Charles (Chuck) Kensinger

November is Coming

August 28, 2022

This column is written for all of us who will go to the polls for the election. It does not matter which party you belong to. I hope that when you select a candidate you consider the person. I am not interested in the party line. We want decent human beings who will vote how we think they should.

Personally, I do not want anyone who still believes that Donald Trump was a good choice for this country. He is still only interested in himself. I will not vote for anyone that believes his endorsement is a positive attribute for them. My desire is that you do the same.

I also do not want anyone who thinks that talking badly about their opponents or candidates from another group is a wise thing to do. These two perspectives reduce my options a lot. I also need to know what you mean. Acronyms and abbreviations used by your ads leave me confused.

I do not know the political language and do not care about who supports you. Everyone that may believe you are an excellent choice means nothing to me. What conservative, liberal, outsider, CRT, woke, or any of your other bywords may vary with the person who uses them.

If you want me to vote for you, I need specifics about what you have done and will do if you are voted into office. How do you stand on the reversal of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision? I know you all have recognized that our economy is in trouble. Don’t blame someone else for that.

Your solution to this problem is what I need to hear. You cannot lower gas prices. Do not tell me that you will solve this problem. Washington is not the trouble. The people in Congress, the Senate, or other elected offices may or may not be doing their jobs correctly. My opinion and yours may be different.

Tell me what your plan is. How will you vote? I need to know that you will work with anyone else that you must. I was in business for over forty years. I had to change my approach depending on who I worked with. I want you to keep your position working to solve problems. Shutting down the government is never an acceptable result.

We want you to work for us and with each other. We will vote in November. When you lie to us, you will never get our vote again. The voter’s slogan should be, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

The Shooting Revisited

August 21, 2022

Do you ever listen to and watch the commercials that are on television and the radio? I do. I recognize the stupid Sonic ads. I enjoy the sappy Hallmark card spots. I admire the graceful PSAs (Public Service Announcements). I just saw one for the first time.

A man is rushing into his house while on his phone. He is speaking with his wife. The shot shows him pulling open a drawer on a bedside table. “The gun is not here.” The camera returns to run down the hall and stops at a bedroom door where he is calling his son’s name. The CGA on the screen is about suicide. It closes by saying that there is no extra life. The terror in the man’s voice seems natural.

One of the chapters in “Doulos” is titled “The Shooting.” “Doulos” is the memoir that I finished about eight years ago. That chapter is about an accidental shooting that happened in February of 1966. Here is the story.

Mom woke us up that Saturday morning and we drove to Marshfield to visit with Aunt Nina, Uncle Paul, and the cousins. The snow was drifting across route 66 through Strafford and Northview. The farm was beautiful with snow everywhere. It did not stop us from making the trip.

I had asked to be left home that day. Mom said we were all going and that I would enjoy it when we got there. She was correct. Climbing out of the car I ran into the farmhouse with everyone else. I was ready to go for a walk through the fields looking for rabbits in the snow. My cousin Dennis grabbed a shotgun, and we headed out the backdoor and through the gate.

We walked and talked watching the ground. No one had a watch. We had no idea how long we had been gone or how far it was to get back to the house. We were standing in a circle. My two brothers, Dennis, and me. I was direct across from my cousin. The gun was pointed at an angle toward the ground.

We heard a boom. I sat down on the ground. Dennis ran to me. He looked at my left leg. The firearm was given to my brother Bud. Kenny was sent running back to where our parents were. Dennis picked the wadding from the shotgun shell off the leg of my jeans. “You were just hit by the wadding.” He picked me up and took me to the milk barn. Buddy followed us.

I was sat down on the milk cooler and was told I had been shot. I knew that already. I could not stand on my left leg. It was numb. There was no blood. He carried me into the living room of the house. Mine and Dennis’ parents began to fuss over me. The look on my mom’s face came to my mind when I heard that voice on the TV this morning.

An ambulance had been requested. I was taken to Burge hospital in Springfield, Missouri. You know it as Cox North. My leg was X-rayed, and the prognosis was that I would heal with pellets still in my leg and the two in my knee could be removed if they caused any pain.

