October 23, 2000
CYBERCOLUMN:
Pillars of granite and crystal
___By John Duncan
___I'm sitting here under the old oak tree thinking about pillars. Pillars stand strong with Christ as their foundation to support the church of our Lord Jesus. So today I'm reminiscing about a couple I pastored in college.
___Not too long ago, T. Earl and Emma S. Parks died. They lived long lives--he a spry 92, and she an energetic 85, just days short of her 86th birthday. I was pastor of Locker Baptist Church from October 1980 until September 1982. Earl and Emma served as what you might call pillars of the church. He was granite, a rock-solid saint faithful to Christ. She was crystal, a sparkle in the granite, ever aglow with the glory of God.
JOHN DUNCAN
___Earl was born on July 18, 1904, the son of Gertrude and James Alonzo Parks. He ranched in San Saba County in Central Texas his whole life. Earl loved his Lord, loved his church and loved his pastor. And he had a great sense of humor. One Sunday, our attendance dipped to a grand total of five. It really wasn't that big of a deal; we averaged 12 a Sunday, but attendance peaked at an all time high of 28 one Sunday when the Boy Scouts showed up. Boy, was I in high cotton on that day!
___I was in low cotton, though, on that five-in-attendance Sunday. When you're new in the ministry, you kind of feel like it's your fault when attendance isn't so good. Needless to say, I unloaded my whole sermon on all five, 45 minutes of Jacob and Joseph, Job and Jonah, John the Baptist and Jesus--all in one holy breath! Since I majored in Greek in college, I threw in a few Greek words to let them know that this city boy wasn't so dumb after all!
___Then Earl, boots spit-shined, blue jeans starched stiff, cracked a smile right smack-dab after the closing prayer. He quickly moved to the front and shared this little bit of homespun wisdom. "Preacher, when a few cows show up for feeding time, I just want you to know, I don't dump the whole load at once!"
___That was Earl, full of laughs, quietly mentoring a green preacher on what it meant to serve the Lord. I sat with Earl through surgery, visited him in the hospital and went out to eat at old Underwood's barbecue in Brownwood. T. Earl Parks ministered to me more than I ever ministered to him. That's Earl, granite with a rock-solid faith in a world crumbling at its very foundations. For Earl, the Rock was Christ.
___ Now Emma was born to Osha and Thomas Brack Scott in Coryell County on Nov. 19, 1910. In those days, you weren't born in a hospital with video cameras, epidurals and doctors on stand-by with beepers on their belts. You were born, well, at home, with hot rags and lots of painful grunts and groans, loud oohs and ahs. A pretty girl she was to her proud mama and daddy!
___Earl and Emma married in Rising Star on the last day of 1941. What a way to end one year, riding with your new bride into a new year!
___Emma became a home economics teacher in Richland Springs, not far from downtown Locker, which in those days was nothing more than a corner store, a white-frame church, peanut farms and lots of cattle. Boy could Emma teach--cooking, sewing and home economics. Many a San Saba County girls learned at the feet of Mrs. Parks.
___Emma dressed quite nicely--lace cut just right, flowery prints, hand-made, home-made, buttoned in prim and proper fashion. She wasn't stuffy, just manicured properly. Legend has it she arrived at church one Sunday in a new dress. She looked down to pray, only to notice her new dress was on wrong side out. She quietly slipped out after the prayer, out to the outhouse, that is. She changed that dress right side out. That was Emma, a woman who wanted things to look just right. She clothed herself fine, so fine. But she knew God looked beneath the exterior to the heart. Oh, did Emma have a heart--a heart for God, that is!
___Emma loved to sing "Make Me a Channel of Blessing." It was my job to lead the singing. Back then the church asked, "Do you want to sing and/or preach?" Long before Deion Sanders made it popular, all I could say was, "Both." I preached and led the singing and told Mrs. Parks, "I've never even heard this song." But we sang it, nonetheless, and every time I hear it I think of Emma. She was crystal, a life aglow in a world full of dark shadows, radiating as a channel of blessing to everyone who saw her. And the Light was Christ.
___ Put Earl and Emma together and you have marble, smooth as silk; transparent as clear glass. That's just the way they were, beautiful saints serving Jesus happily.
___ Earl had not been in the best of health, but the lawn mower had been repaired and needed to be picked up. After all, his grandson would be over in a few days to mow the lawn. So on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 1996, Earl and Emma got in their pick-up truck, drove to San Saba, about 20 minutes from the Locker community, to load the riding lawn mower. They never made it home. I never got the details, but somebody smashed their truck, and Earl and Emma entered heaven, he that day, she days later. A double funeral set them to rest, their caskets placed six feet under in the sandy soil of Locker Cemetery next to their lineage. Ah, but their souls, they rest in heaven, in a cleft beneath the Rock, in the sunshine of washed Light. I guess they made it home after all, huh?
___I'm here to tell you, you cannot build a church without pillars, without Rock and Light, without granite and crystal, without good folks like Earl and Emma Parks. Old Earl, he's smiling real big for sure. Bet that's some ranch he's got now!
___And Emma? I think I hear her singing, "Out in the highways and byways of life, Many are weary and sad; Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife, Making the sorrowing glad. Make me a blessing, Make me a blessing, Out of my Life. May Jesus shine; Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray, Make me a blessing to someone today." Oh, that Emma. She's dressed fine now, oh so fine.
___ Make me a channel of blessing.
___ John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines
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