John Evans This is the final article for "In The Spotlight" We appreciate John Evans' labor of love over the last six years. He has been dedicated to Christian poetry and its expression. Month after month he has brought to our attention many special poems and the poets that authored them. We appreciate John and wish him well in all his future endeavors. Please continue to use his column as a great resource for your personal growth and pleasure.

I dreamed I stood before the Lord
Where some folks walked around,
Most it seemed were saying, "Thanks!"
As some were being crowned.

A voice was heard by all of us,
"You've finished thanking those
Who've touched your life so very much."
Then Christ Himself arose.

"The gifts you gave unto 'the least' --
You've also given to Me;
But now you'll see through other eyes
Those 'least' you failed to see .

A woman smiled and said to me,
I brought your coat to you,
This nice suede left at my table.
The rain was pouring too.

"Although you hadn't left a tip,
You seemed a bit upset
For when you rolled your window down
You got your shirt sleeve wet."

And then I heard, "Say, Brother Mac"
Of course I looked around;
The smiling face before me there
Was my friend Pastor Brown.

"One time I helped your son," he said,
When he was in a bind.
Since you had gone somewhere to golf
I served to ease his mind.

"I read to him from John fourteen,
And we went for a walk.
The Scripture helped, but more, it seemed,
He needed just to talk."

Another said, "Say, my dear Mac"--
I turned to face my wife.
"I bore your son and gave my love
Through all our married life.

"I washed and cooked and ironed the things
I bought you at the store--
But you just said, 'I'm leaving now--
I don't love you any more!'"

Then I awoke and thankfully
My precious wife--so dear--
Was lying with me on my bed;
I whispered in her ear:

"I love you, and I'm grateful for
The million things you do."
She didn't wake, but simply smiled
And said, "I love you, too."

I sought my son's room, where I saw
Him sitting on his bed.
His Bible open in his hands;
From John 14 he read.

"Why don't we go for breakfast, son?
I think we need to talk.
The diner's down the road a bit,
But we could use the walk."

The winter wind was blowing hard
As we slipped through the door.
"Go find a table for us, son,
While I do one thing more."

I went back to the kitchen door
And saw her standing there.
The waitress fixed her daughter's lunch--
But tension filled the air.

She said, "Just take these crackers, dear;
They'll do although they're old.
I've got to buy a coat for you
Before it gets too cold."

I'd taken twenties from the stash
I used for golfing trips
And meekly held them out to her,
Then spoke with trembling lips:

"Somebody left this tip for you--
His name I cannot tell--
But I would say for such a tip
You must have served him well.

"In fact, I guess he left his coat
Though it was quite cold out
I handed her the suede I'd worn
Then saw her look of doubt.

"You're Johnny's father, aren't you, sir?"
Your son is really nice."
And though the gifts were not from me
They had to thank me twice.

I joined my son. "We'll take your Mom
A sausage biscuit back."
"I've fixed her one with bacon, Dad."
He showed the paper sack.

I said, "Let's pray." We bowed our heads--
It took me quite a while.
And when I said, "Amen" my son
Was wearing one big smile!

I left my biscuit with my son
Who knew his mom preferred
The bacon to the sausage.
My heart again was stirred.

As I drove off to find the church
And thank dear Pastor Brown,
I thanked God for the dream and for
The gratefulness I'd found.

amwilkey@tva.gov

Mac Wilkey
Bridgeport , AL
USA

John Evans

Several poems have attracted our interest for the August In the Spotlight column. Among them are Deborah Backes' 26-line poem "The Rock," focusing on Simon Peter's emotional three days between Christ's death and resurrection. I particularly liked the last couplet here which reads: "He must have felt exalted--yet unworthy--just to know That Christ had placed him on the Rock on which His church would grow." I liked it because in this segment it is pointed up, correctly I think, that the real "Rock" of Christianity is not Peter, but Christ and His Gospel. There has been confusion for centuries on this significant matter.