Today I have pellets in the calf of my leg. The two in my knee were removed in December of 1966. Many of the buckshot came out over the years. I was able to pop them out one at a time for the first few years. It was interesting to watch the reaction of friends when I did that.

Life has been much the same as it would have been without the shooting. I remember a man that worked at Cox that told my mother that first night that if the angle of the barrel had been two degrees higher and two feet farther away, I would have been hit in the abdomen and would not have survived. That is why this commercial caused me to want to share my story again.

On Route 66

August 11, 2022

Here in Springfield, Missouri, we hear about this road that was named here and began construction in 1926. That’s correct. In four years, we will celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the mother road. We have a birthplace of Route 66 festival that begins today, the eleventh of August here in the queen city of the Ozarks.

As with most other events, it has not taken place during the pandemic. If you have never attended, now is the time to plan to be at the parade Friday evening or some of the concerts. You can just go to check out the displays and vendors during the weekend. Do not miss this opportunity. Almost all of us like music, cars, or motorcycles.

My wife and I have gone to the parade for many years. We usually sit on St. Louis Street. Many of the automobiles that are in the parade return each year. Some of the owners bring their cars from other states.

Springfield has become a destination for car enthusiasts from all over the world. Driving the original path of Route 66 is a tradition for many. According to Bobby Troup’s song “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” runs from Chicago to L.A. and is more than two thousand miles. This song came out in 1946 and was recorded originally by Nat King Cole.

The cities mentioned in the song are Chicago, St. Louis, Joplin, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, Gallop, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles. Springfield is not mentioned. Troup and his wife were driving from Pennsylvania to California. They began on Route 40. In Chicago, they changed to 66, and the song was renamed, and the lyrics spoke of the last half of the trip.

Bobby’s first song was “Baby, Baby, All the Time” recorded by Nat King Cole in 1946, the same year “Route 66” came out. Some of his other songs were “Feeling of Jazz” by Duke Ellington, “It happened once before” by The Four Freshmen, “Lonely Girl”, “Meaning of the Blues”, and “Now You Know.”

One of my favorite facts about Bobby Troup is the TV series “Emergency” that he and his then-wife Julie London starred in. This show was filmed and set in Los Angeles. I think it is fun to watch these episodes now and think of how his career began with this song that he wrote shortly after traveling through my hometown.

The TV show Route 66 was first aired in 1960. Martin Milner and George Maharis play two friends who are driving a Corvette. Not all the episodes feature the highway known as Route 66. Milner went on to star in “Adam-12” which was produced by the same people who brought us “Emergency.”

Springfield is considered the birthplace of the mother road because the suggestion of the designation for the US highway that would travel from Chicago to California and travel through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and end in California was suggested by businessmen in the Springfield area. The first notification came via telegram to them at the Colonial Hotel in downtown Springfield, Missouri.

I hope this background helps you while you enjoy the festival. Get your kicks on Route 66 as you share the things that you like whether it is music, cars, or motorcycles. Stop by the museums and read up on the history. Just because you haven’t lived here all your life doesn’t mean you can’t learn something new.

Where were you: 1974?

August 9, 2022

On this day in 1974, I was in Springfield, Missouri preparing to transfer to Southwest Baptist College. The Bolivar college was my choice to continue my education after accepting the call to ministry. My original plan had been to enter the Journalism school at MU in Columbia.

What is so special about this date in that year was that it was the day President Nixon resigned. Gerald Ford was sworn in as president of the United States. For those of you who were not around then, I will fill you in.

Spiro T. Agnew had been sworn in as VP when Richard Nixon and he won the 1972 election. This team had been re-elected after serving in 1969. Agnew had resigned over his own scandal and been replaced by Ford in 1973. That placed the former senator into a position to become the only president to not be elected as either Vice President or President.

