Spirituality Column #764

July 6, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘How About Tomorrow?’

By Bob Walters

After meeting Pam at long-time, beloved E91 pastor Russ Blowers’ funeral on a Thursday (see last week’s column #763, scroll below), we next spoke after that Sunday’s church service.

As mentioned last week, our E91 church in 2007 was huge.  Pam and I attended the same weekly service for probably five years but had never met.  Needing help informing the music ministry about Russ’s online tribute website (Russ Stories link), I recognized Pam from both the orchestra and the choir; a female drummer who was also a six-foot tall blond alto in the choir line was hard to miss.

I wasn’t “looking for her,” specifically.  But when I saw her outside the sanctuary about an hour before the funeral – she was to play tympani with the brass ensemble and I was a pall bearer – I approached, introduced myself, and asked for help passing the word about the Russ tribute site.  It was a quick, concise, and pleasant exchange … but maybe not as random or “chance” as it seemed at the time.

I say we still hadn’t actually “met” because at the funeral there was neither the time nor, understandably, the inclination for small talk.  But Sunday was different. 

After Sunday’s service Pam found me – I always sat near the front a few rows back on the right side, usually with Russ – and said she had emailed the tribute site info to the choir and orchestra members and it was well-received. Mission accomplished.

Chatting in the pews up near the pipe organ console, and in no particular order, we discovered of each other that we both adored Russ, she was an English teacher and I was a writer, that we both had strong (and fond) multi-generational vacation roots in northern Michigan, that we had graduated high school the same year (she near Grand Rapids, Mich., me in Kokomo, Ind.), she was a life-long Christian, a preacher’s kid (PK), and had been at E91 for 27 years, while I was a newbie, baptized at E91 Nov. 18, 2001.

Oh, did I mention that the Sunday when we “met” was Nov. 18, 2007?

We also learned we each had two mostly-grown kids from long-term marriages that had each, ironically enough, ended in May of 2005 with uncontested divorces.  We also learned that each of us had ongoing challenges (family, work, etc.) but we became fast friends and married a year and a half later, Monday, June 22, 2009.

Why a Monday?  Well, we have dear friend and retired pastor John Samples to thank for that one.  I had popped the question to Pam three days earlier on Friday, June 19, just before we headed over to the annual E91 music ministry end-of-season dinner.  Pam had been in the choir and orchestra for nearly 30 years so it became an especially great party for us with dear friends who all cheered, “It’s about time!”   

We were not planning a long engagement, and for logistical reasons marrying “sooner” would be far better than “later.”  Sunday, June 21, at church we approached John about scheduling a time to marry us in the coming weeks.  He pulled out his date book, frowned, and said that starting Tuesday of that week the next several weeks were full of travel and he was otherwise booked.  He just didn’t see how he could work it in.

Then he smiled, looked up at us and said, “How about tomorrow?”

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) needs one more week to tell this story properly.  There was still a huge Russ-related and not-random surprise Pam was not telling Bob.  

Friends,  Here is Common Christianity #831 (10-18-22), “She’s No Angel.” Our dear friend Joyce Samples passed away last Saturday.  Her journey is complete, she is now among the angels … but God gives us so much more.  See the column below.  Blessings and Joy, Bob

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Spirituality Column #831

October 18, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

She’s No Angel

By Bob Walters

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” – Romans 8:17

“Our Joyce just went to heaven.”

The succinct text from dear friend and pastor John Samples arrived at 2:33 this past Saturday afternoon, October 15, 2022,

Through tears I say RIP and be with Jesus, Joyce Estes Samples.  Many are the voices of heaven welcoming another saint. 

And to Joyce, I hope no one thinks you’re an angel, because you are so much more.

Angels are servants of God, and humans who believe in and love Jesus Christ are heirs of God.  In Jesus we are divinely adopted into the Kingdom of God, where we live eternally as sons and daughters – heirs – of God Almighty in glory through the grace of Jesus Christ.

