There is a certain symmetry to the string of celebrities that have shaped my mind and imagination. It started when I was very young and learned about Jesus in Sunday School and Bible School.
I was baptized at age nine, but it was a few years later when I read the book In His Steps that my attraction to Jesus took root. It was a serialized book published in 1896, translated into 21 languages, and sold more than 30 million copies. It popularized the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” which became for me and many others the summary of the Christian life. I never got into the commercialized frenzy that embedded that phrase on tee shirts, plastic wristbands, and coffee cups. I don’t think that is something Jesus would have done.
Jesus settled deeper in my soul when Jim Bergman, then dean of men at Georgetown College in Kentucky, came to Murray and taught a week-long summer seminar for teenagers on the meaning of discipleship. He told us about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and The Cost of Discipleship.
This double-barreled encounter with Jesus functioned in my life much like the Big Bang did for the universe: set everything in motion and filled it with lasting energy. I’m still moving forward fueled by all that happened in those two short years of adolescence.
Then came Jack.
I was 18 years old and a college student when my mother sent me the paperback edition of Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. Both my parents had read the book, and each had made distinctive markings in the book. It occupies a treasured place in my library to this day.
C.S. was short for Clive Staples. When young, Lewis eschewed both names—and who can blame him—and announced that he should henceforth be called Jacksie, later shortened to Jack, the name by which he was known the rest of his life.
I read everything he wrote, and when I read his essay “On the Reading of Old Books” wherein he encourages the reader to forget the secondary literature in favor of primary (books actually written by famous and influential people), I resolved to do just that: skip the burgeoning literature about Lewis and focus on the stuff he actually wrote.
Before it was over, I had read everything then in print, including fiction, essays, letters, memoirs, sermons, and his professional work on medieval and renaissance literature. As the Lewis estate released more of his formerly unpublished stuff, I read it with eagerness. Especially the letters: the three volumes edited by (one time UK instructor) Walter Hooper is the very best of Lewis: original, interesting, insightful, and as fine a use of the English language as anything I have ever read.
Jack taught me to write and think, and he embodied a way of being Christian that was neither frumpy or fundamentalist but simple and deep and wide-ranging. I read him still with great profit and much gratitude.
Then came Jerry.
Seinfeld, that is. He was Jewish, of sorts, and that contributed to his well-spring of humor. Boy, was that well-spring deep!
His show ran for nine years, from July of 1989 to May of 1998. Throughout much of its tenure it was the top show on television. I am in good company in judging it the best comedy of all time.
Jerry was the star, of course, but he was not the best actor or comedian. His judgment is selecting Elaine, George, and Kramer as sidekicks—each of them a better actor and comedian than Jerry—was at the core of Jerry’s success.
And what a success it was. No telling how many hundreds of millions of dollars have been deposited in the bank accounts of those four actors and their occasional and regular guests as well as others who helped to create and produce the show.
Along with others, I watch Seinfeld clips every day and laugh and laugh, even though, like a child, I know the lines by heart!
After Jesus, Jack, and Jerry came John. John Prine, to be exact.
I had never heard of him until two months after his death on April 7, 2020 (COVID). A friend introduced me to John by posting that first tribute video. The date was June 22 of that same year.
Who knows what mysteries of mind and emotion conspire to make a person open to new ideas, new music, new experiences, new people, especially late in life?
I was 70 years old, and all I can conclude is that whatever John had in the way of perspective, imagination, and humor is exactly what I needed at that time … and at this time.
Hardly a day has gone by that I have not listened to his music. And (can I confess?), hardly a sermon goes forth that does not include an allusion to or a quote from the late great John Prine. Just yesterday, I took a five mile walk and listened to the entire contents of his first album (1971) and all of his performance at the House of Strombo (2018).
I assume now that, like his predecessors Jesus, Jack, and Jerry, I will never lose my taste for, and my attraction, to the lyrics and personae of John Prine. I have written seven short articles on John and hope to write a book along the theme of The Gospel and John Prine.
Will my quartet of Js be enlarged yet again before I cross the finish line of life? Who knows? But if so, I will be pleased to turn my quartet into a quintet. It sounds trite to send a “thank you” to Jesus, Jack, Jerry, and John; but I don’t know what else to do, except give glory to God for punctuating my very ordinary life with four extraordinary people.
When I get to heaven, to quote John Prine, I plan to get the four of them together and have a conversation, or sing a song, or tell jokes, or read a story. I might even drink a beer, which is something I have never done!
But whatever we do, it will be a rich and rewarding time and very much worth the wait.
(November 2021)