During the 1974 presidential campaign, there was a break-in at a hotel in Washington, D.C. The Democratic National Committee Office was the target. Some of Nixon’s campaign staff were involved. It was discovered that the Oval Office in the White House was subject to the recording of audio. These tapes were subpoenaed for the investigations and trials of those being charged with the burglary.

Richard Nixon was referred to as King Richard by some and just as rumors were rampant about Franklin Roosevelt not wanting to leave the elected office. It seems that our two-party political system has gotten out of control. President Johnson that succeeded Lincoln after his assassination was the first to be tried for impeachment.

Since Nixon resigned it seems that we have a lot of politicians that push the limits of what is acceptable in our legal system. We no longer allow elected officials to sweep things under the rug. Both the Demicans and Republicrats have those members that consider themselves above the law.

The supporters of former President Trump who claim that the investigation of the attack on the capital is political in nature have nothing on President Nixon’s supporters. It was said that only Democrats were upset over the Watergate affair. As the cover-up was discovered, even Republicans had to admit that the country could not accept this kind of action by either party.

President Nixon stopped the draft just in time to keep me from having to deal with the draft board. He is still my favorite president because of that. Will those who believed Donald Trump was a good president admit that he was at least complicit in the attempt to overthrow a legally elected administration? If it is determined that he should be censored or imprisoned for encouraging the attack, they will do what was done for Nixon as soon as they retake the presidency.

This is my problem with political parties. Many believe their party members can do no wrong. They are the first to condemn the other party’s officials for the same type of infraction. Drunk driving, deaths in traffic accidents, adulterous acts, spousal abuse, and even child abuse accusations cross the aisles in our government houses.

We all have seen these types of situations represented in TV series. No producers ever deal with the problem of political parties in the same manner that we see on the network news reports. Which will be the first network to air a made-for-TV movie that replicates the January 6^th events?

Covid has made it into the TV schedules last season. We should see an influx of programs that feature political turmoil and attempts to overthrow our government by groups inside our own borders. Remember that this isn’t the first time politicians have disappointed us. We survived Watergate and Teapot Dome. We’ll survive January 6^th, 2001.

Who’s gonna fill my shoes?

August 7, 2022

Have you ever asked yourself this question? I asked myself after I heard the George Jones song “Who’s gonna fill their shoes?” It is about the country singers that my dad liked, and I grew up listening to. Some I only know by the records my father had in his collection. Most of those albums are long gone.

I am not a country music fan. If you know me personally you also know I am not any kind of singer. I like to create through my words in the form of prose and not poetry. My life has been spent in many ways and others have taken my spot in many of these.

Business managers are easily replaced as are purchasing agents and managers. A job can be filled by many when the previous holder moves on. As a teacher in the church, those positions have also been filled. While they may not use the same style of instruction, they have their own and get the job done.

The shoes that I want to talk about are those of husband, father, and grandfather. I have not been perfect. I have done my best and I will never be replaced when I am no longer here to fulfill those responsibilities. Others can try to accomplish the tasks that I have spent time on. It still will not be the same as I would do it.

Those tasks are to educate and inform the ones I care about on how to become a person of integrity, someone who loves them, and their biggest fan. Time is always too short. I would enjoy as much time as possible to continue with these wonderful people. How can I show love and concern to them when I am not with them?

Love is not an emotion as we normally think of it. Love is the actions that we take every day to show that we genuinely appreciate and accept each other. What can we do to continue these acts that are seen as love? Let’s look at how we communicate love.

Letters that encourage are one way. Write them now for the special occasions that will come after you are gone. A letter for each anniversary, birthday, wedding, graduation, and any other special occasion that you can think of. Start as soon as you can. Don’t mention a number except in certain cases.

Purchase and wrap gifts for these events and others like Christmas or a day that you currently celebrate with a gift. The hard part is how to get these into the hands of those you prepare them for. One of the simplest ways is to have your attorney or executor of your will present these for you. Discussing this extra and ongoing part of the job should be accomplished as soon as you can. Choose someone young enough to be around when you need them.