There … just wanted to get that said.  Joyce, created in the image of God, has fully joined the family of God and heaven is better off for it.  Her humanity is now perfected.

I loved Joyce Samples.  Everybody did.  She was mom to many of us, not just to her loving and protective sons John W. Samples, with whom she and John lived, and Dain Samples, who died too soon.  Joyce will always be a beautiful, loving, encouraging, and no-holds-barred lover of Jesus Christ and sister in the faith.  She is a friend in the Kingdom of God.

Our corporate, faith-family prayers deeply embrace her husband, John.  His strong, wise presence – in my opinion and others’ – as Senior Pastor Emeritus carried our East 91^st Street Christian Church through a difficult season of pastor-transition 12 years ago.  He’s the best.

Why do I think so much of the Samples?  Well, John married Pam and me, June 22, 2009 (after we asked him on June 21, 2009 – click CommonChristianity - 764 to see the column; it’s a great story).  In 2008 John and Joyce trusted me to drive their grandson Ehren to Civil Air Patrol camp up in Michigan.  Three years before that, John arranged the 2005 baptism of my son Eric by Russ Blowers (also a great friend and pastor) in an E91 Sunday service. 

Also in 2008, John and Joyce asked me to publicly share a family story (my actual working life was in journalism/public relations).  Of nine Estes siblings including Joyce, seven of them, all alive, were married for 50 or more years; one brother died after 48 years of a marriage delayed two years by his service in World War II (note: that would have been 50), and the ninth Estes sibling, a baby sister, died before age 2.  Read all about it at CommonChristianity - 275.

The Estes Golden Anniversary story went national on Associated Press and Jay Leno offered to fly them all to LA to appear on the Tonight Show.  The Estes clan declined because some family members refused to fly – anywhere – including L.A.  They just never had … flown.

John and Joyce’s 72^nd wedding anniversary would be this Oct. 28. Their 70^th anniversary during October Covid in 2020 was celebrated with hotdogs at Costco, their charming tradition.  The Castleton Costco manager set up the employee quarantine lunch area for them.  Awesome.

Yes … scripture says there are no marriages in heaven (Matthew 22:30, like the angels, who also are not married).  But Joyce was a presence who made folks on this side of the river sure there was a heavenly home awaiting.  Faith, love, joy and kindness were what Joyce sowed in the Kingdom every day.  I don’t know how it all works but I hope she’s rejoicing with Dain.  The rest of us will be along at some point. 

For now, with a big amen to a beautiful child of God, Joyce is home, safe, and loved. But she’s no angel.  She’s an heir in God’s image, and a beacon of light and love to the faithful.

Look at Joyce, and remember.  And celebrate.  And know … that’s how you do it.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes he’ll especially miss Joyce’s daily “Ponders” (CommonChristianity - 535). She was 89.  Her funeral is Sunday, Oct. 23, 1 p.m., in The Hall at E91.  Visitation at noon.

Reflexively including God in our planning and goals is a great relationship builder – with Jesus.  See the column below.  

On a personal note, today I’m remembering minister and friend Russ Blowers, whose funeral was 15 years ago, Nov. 15, 2007.  The unexpected bright side that day was that I met my wife Pam there – she playing tympani in the brass ensemble, and I was a pall bearer.  I wrote about it back in 2021, columns 763, 764, and 765, which are easily searched in the white box in the upper left hand corner, just above). - Bob

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Spirituality Column #835

November 15, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Lord Willing

By Bob Walters

“… you ought to say, ‘if it is the Lord’s will we will live and do this or that.’” – James 5:15

I’ve always over-simplified this seemingly straight-forward passage, “Lord willing!” and confined it to sort of begging God’s approval for what I plan to do.

“See you tomorrow!” Or, “Let’s meet for lunch Tuesday.”  I reflexively, piously, and maybe quasi-reverently say, “Lord willing,” the same way I reflexively pray, “In Jesus’s name,” without thinking through all the depth involved.

