Whose Life is it?
“My mercy I will keep for him forever,
And My covenant shall stand firm with him.” Psalm 89:28 KJV
My grandparents, on my mom’s side, lived right on the St. Mary’s River in Maryland. They had a very large family and worked on the river to make a living. When it was crab season, they crabbed and when the autumn came, they went out and gathered oysters.
My grandmother died when I was about ten years old. When that happened, my grandfather was stuck with a boatload of children. Since my mom was the oldest, and the youngest child wasn’t much older than me, my grandfather probably looked to my mother for some help with her much younger brothers and sisters.
I know we were down there for what seemed like every weekend much of my youth. Although my mom grew up on the water, she was very scared of her own children being near the water. It wasn’t that she didn’t want us to swim and play in the water, it’s just that she didn’t like the chances of something happening to us, like drowning.
My Mom is a very smart woman, and she didn’t usually let her fears get the best of her. So, she decided that if her little babies were going to be near the water, they were going to learn to swim. She enrolled us in swimming classes. My sister, who is a year younger than me, and I got to be pretty good swimmers.
My parents would eventually buy summer memberships to a local pool. Then my sister and I would eventually become members of the swim team. I can’t remember how my sister did, but I earned several ribbons from matches I competed in.
Most of us, when we were younger, have dreams of where we wanted to go and things we wanted to do. Sometimes we look at Presidents and think they are different. Most of the Presidents were no different than us. The main difference is that their lives gain much more notoriety than we do because of the job they would eventually occupy.
This future President’s father was a nomadic preacher. I’m sure his father was hoping that his son would follow in his footsteps, but the son had much bigger plans for his life. He wanted to be known and he wanted to make a name for himself.
So, the son became a lawyer and headed off to the big city, New York City that is. Immigrants filled the streets of New York City during this time. Some of these immigrants were quite successful, while still others resided in poverty. New York City was definitely a city of haves and have nots.
The young lawyer teamed up with two others to start a law firm. Even though New York was strongly antislavery, they still had separate-but-equal status for those of color. This status included the transportation system. There were separate streetcars for “Colored People.” In fact, the people of color were only allowed on the streetcars that had a “Colored People Allowed” sign on them.
Elizabeth Jennings was the church organist at the First Colored Congregation Church, in New York City. Running late and having no time to wait for the next streetcar, Elizabeth jumped on the first streetcar that came her way. The problem was that the streetcar didn’t have the “Colored People Allowed” sign.
The driver demanded that she get off. She refused. A scuffle broke out and then the police were called. Things turned ugly and resulted in Elizabeth’s beautiful church dress getting really messed up. She was also injured.
Her church community, and the entire black community, were outraged by the incident. Elizabeth’s family and the black community rallied and gathered the funds for her to take her case to court. This young lawyer handled the case for them, and he won it.
The Bible is full of stories about children’s births. I guess there is just something about cute babies. Genesis tells us Adam and Eve started this baby trend with their first two kids, Cain and Able. Then there was the story of Jacob trying to grab Esau’s heel as Esau was heading out the womb.
How about the story of baby Moses being floated in a basket down the Nile so the Pharaoh’s daughter might save him from the merciless slaughter of baby boys her father instituted. God seems to try to convince Jonah that over 120,000 Nineveh people are worth saving. Part of His reasoning to Jonah would include the saving of innocent children.
Abraham and Sarah seem to laugh when God tells them they are about to have a child in their old age. Each Christmas we celebrate Jesus’ birth. Jesus also healed several children. He even told his disciples they needed to be like children.
There was another strange birth story the Bible mentions. It was one of those stories where God seems to tell the parents that the birth is coming. This child would be born into a “righteous in the sight of God” family. His father would also be a priest.
The angel Gabriel tells the priest the good news of their child’s upcoming arrival. The shocked priest responds by asking Gabriel, “How can that be, my wife and I are very old and we have given up our hope that this would ever happen?”
It must have been one of those days where doubting Gabriel was not such a good idea. Gabriel would issue a harsh punishment on this priest, who the Bible seems to suggest was a godly man. Gabriel renders the priest speechless. I’m not talking about the kind of speechlessness when you hear good news and just can’t find the right words to say. No, Gabriel tells Zechariah, the priest, he will not be able to speak until the child is born. Zechariah is then commanded to name his new son John.
Today it is very popular to name children unique names, but that wasn’t the case in Bible times. In those days children got named after someone, and usually it was a family member. There didn’t seem to be any Johns in Zechariah’s, or Elizabeth’s, his wife’s, family tree. I can hear the congregation now, “John? Why are they naming their child John?”
Although I never used it, I would eventually take a lifeguard class. I’m not sure why I never looked for a lifeguard job because I was always working.
I remember our family went to a competition that involved lifeguards. We just went to watch, and it might have had to do with several of them were involved in my sister’s and my swimming training.
Before that lifeguard meet, my dad had me challenge one of the female lifeguards, who I believe was my lifeguard teacher, to a race. For those who know how competitive I can be, well, that competitive streak didn’t just start yesterday. Even back then, I was going to do my best to beat her.
For some reason, I’m not real sure who won the race between her and me. What I do remember, she was in one of the races at this lifeguard meet. During that race she began to struggle and some of the other lifeguards had to jump in and rescue her. My dad felt so bad, because he thought my racing her before her meet race might have worn her out. Later, she assured him that was not the case.
There are several lessons I learned from my lifeguard classes. The first lesson was that when you see someone in the water in distress, don’t panic and take care of yourself first. If you just jump in and the person pulls you under, there is a good chance there are going to be two people drowning.