But in the final analysis it was Poet Mac Wilkey's story poem titled "Ungrateful" that primarily caught my attention this month for its excellencies. Brother Mac is an Alabamian working for the Tennessee Valley Authority in his state, and he has had several fine poems accepted in our library of poems. He has also worked for a time the past few months as a volunteer on our website with our esteemed but now retired poetry editor.

Technically this poem by Brother Wilkey is made up of an iambic rhythm of stress, there being, I think without exception, four of these iambs in the first and third lines of each quatrain (25 total quatrains in the poem, that is 100 lines of verse!), with three of the same in the second and fourth lines of each. This choice for a poetic pattern is pleasing to the poetic ear and is quite often used by poets, I believe. I, too, have employed it, hopefully with as good an effect as our brother's "Ungrateful."

As for the story line, the writer, like Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol," has had a dream in which he stands in judgment before the Lord and finds his God has been displeased with his lack of caring for others (in the poem perhaps only, but more probably to some extent in his life), particularly for his lack of gratitude. The first of several instances given in a sort of heavenly instant rerun is a waitress in a restaurant. This woman, who though she hadn't received a tip at all for her services, nonetheless runs his expensive suede jacket left at her table out to him in his car--in the rain--and evidently doesn't even get a "Thank you" there either--this because in rolling down his window to take his coat, he gets his shirt wet! Now I would say that would in fact be "ungrateful," wouldn't you? I'm sure that Christians generally could improve in this matter of tipping good waiters and waitresses, the poet would want to convey. Sometimes we have been looked upon as "tight-waddish" in this expected tangible way of saying "Thanks," especially when we have received adequate to good service (by poorly paid help, more often than not).

At any rate, the minister has been very helpful to Mac in his family need; and the son has been very needy of his father's counsel and time--but both of these have been met with a lack of caring and ingratitude on Mac's part (again, at least as the dream goes).

The third instance of a serious lack of thankfulness in the poet's life involved his wife. She had done all the things that a good wife should do for her husband, but--unthinkably!--has gotten an "I'm leaving now--I don't love you anymore!" from her husband! I probably should definitely say at this point that this instance is no doubt fictional as far as the poet's life has gone (I don't know it as a fact, but assume it is fictional), but too often this gross lack of caring has been true in many marriages; and so the event is included as true-to-life for the poet. Thankfully, the dream wakes the poet up at this point, and he partially arouses his wife--happily for him lying on the bed beside him--to tell her he loves her and appreciates all that she has done for him. She sleepily say, "I love you too."

The balance of the poem continues with the poet's making amends in this matter of lack of caring and being ungrateful--to his son at the restaurant where he didn't tip, to the waitress there also, and then to the minister, as he is off in his automobile as the poem concludes to express his gratitude to him.

I was especially taken with a little vignette between the father and son at the restaurant, where the father, after a successful effort at getting on better terms with his son, has decided to take his wife a sausage biscuit home for her enjoyment. He, the son, tells his dad that his mom prefers bacon to sausage, so the father gives the sausage biscuit to his son to eat, I presume, and then the bacon biscuit is taken home for his mother by the young man instead. This adds a bit more of evidence that the husband has lost something of a close relationship with his wife, with whom there would now no doubt be changes made--he would in the future come to know better of her likes and dislikes surely! Well, to me it was humorous and adds a note of reality to the whole.

I would make but two more comments on the matter of Christians and gratitude, leaving our readers to peruse the concluding quatrains of "Ungrateful" to see how healing comes about between Mac and those offended by his bad attitudes. The Bible indicates that ingratitude is an attitude of the world and not to be named among believers. In Romans 1:21 those doomed to severe judgment by the Lord have the indictment that "neither were they thankful." Conversely, "Be thankful....," is the admonition for all of us who name the name of Christ as Psalm 100 emphasizes--and the whole of the Bible underscores. Children and grandchildren in our homes are constantly being reminded, "Now what do you say?" But this being thankful is a matter for all of us to be reminded about constantly, I am sure.

God bless you, Poet Mac Wilkey, for your good poem. I hope you as a subscribing member of our fellowship will continue to submit such good poems in the future, as "Ungrateful" has proven to be.

John W. Evans, jjevans@mediaone.net Jacksonville, FL
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