The key thing I tend to miss in saying “Lord willing” is that I’m really thinking about my plans, not God’s will.  Yes, “Lord willing” is a perfunctory nod to God’s will, and in most simple, routine planning, it’s not a terrible habit.

However, the large point here is not just identifying and nodding to God’s will as we plan, but truly including God’s will in all things that we intend.  This general epistle credited to James, the brother of Jesus and first head of the Jerusalem church, is for Christ-believing Jews in the mid-first century, here focusing on business and money. 

Jews were long noted for their trading and financial acumen, and James is telling these new Christian believers to include God and the lessons of Christ in their business planning, beyond what they had known and practiced from the Law.

And what, now, was new?  God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, personal sacrifice, humility, and the totality of His presence through the example of Jesus.  How they acted in business and elsewhere was now their witness for Christ. 

James was driving that point home.  Christian faith encrypted a whole new way of looking at life: they were now, through Christ, not a sinful and rebellious nation but forgiven heirs of God.  They – we – must act like it.

The Law, remember, laid out specific times and places for doing things.  There was none of that in Christianity.  Jesus had declared He was the Sabbath – i.e., He was to be honored at all times and in all places, not just on a given day and or a given place.  The New Testament says nothing about festivals or temples (except our bodies).

Jesus is with us always, and He sent the Holy Spirit to assure us of His abiding presence.  When we are with Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, we are in the Sabbath – the peace, love, and presence of God. 

Early Christians celebrated the first day of the week as The Lord’s Day, commemorating Jesus’s resurrection.  And for 2,000 years the church – on Sunday not Saturday – has more or less co-opted the idea of continuing the “seventh day of rest” described in Genesis and called for in Mosaic Law.  But Sunday isn’t the Sabbath.

Where the fourth commandment, “keep holy the Sabbath,” means a specific day to the Jews; that’s how the Law works.  In Christ “keep holy the Sabbath” means keeping Jesus in our hearts, minds, souls, spirits, and planning … all the time. 

That means living in and witnessing to the grace and integrity of our Lord moment to moment, season to season, and year to year.  The sacrifice He wants from us isn’t dependent on a law or code, it is the perpetual entirety of our lives and love.

Jesus is with us all the time … if we want Him there. 

Lord willing, we do.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) generally still seems to recognize God’s will after something has happened rather than with the prophetic discerning of God’s will in advance.  It keeps life interesting, that’s for sure.

Friends: Do we want a humorless society that is rife with condemnation and hate? Elon Musk asked that question back in 2021, bought Twitter in 2022, and may have changed the country in 2024. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #939

November 12, 2024

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Prayers, and $44 Billion in Free Speech

By Bob Walters

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus, John 8:32

It sure has been a newsy week.

Happy, thankful Republicans have been spreading around credit and glee for a decisive, multi-level victory.  Saddened and shell-shocked Democrats are variously assigning blame and steeping themselves in angry denial over a repudiating loss. 

The wise on the left are engaging in introspection; the wise on the right are hoping for peace, sanity, and truth. We all should pray for unifying our nation.

It is fine if you view things differently, but rage one way or gloating the other helps no one. Love God, love thy neighbor, love thy enemy, help the nation heal … and pray. And do something nice for someone.  It is amazing how that lifts one’s own spirits.

That is all I want to say today about politics.  Sure, I have many thoughts – as do we all – but I’ve said this much politically only in order to look back at something I wrote nearly three years ago, and an unexpected election-game-changing event from 2022.

It is a story centered on Elon Musk, free speech, and my favorite Christian and political/cultural satire site, the Babylon Bee, “Fake news you can trust,” hilarious daily.

If, like me, you long ago lost your trust in the media, generally – especially the legacy and narrative-controlling media who non-stop purvey and champion seemingly every toxic idea in America (wokeness, anti-racism, gender fluidity, open borders, “Trump is Hitler” and his supporters are garbage) – here’s a perspective I had missed.

