Growing up we were poor in many ways but we had love and each other. We never had vacations or went out to restaurants to eat. Our vacations were time to work. Dad would say that he had to return to work to rest. Our eating was at mom’s table and the food that we raised. Brown gravy, biscuits, tomatoes, field peas, and fried potatoes. Mama fixed fried pork tenderloin after we started raising pigs.
One
time during the mid-1960s dad took us to a rodeo in Montgomery, Alabama. This
was prior to the construction of Interstate 65, so our trip was on US Highway 31.
Travel was slower back then and it would take us over an hour to travel there.
The
Hopper had never been to a rodeo especially at the State Capitol. On arriving
the parking lot was full of automobiles and Garrett Coliseum was filling also.
It was exciting to see all the folk wearing cowboy paraphernalia.
The
emcee for the event was Ken Curtis who played Festus on the hit series
Gunsmoke. He had sung with the Sons of the Pioneers and was well spoken. He
sang a song or two, but when he was Festus he got a standing ovation. It was a
big night for that bunch of Hoppers from Mars Hill.
On our way home a fog blanketed the area. The fog was so thick that it looked like
a sheet laying on the windshield. The ride home took twice as long. Momma was
in a panic, but my sister, two brothers, and I knew that daddy could get us
home. It was tense but memorable trip. Daddy could not see very far but he
never lost his focus. He knew what he had to do.
While
attending New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, a preacher friend and I
were headed back home to Alabama after spending a week there and finishing a
final test on a Friday morning. We were in a Caravan. No there were no camels,
donkeys, or large group of people. Hugh my preacher friend owned a Plymouth
Caravan. Before we began our journey, the weather forecast said there was zero
visibility across Lake Pontchartrain. Hugh, a seasoned tractor trailer driver, focused
on the road or what he thought was I 10. The fog across Caravan windshield was
so thick we could not see the Crysler emblem on the hood of the van which was
eighteen inches from the windshield.
Automobiles
buzzed by us like we were sitting still. Hugh was tense, had both hands on the
steering wheel, sweat seeping on his forehead, and was deathly silent. I talked
in a calming voice as we traveled 5.5 miles. I knew my friend would get us
home.
When
we crossed the bridge the fog dissipated, and Hugh relaxed and said I need a
cup of coffee. We stopped at Shoney’s Big Boy in Slidell. Hugh smiled and the
sweat stopped. It was good to have a normal Hugh that I could aggravate again.
There
are plenty of things that cause us to loss our focus. I bought Aaron my
youngest son a telescope. We set it up one night to watch the moon. It was a
wonderful experience except the moon was moving so fast that we had trouble focusing
on it. We had to constantly adjust the telescope.
I
realized how focused NASA had to be to land on the moon. The calculations back
in 1969 were not easily achieved but the vision to put a man on the moon before
the end of the decade was a giant step.
In
April 1990, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope produced blurry images. The goal was
far from the sharp, crisp views projected. The cause was a spherical
aberration which was a flaw in the telescope’s primary mirror that the
impossibility to correct mirror in space. Engineers designed a corrective
optics system. Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour performed a
servicing mission in December 1993. It is an understatement to say the results
were “pictures out of the world.”
If
you are like me I have to have corrective optics performed every six months. “Father
time” is causing flaws in my focus. I have perfect sight for far away but up
close is a blur. Sometimes when I exit the house the Alabama humidity is so bad
that my glasses fog.
I
am glad that Jesus did not lose his focus. There were plenty of obstacles that
could have prevented Him from saying “It is finished.” He knew what we needed
and completed it.
Max Lucado, one my favorite authors, writes, “The heart of Christ was relentlessly focused on one task, The day he left the carpentry shop of Nazareth he had one ultimate aim-the cross of Calvary.”
For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many Mark 10:45 KJV
“For
the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10 KJV