Selecting several individuals to take this task for you is another way to make the job easier. Be sure these are dependable folks. Do not forget to have letters and presents sent to them as well. Time is not the enemy here. It provides the opportunities to continue to be the person that others cherish.

The first funeral

August 7, 2022

I’m watching the episode of The Waltons where the Baptist preacher confesses to John Walton that he has never officiated at a funeral before. G.W. has died at Fort Lee in a training accident. He is brought home to be laid to rest by his parents.

This makes me think of the first funeral at which I was asked to officiate. Licensed and ordained ministers have had this duty thrust upon them since the first person died. If you have never had to perform this function for someone you knew, it would be hard for me to tell you how it feels.

I studied to be a minister at Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, Missouri. None of the classes I had were designed to prepare us for weddings or funerals. Those were covered in the counseling courses I did not feel led to take.

My first wedding was a few months after I graduated from college. The couple was friends of mine that I worked with. My Pastor and friend advised me on what to say and how to conduct the service. Years later when my cousin asked me to help with his mother’s funeral, I felt more experienced to handle that on my own.

Because this was a funeral that would mostly be attended by family members, I decided to focus on family relationships. I read a portion of a poem written by another aunt. I told stories from my cousins and their children. Humor was not inserted into the stories. Many of them did have funny endings.

My one worry was that others would be offended by how I was honoring a family member’s life. Stories that I told might seem humorous or inspirational to me. Would others view them as they were meant to be interpreted?

I wrote about my dad for his funeral and could not read it myself. When Mom died, I was the only speaker. She had not asked me to do that. When my sister, brothers, and myself were planning her funeral I told the others that I would do the eulogy. My oldest daughter wrote her obituary. I asked a cousin to be ready to read what I had written if I was unable to finish it. He was relieved when I finished.

I’ve participated in a few funerals where I only read the stories of the family members. Our lives can be broken down into stories. When I wrote my memoir, “Doulos”, it was to tell my family who I was and how the Lord had led me to be the person I am. Don’t wait for your life to be told after you die. Now is the time to tell it yourself. Stay tuned for my book, “Your story, Your way.” In it, I discuss the different methods that can be used to record and present what your family needs to remember about you.

A Living Document Part 1

July 31, 2022

Here I am. It is three in the morning. I was sleeping soundly until a bodily function encouraged me to awake. When I returned to bed my mind was turning over the events of yesterday and here I am. I had to sit with my computer and talk to you about my thoughts. I am not sure when or if you will read this. I begin this morning and when I believe I have expressed myself clearly, I may share it with you. Or I may not.

That is the lot of a writer. I learned over fifty years ago not to publish something too quickly. Thank you, Miss Backlund. I still remember that day when you returned the article to me and asked me to hold it for a few days and decide if I wanted to change anything about it. I did and the result was a better piece. I continue to do that.

Emotions are flowing because of the Supreme Court decision reversing Rowe vs. Wade, the passing of legislation to change gun laws nationwide, and the continuing trial of a former President. It isn’t really a trial. Only a Congressional hearing on the January sixth, 2021, attack on the Capital building.

Currently, I want to state that I am Pro-Choice. What does that mean? For me, it means that I believe a woman has the right to decide if she should have a child. This decision should be made before she has sex. Not after she is pregnant. This is my opinion, and I don’t care if you agree with me or not. Opinions are like noses. We all have them, and you can change yours if you want. Someday I may decide to change mine. My opinion, not my nose.

I am also Pro-Life. I am not anti-abortion. Don’t call me that. I will define that term for myself, also. I agree with the words in The Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men (and women) are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

After this document was written and signed by the Continental Congress we fought for our freedom from England. And, if you weren’t listening in class that day, we won. Our Constitution was drafted and approved years later. It was decided to add amendments to it to spell out other rights of the states and individuals. In 1973 The Supreme Court of the “United States” determined that state laws prohibiting abortion were not Constitutional. This is the main function they have. They are educated in our laws and documents and should be able to decide what is correct and what is not.