Back in December 2021, Elon Musk, notably apolitical but leaning left, appeared on the Babylon Bee podcast with owner Seth Dillon and editor Kyle Mann. One hundred minutes of great conversation (LINK: Elon Musk Sits With The Babylon Bee) concluded with Dillon and Mann, Christians, seriously asking Musk if he would accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Musk, then recently named the richest man in the world and who during the podcast had expressed his surprise that “anyone had actually read the entire Bible,” responded to the Jesus question by asking if they meant, “the God of Spinoza?” Uh, no.

Here’s what I wrote about the Bee and Musk then (LINK: “The God of Spinoza”).  I ended the column encouraging prayer for Musk’s faith; he would make a great Christian.

Scant weeks later in the spring of 2022, Twitter suspended the Babylon Bee’s account because of a joke it posted about trans-female (i.e., biological man) U.S. health official Rachel Levine, naming her “Man of the Year.” Sticking to its free speech guns, the Bee refused to retract the joke and was de-platformed by Twitter in April 2022.

Some months later Musk, righteously outraged at Twitter’s suspension of the Bee and suspicious of Twitter’s truth-stifling censorship, in October 2022 bought Twitter for $44 billion (with a B) and fired 85 percent of its staff. It turns out that to empower free speech, Twitter – renamed “X” – didn’t need all those “fact checkers,” i.e., censors. Truth wins.

To understand Twitter’s deleterious influence and sway on American opinion in recent U.S. elections and, really, all American culture, watch this brief, four-minute, post-election opinion video by Peter Heck (LINK: How The Babylon Bee helped shape election history). It explains much about what happened last week, and how truth was recovered.

Free speech doesn’t always yield truth, but censorship always protects lies.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) thanks Heck, and continues to pray for Musk’s faith.

P.S. The Babylon Bee has a companion daily “news” site, LINK NottheBee.com, with sarcastic spin on actual news.  Also highly recommended.

P.S.S. Sunday, Nov. 10, was the 17^th anniversary of Russ Blowers’s death in 2007.  He was a great preacher and friend to us all, and continues to be an inspiration. My wife Pam and I met at his funeral, Thursday, November 15, 2007, at East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis. See Common Christianity columns Nos. 763, 764, and 765 for the story.

P.S.S.S. I missed an anniversary.  Last week’s column began the 19^th year of Common Christianity, published now 939 weeks in a row dating back to Nov. 6, 2006 when it first appeared in the Current in Carmel weekly newspaper (through 2015). During that first year, my editor each week was Russ Blowers until he got sick in the late summer.  Early on I didn’t publish anything Russ hadn’t seen. Now, I don’t publish anything Pam hasn’t seen.

P.S.S.S.S. – Since this is going out on Veterans Day, Vets, thank you for your service! Especially my brother Joe (Coast Guard 1979-2000) and my Gold Star Uncle Bob McKinney, RIP (WWII Navy aviator, 1941-1943).

Friends: It all started with a phone call from a sports writing buddy back in 2006. 

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Labels: column history, Current in Carmel, George Bebawi, My Walk, Psalms 107:2, Russ Blowers, wife Pam

Spirituality Column #1001

January 20, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Where to Begin …   

By Bob Walters

“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story …” – Psalms 107:2

Steve Greenberg called me in the summer of 2006, inquiring whether I’d be interested in being the managing editor of a new weekly newspaper he and a friend were starting. The paper was – and with proliferation still is – Current in Carmel.

Steve was a longtime journalism friend and colleague; he was the sports editor at the Indianapolis Star in the 1990s while I was the public relations director at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the 1980s I had been a sportswriter at the Star, knew Steve from being elsewhere in the Indiana sports media and, when we were independents in the late 1990s and early 2000s, worked on various publishing and PR projects together.

