The Faith that Fills Stadiums. The Faith that Fills a Kitchen.
Billy Graham’s Last Crusade
Billy Graham’s Last Crusade
(Gary Bolyer) - It’s Friday evening, June 24, 2005, a little after six o’clock. One of those beautiful New York summer afternoons. The air is warm, the sky is a brilliant blue, and there’s not a cloud anywhere.
I’m riding the 7 train toward Shea Stadium. Through the window, I watch the rooftops and neighborhoods of Queens roll by. The city moves around me, but my thoughts are somewhere else entirely.
I’m on my way to Billy Graham’s final crusade at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. I’ve never seen the man in person.
I don’t know exactly why, but it feels like I’m heading toward the end of something important. I still can’t quite believe tonight is finally the night.
The Faith That Nobody Saw
The rhythm and the back-and-forth swaying of the train pulls me into a slow, hypnotic state, and it carries me back decades. I’m seven years old, sitting on the couch beside…
When faith often signifies conformity
When faith often signifies conformity,
The steeple points not to the sky,
But to the rules, the written lore,
The proper answer to the question, "Why?"
The flock moves as a single bird,
In feathers of a matching gray.
A solitary, questioning word
Is taught to fear the light of day.
The river of belief is channeled deep
In stone-walled banks, so straight and cold.
The wild, the wandering streams must sleep,
Lest their uncertain stories be told.
For doubt is not a growing seed,
But just a sin, a fracture line.
A bitter, unforgivable weed
In a garden meant to be divine.
But what of faith that walks alone,
That feels the storm and does not break?
That questions every weathered stone
For a more authentic truth's sake?
What of the heart that seeks the fire,
Not just the warmth the crowd provides?
That builds its own defiant spire
Where a truer, loner spirit resides?
So let conformity be the shell,
The hollow, painted, brittle cast.
But faith—the ocean's rising swell—
Is found when the lone soul holds fast.
Arrogance