At that time many learned men and women thought those men, yes, they were all men at that time, had made a mistake. Almost fifty years later the court overturned that determination and gave the states back the right to make their own laws concerning abortion. In 1973 I read The Constitution and the decision by those men. I did not find what they thought they had found. My interpretation was with the minority group of judges.

The Constitution has not been changed since then. This court made their decision about another case and determined to correct the error that they believe was made. I believed it as a college student, and I still believe that the child in its mother should be protected by our laws. If I am wrong, we need to amend The Constitution. Contact your state legislators to start that process.

Why do I say that I am Pro-Life and not anti-abortion? I think that the mother and her doctor should have the ability to decide if the pregnancy should continue. I would like to say the mother and the father should make that decision. Sometimes they would disagree and the one whose life is in danger should have the final say. Fortunately, my wife and I never had to make that kind of decision.

I know a family that did. They were told that the baby had some defects and would not live long after it was born. The mother’s life could be in danger as well. They decided to continue the pregnancy. The mom believed that God was telling her to trust Him, and He would take care of her and the child. Her husband agreed and the little girl was born some months later.

She is no longer little. She is a grown woman with children of her own. Her parents made the decision that was best for the three of them. I understand if you do not have that kind of faith. I am not sure that I do either.

I’m in marketing, you want management

July 30, 2022

I began my career as a full-time gospel minister in the 1970s. I have been studying and learning my trade for over four decades. When I think about where I was then, I am amazed at how little I knew. As I ponder my entry into the presence of God, at the time of my death, in another forty or fifty years, I consider how small my grasp of who God really is. At that time, I will be introduced to Him by those same people who taught me about him sixty years ago.

When I started my journey through God’s word, I was in my teens. My life of service and ministry has taught me a great deal. Years ago, a friend asked me why God did certain things. The question was about why bad things happen to good people. I did not know the answer. I still do not understand everything about Jehovah. My answer to these inquiries is the same as on that day. “I’m in marketing, you want management.”

The ones who are in the upper echelon of every Christian denomination should use the same response. Even the Pope is a representative of Jesus Christ and not the head of the church. We forget that. We try to defend Yahweh and His actions. That is not our job. Our job is to explain what we find in the Bible. I do need to explain to you why things happen the way they do in our world today.

Those are the things that I am still learning from the scriptures. He tells us who He is and why He must work the way He does. My job is to listen to what He says and share those thoughts with you. My ideas are not original. Many others can tell you exactly what I am saying. I may express it differently from others.

Your job is to take what I and other ministers or scholars tell you and check the Bible to be sure we know the Lord the way He reveals himself in the Word. You do not want to believe in Him because of incorrect information. One of the first things I must tell you are some of the things that He will not do when you become a born-again believer.

As a salesman in the secular world, my job was to promote the products I sold. My employer was wrong if he or she wanted me to lie about the advantages of those items. To be able to tell them what it would do and what it would not do I had to study the information that was provided about it. I read specification sheets, technical data sheets, and catalogs. I even looked at them being used by customers and in some cases used them myself to understand how they performed. I have done exactly that for over fifty years with God.

You will not become perfect. That means you will continue to sin. Jesus tells us He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. I have learned that if you do not believe this, you are in trouble. If you miss the straight and narrow way He spoke of, you miss Heaven which is where He lives. Not following the Truth means you are following lies. Missing Life will end in eternal death.

This death is a complete separation from Jehovah. Have you felt an emptiness in your soul? Do you ever feel like you are spiritually dead? Our Lord said that we must be born again. That is because the human spirit died in the garden when the original people disobeyed God. You want a life with Him not death without Him.

What does independence mean?

July 24, 2022

The fourth of July has come and gone. July 4, 1776 is the day that The Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress. The name of the holiday is Independence Day. This group of men knew that attaching their names to this letter could mean the loss of everything including their lives.

Let’s look at the highlights of this document. It begins with why the thirteen colonies needed to separate themselves from Britain. The first reason is the fact that we all should have life, liberty, and the right to pursue our own happiness. The government can be replaced when it fails to do its job.

