Paying Dues

The only reason to celebrate those who’ve touched your life is because that touch made things work a lot better.
Whatever else goes on in my life, I always know what I have to do. There may be some moments where I juggle the options, but only so long as it takes for all but one of them to drop and break. It won’t matter what crazy crap the world tosses at me, I’m ready.
I got that way due in large part to a bunch of people who contributed to the process. As regards my intellectual development, three names loom yet large in my mind from my time at Oklahoma Baptist University (1974-1978). So far as I know, the first on the list is the only one still living, but their contribution lives on in me, and surely others in this world.
Dr. Robert Clarke, Philosophy: Not just the history of philosophers, but logic and the art of thinking itself. He also awakened me to Ancient Hebrew epistemology. We were on the same wavelength from the start. Admittedly, most of what I learned from him was packed away into my subconscious, because my intellect was simply not up to it in those days. Yet over the years I keep stumbling across some long-forgotten understanding he managed to bury in my head, rising up from the depths in his voice, with his face and dynamic delivery.
Dr. Rowena Strickland, Bible: She was the only professor in the Religion Department who actually understand the Book. Shocking it may be, but at a Southern Baptist college, all the other professors tried to tear away whole chunks in naked disbelief. She showed me I could trust the Book. I still don’t understand how this scrawny little old lady managed to keep a bunch of rowdy Baptist preacher boys in check without once calling into question anyone’s manhood. She managed to cling to the biblical image of womanhood and still shot holes in a bunch of silly mythology. She understood the whole genesis of the Dispensationalist delusion, watched that heresy rise during her tenure, and crushed it intellectually. Oh, and she was one the first few women to get a ThD from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and her thesis covering the Messianic Expectations of the First Century Jewish scholars has only been confirmed repeatedly since then (explains the source of the Zionist heresy).
Dr. Tom Yarbrough, Psychology: A professional clinical psychologist, he showed us in a single course how to integrate clinical studies of human behavior with ineffable spiritual realities. He was able to explain unmistakable clinical symptoms of genuine spiritual change. Just our one class of students walked away forever changed by his ability to integrate the two in our understanding. No one else I’ve heard or read has ever come close.
Because of them I understand this world is a prison, death is my friend, yet suicide would be utterly stupid. Had I taken any other path but the high road of personal denial these three made possible, I’d have died in shame long ago.