The second lesson that lifeguard class taught me was that it is best to first try to throw something to the person in distress in which you can pull them to shore. A long stick or branch would work well, too. It keeps you out of harm’s way and the person seeing there is hope for rescue starts to calm down a little.
If you have to jump in to save someone, it is always best to approach them from behind. Then you can use surprise to the maneuver them into position. The lifeguard class taught you how to do just that. By surprising the victim like this, it keeps you out of harm’s way. This also allows them a moment to shift gears in their thinking. It’s almost like they stop thinking about their distress and start wondering what in the world is going on.
Still, life was not going in the direction this young lawyer, and future President, wanted, or at least not fast enough for him. He wanted to find himself a woman. Nell Herndon, a young nineteen-year-old, stole his heart and it wasn’t long before he was engaged to her.
Nell was definitely above his class, at least at this stage in his life. Her dad, Captain William Lewis Herndon, was a famous sea captain. Among his famous feats, under navy orders, he explored the Valley of the Amazon. He recorded weather, studied flora, and measured and skinned animals and birds. His journals were so vivid that Congress published 10,000 copies of them.
Right after Nell and this lawyer were engaged, the young lawyer headed west, leaving her in New York. You see, there was a gold rush going on out west. He wasn’t headed that way to mine for gold, he was going out to be a lawyer. He figured with all those claims, surely there would be a great demand for lawyers.
About this time the ship the SS Central America was leaving its Panamanian port of Colon. The 477 passengers and a crew of 101 was commanded by none other than the legend, Nell’s dad, Commander William Lewis Herndon. But the passengers weren’t the most valuable cargo on this ship. The 280-foot vessel was also carrying 30,000 pounds of gold, a direct result of the California gold rush. This large amount of gold was expected to be a huge boost to the New York financial sector.
As the SS Central America entered the coastal waters of the Carolinas it collided with a Category 2 hurricane. The sidewheel steamer was no match for such a force, but Commander Herndon was determined to outfox the storm. The storm shredded the sails and she started taking in water. The boilers failed, which led to the pumps not being able to operate.
The ship was doomed, but Commander Herndon was not about to give up. He tried to keep the passengers’ spirits high, while he ordered them to form a bucket brigade to bail water. The ship’s flag was inverted, a sign of distress. No one would see it.
Three days later, two ships were spotted on the horizon. Commander Herndon ordered the lifeboats loaded with women and children first. Only 153 passengers were able to exit on the first trip. The hope was for the lifeboats to return for the other passengers and crew, once the 153 were safely aboard the other ship. The lifeboats would never return.
Commander Herndon would go down with his ship, along with all the gold. Many contribute this disaster with helping cause the Panic of 1857. Nell would plead with her fiancé, the lawyer Chester Arthur, to come back to New York and help the family settle Commander Herndon’s estate. Arthur would do just that. Two years later they were married.
In 1988 the wreckage of the SS Central America was located, and a “significant” amount of the gold was recovered. The Fredericksburg, Virginia born William Lewis Herndon would have two towns named for him: Herndon, Virginia and Herndon, Pennsylvania. There is a monument, the Herndon Monument, in his honor at the US Naval Academy. The Navy has named two ships the USS Herndon in his honor.
John would have a very famous cousin who would be born close to the same time he was. John would also follow in his father’s footsteps in choosing a “religious occupation.” As a career choice John’s style wasn’t as polished as his father’s. He became one of those rogue preachers.
Soon John had many followers. He would baptize his new converts in local rivers or streams. Then he probably thought, “Hey, if I’m doing all this baptizing, maybe I should change my last name to Baptist.” So begins the story of John the Baptist, or at least the Wayne Cruse version of it.
John would eventually baptize his more famous cousin, Jesus. John’s radical peaching style wouldn’t change. He would criticize Herod Antipas because he had divorced his wife Phasaelis so he could marry the wife, Herodias, of his brother, Herod Philip I. John T. Baptist’s criticism doesn’t seem to upset Herod Antipas as much as it did his new wife, Herodias.
In a really weird twist Herodias has her daughter seductively dance in front of Herod Antipas. Herod gets so excited that he promises the young girl whatever she wishes. She gets with her mom, who tells her to ask for the head of John T. Baptist. Because Herod made the claim in front of an audience, he couldn’t back down. John was beheaded and his head was taken to Herodias and her daughter.
When you are a lifeguard, your goal is to save people from certain death. If your goal in life is to always look out for yourself first, being a lifeguard is probably not an occupation for you. Sure, you have to try to keep yourself as safe as possible, but your ultimate goal, as a lifeguard, is to help someone to safety.
I’m sure Captain William Herndon would have loved to be around for his daughter’s wedding. He could have easily hopped on one of those lifeboats and told everyone, “I’ll be right back and I’m going to bring lots of help.” The risk of death at sea was always a possibility of his occupation. He was willing to go down with his ship because he believed his place in life was at the end of the line and not at the beginning.
John the Baptist could have easily kept his mouth shut when he saw Herod’s behavior didn’t line up with God’s commands. Even if he did speak up, he could have retracted what he said, just to stay alive. That would just keep everyone happy. Instead, he so stubbornly believed what God stood for that he was willing to die for it.
Today, it’s a rare thing to have someone willing to stand up for God, much less die for Him. Who knows, maybe it is harder to live for Him than it is to die for Him. We don’t want to offend someone, do we?
Prayer:
Dear Mighty Father, Please forgive me for those times when my silence leaves others with the impression that it is okay to walk on a path which You didn’t design. Instead, teach me to love them in a manner which reflects Your love, while still staying true to Your words. Help them see that as an inspiration to change and not a challenge to prove me wrong. Amen.
Hi Wayne,
Enjoyed the story!