There is a long list of violations of these rights. They end the statement of abuse by pledging lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the fight for these rights. After the war was finished in the favor of the colonies they attempted to survive alone and realized that they needed to remain working as one unit.

They were attempting to do something that had never been done before. Each of these thirteen governments knew they could be picked off one at a time by the Brits or some other country.

The Constitutional Convention was formed, and a new organization is devised to join these separate governments under one umbrella. Something they all wanted to do was maintain the ability to make certain laws for themselves. These were referred to as State’s Rights.

The name the United States of America was intended to show this arrangement. When you read our Constitution, you will see that many compromises were made to satisfy the individual purposes of states or other groups. The three branches of the Federal Government were created to solve perceived problems with other national forms of governing.

The President, who is the chief executive, has the final say before a law can become effective. Congress and the Senate can overturn a veto. The number of votes to do this is more than those needed to pass the bill the first time.

The legislature, congress and senate, are responsible for passing the bills that become laws. The president can recommend laws as can individual members. Committees look at these and make changes or prevent these bills from being voted on. Congress represents a member from groups that are similar in population. Each state has only two Senators. This was a compromise. What happens when these two branches attempt to violate the Constitution?

That is the job of the Supreme Court. They are the watchdog of our three-tier system. Nine judges are appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. These men and women have no authority to do anything except determine the constitutionality of what the State governments, the Congress, and the President does. If they step out of line the President and congress can replace those who have violated their responsibility to interpret the constitution. This only happens when they die or resign.

You may have two more opportunities to celebrate the independence we enjoy in these states united into one nation. In Missouri, we will have our primary election in August. We all will vote for congressional representatives, one-third of the Senators, and many state and local candidates. Don’t forget to get out and vote.

Dance party round two

July 23, 2022

I began this column many years ago. The events are older than their brother and youngest sister. I hope you think it was worth me finishing it.

Yes, that is correct. The old Baptist has fallen from grace and gone dancing again. This time with a different girlfriend. My granddaughter, Mia, was this year’s date to the Father-Daughter Dance at her school. This time sister Maddie was escorted by Dad. They traded places from last year.

Is dancing a sin? What is that old joke? Why do married Baptist couples never have sex standing up? They are afraid someone will think they are dancing. Another reason is that they don’t want to fall and break a hip.

Dancing is not condemned in the Bible. When you find the verse where it is, let me know. David danced in the street to the Lord, when the Ark of the Covenant was being moved to Jerusalem, finally. His wife became angry and condemned him, but Jehovah did not. He likes to see us make fools of ourselves when we praise Him.

Psalms 149:3 tells us to “Let them praise his name in the dance.” This Psalm is not specifically identified as being written by David. There are no notes telling who wrote it like some of the others. Psalms 30:11 and 150:4 also tell us to praise the Lord with dancing.

We saw the dancing also in 1 Samuel 18:6 when the people came out to celebrate the defeat of Goliath and the Philistines.

Let’s get back to my dancing experiences. I am no Elaine when I dance. I limit myself to minimal movement as much as I can. I prefer a standard box step for slow dances, and I don’t do the Floss.

I do not appreciate people who have their own views of what the Bible says. We should do what Jesus told the Pharisees to stop doing. He criticized them for adding to God’s law and ignoring some of the commandments.

Failure to love your neighbor even if he or she is different from yourself is one of the worst things you can do. This was the second most important commandment according to Jesus. What do you consider a sin that isn’t listed in scripture? Drinking, playing cards, and other types of gambling are some other vices that do not appear in the Word.

Another problem that many of us have is ignoring the commands that are listed in the law. It may be as simple as not tithing, bearing false witness, coveting, or as bad as murder, adultery, or not honoring your parents. When we read the Bible, do we look for a way around the sins that are common for us? We should be focusing on overcoming what we know is against Jehovah’s law.

Do you know what a Pharisee is? They are the ones that had Jesus executed when He challenged their system which was based on men’s teaching, and they ignored the laws that Moses handed down. They deceived themselves into believing they were doing what was right. We need to ask ourselves if we have a pharisee hiding in us.