.
That was about 4:30 p.m. …and I asked him if he’d like to tell me about it.
Ten hours later, 2:30 a.m., after drinks and dinner, Buddy and I were still talking excitedly; now at his apartment – fast friends for life! (Well, with a slight interruption – more about that in a moment).
Buddy had been the pastor of a large (by Missouri Synod standards) church in East Texas; his wife, who was the church pianist, ran off with the music director …a close friend of Buddy’s from early childhood. Buddy subsequently got involved with the music director’s wife – end of a very successful church ministry, marriage, friendship, etc.
I had asked Buddy if he realized he produced an almost group-magic dynamic. He passed it off as being the result of Larry Allen’s training and program.
I pointed out that if that was the case why had Larry chosen to make him the focal point of the campaign? …then came out of my mouth something that surprised even me. “Buddy,” I said, “you are Jesus Christ incarnate. You demonstrated a genuine love toward those people today that is way beyond anything I have ever seen.”
“Yeah, well God gave me that, and it’s too bad I messed up my life. I didn’t have to let what _____ and _____ (wife and music director) did cause me to go off the deep end, but I did and that’s that, but I guess I haven’t lost my love for people, I just wish it hadn’t stopped what God was doing at the church.”
For the next several hours I picked Buddy’s brain for how he’d like to see the campaign framed. His ideas were brilliant. The next day I met with Buddy and Larry to begin a series of strategy meetings to develop and integrate the different facets of the promotion.
About two weeks later came the “magical” moment. We were in Buddy’s office and I was sharing with just him, privately, how much more meaning my spiritual life had become since I had left the organized church.
Somewhat surprisingly, since Buddy hadn’t been in a church for over two years, since the “blow up,” as he referred to it, he began to quote all kinds of stuff almost insisting that without church attendance, there can be no spiritual life.
He took out a Bible and turned to a couple of passages he obviously thought supported that view and asked me what “not forsaking assembling yourselves as is the manner of some” (the favorite of many church pastors who use it to “drum up business”) meant to me.
The magic begins:
I took the Bible out of his hands and threw it on the floor. “Buddy,” I said, looking right at him, all you need to do to begin doing whatever God has planned for your life, is to take that and throw it out on the parking lot, piss on it and then grind it into the asphalt with your shoes.”
“Man, you’re gonna go to hell for that one, that’s God’s Word you’re talking about!”
“May I show you something, Buddy?” I asked.
“I don’t know, man, you are something else,” shaking his head …in a very much southern drawl preaching tone.
I showed Buddy one passage that proves that what so many preachers think refers to the Bible as “God’s Word” is actually making reference to our SPIRIT-PARENT and it is emphasized three times in two chapters!
“‘Today if you will hear HIS voice’ …Buddy, it doesn’t say if you will read the Bible, it says if you will hear His voice and stop fighting him as the children of Israel did in the rebellion. It is utter blasphemy to make the Bible into some Holy book. That’s the rebellion and I am going to challenge you to do one thing.
“I know I have offended you, but I also know I was led to tell you what I just said. Ask the SOURCE, Buddy …forget all that crap you and I learned from seminary …ask what you’re supposed to do with your life and keep asking until you know.
“The best thing that ever happened to you was to get thrown out of your church. You are already changing people with the love inside you during the seminars …stop stifling it with religious bullshit that isn’t even Biblical!”
It would be a year before the coolness between us thawed. The ad campaign was a huge success and Buddy was more in demand than ever. He called me one night and invited me out to dinner with him and his new fiancé.
“I wanted you to hear something,” he began almost as soon as we had been seated by the Maitre d’.
“Marilyn and I are getting married because of you,” he continued – “a couple of months ago I remembered what you had said to me about asking God instead of reading the Bible.
“I finally told God I was tired of running away and wanted direction for my life. Something clicked in me that I was kinda like the prodigal son and was being welcomed home.
“The next day I walked into a Hallmark shop to get a birthday card for my mom – and I walked up to the counter to pay for it and there’s Marilyn.
“…and God telling me, ‘This is the one’ …and I didn’t even know I was looking,” he added with a grin.
“Wow, what did you think when you first met Buddy?” I asked her.
“I knew it too …right away. He asked me out and he said he hadn’t asked anyone out ever since his wife left him and I told him that I made it a rule to never respond to anybody asking me out at the store, but I broke the rule and said yes.”
“What a story. Did he tell you about the cooling-off of our relationship because I told him to throw away his Bible?” I asked her.
“Oh yes, the whole thing,” she giggled meaningfully.
The real magic was that Buddy and Marilyn, shortly after their marriage, started a counseling center in Northern California for people who were divorced and felt estranged from God.
They called it “Ask.”
The link to a Brad Cullen article I wrote in 2012 may provide a little needed background. http://spiritualhealingsource.com/?p=2866