Though grateful, I turned down Steve’s Current editorial offer since at the time I had a good job in corporate communications and joked with him that I didn’t want to be unemployed in a year when the Current newspaper failed because newspapers were dying off, not starting up.

But I did offer to provide – free of charge – content for Current in Carmel, a weekly religion column which initially was called “In Spirit.” Steve hadn’t thought of a Christian-focused weekly feature, but I pitched the notion that Carmel is exactly the kind of community that goes to church: affluent, educated, and family oriented.  Six of the largest protestant churches in Indiana were located either in or adjacent to Carmel, along with being central to three huge Catholic parishes.

Steve, though not religious himself, said okay. Current was an otherwise completely secular publication, so my musings about Christianity, culture, and my own still-new Christian walk amounted to a jarring, contextual non-sequitur. Steve found my content “edgy” – a compliment; I wrote like a sportswriter, not a pastor, and the editors never touched it; the column ran as written. I also wrote with the gee-whiz wonder of nascent, intense faith, constant encouragement from pastor Russ Blowers, and fresh perspectives from Bible scholar and teacher George Bebawi.

I was baptized in November 2001 and had struck up a friendship with Russ that over time included many emails back and forth. Then – a God thing – I met George at a picnic gathering of old high school friends in May of 2002. With Russ’s cheerleading, I submitted a one-year-after-9/11 column titled “Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero” to the Star, which it printed on its editorial page September 11, 2002. After that Russ constantly urged me to establish a writing ministry.

George, about whom I have written dozens if not hundreds of times in the weekly column, also became an email pal while he was still on the divinity faculty at Cambridge University, England. He retired in spring 2004 and moved to Carmel where he married wife May, whom I had met through those same high-school friends some 20 years earlier.  Russ and I convinced George to teach a weekly Bible and doctrine class at our East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis. From its beginning in September 2004 until 2018 I coordinated the class, formatting George’s teaching materials and taking copious notes of my own. I have them all and will never run out of material.

When Current in Carmel went live with the column November 7, 2006 – only its third edition – In Spirit elicited an avalanche of “you can’t run that religious stuff in a public newspaper” reaction, which created buzz that Steve and his publishing partner loved. They would forward complaint emails to me, to which I would respond with kind conviction, never bitterness or condescension. 

Voila! I had my writing ministry.

Russ was my editor that first year, always tickled at my boldness and forthright Christian / Bible witness, cheering me on and rarely citing corrections.  Russ died in November 2007, and I met my wife Pam at his funeral.  She has been my encouraging and gentle editor ever since.

We published my first 260 columns (five years) in late 2011 as a book, Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary, followed by Volume II in mid-2017. Those were fun, bucket list check-offs (“publish a book”), but have no plans for more.  Current succeeded wildly and quickly expanded to editions for Noblesville, Westfield, Fishers, Zionsville, and Geist, and ran the column through 2015.

When Current canceled In Spirit, Pam and I figured, “Why stop?” We have a blog, around six hundred on our free, weekly email list (happy to add more, just ask), and post on social media.

So now nearly 20 years on we are 1,000 columns in – make that 1,001; 1,001 weeks in a row without a miss. You never know what the Holy Spirit is going to come up with, but I plan to keep paying close attention.

Walters’ (rlwcom@aol.com) books are available Here, the blog is Here, and the story about meeting Pam is in columns 763, 764, and 765 in the blog. Greenberg is a good guy but not religious. Walters always included his own email address in the column for comment, and incidentally, was laid off from that corporate communications job a year after telling Steve the newspaper wouldn’t work.  One thousand columns are a lot but Walters isn’t getting cocky; minister Dave Faust who baptized Walters at E91 in 2001 has been writing weekly pastoral and Bible columns for various magazines for more than 30 years. He’s somewhere around 1,600. BTW, while trying to come up with a title for the first book, good friend Stan Naraine dubbed the weekly efforts “common Christianity” and added something about uncommon commentary, or maybe Walters did.  Anyway, it stuck.