A Little Update On Where I Am Today

Since late last November or early last December I have had an appointment for mom for this Tuesday, February 2nd, set up with her first doctor since the late 1980s (when she had Delmar Greenleaf) that I got her through her Medicare Advantage Plan that I got her. One of the important and timely reasons for this appointment is so she can get the process started for getting ADA-certified for a handicap placard. This would force the city to allow us to keep her ramp to her front deck contrary to municipal building code's mandates. She knows she needs the placard just for her own convenience given how crippled she is becoming AND it would give her the convenience of the ramp AND it would make the house saleable at full market value which would benefit her AND it would mean I would not have to find her a roommate with an ADA placard whom she might not like living in her home. I made all of this abundantly clear to her yesterday because I know her well enough to know she might take off because she compulsively and impulsively avoids doing things she needs to do and seems to know when she can disrupt my life most and then do it to get attention. 

When I reminded her of this she informed me she planned on day-tripping down to Altadena for the day (Sunday) to visit her parent's grave on the 24th anniversary of her mother's death. This raised alarm bells because of the proximity in time to her appointment and her aforementioned proclivity. She also had recently told me how tired she was that she claimed she had no energy to be taking trips right now. I countered that I would like to go with her because I have not visited those graves since the last time I was with her doing the same thing about 15 years ago. She counter-countered that someone from A.A. (her go-to lying mechanism about having "people" with whom she needs to do stuff) was going with her and there was no room for me as mom has her car always packed (backseat is filled) for the Apocalypse and lives out of her car even when she is at home. I doubted the truth of her story but hoped she would keep to the day-trip aspect. 

I went down to her house tonight and she has not returned which means she took off as I feared. Her modus operandi would be to overnight at the Best Western King's Inn in Kingman, AZ. She probably never even went to her parent's gravesite which was a cover story for her latest insane adventure in avoidance and disruption. She still might return home tomorrow in time for the appointment but things are not looking good right now. I choose to not stress on what I cannot control. I can control my choices and I choose to focus on trusting God to keep mom from going on a bender and hurting/killing someone in a DUI accident. I also will go into Dr. Kiger's tomorrow and see if he can get mom set up with the paperwork for ADA placard via walk-in visit because if mom misses her appointment it's another two month wait and the deck ramp thing won't wait that long. Perhaps driving mom to Kiger later this week can accomplish this task for our family.

I woke up this past morning after sleeping 8 hours feeling like something bad is about to happen. I decided attending my church is not what I needed this Sunday. Instead, I elected to focus on the specific things I know I need right now for what may come soon. I have no control over other people's decisions let alone the consequences of same and I have no control over the consequences of my own choices. My own power is the power of my own agency given to me by my loving Creator who is also using the things I experience to teach me and to modify me. I chose to sit down and get still and quiet and spend some time in quiet prayer with God and got into the word reading various parts of the Book of Hebrews. I selected some songs performed by Mahalia Jackson and Tennessee Ernie Ford to listen to for this day's worship music. I then listened to a full sermon by my late maternal grandfather. After that I prepared a 4-egg omelet with veggies and Parmesan cheese and salsa verde dumped over it and ate 8 slices of bacon. After that I elected to take a 10-mile walk. Then I made a conscious decision to be around healthy people and watched all four currently-dropped episodes of WandaVision to get caught up on that TV series. 

 

Today I lived mindfully, employing mechanisms and strategies that are healthy and helpful and move my process along despite the chaos and disruption I am headed back into with my mom. I also once again gave mom to God and asked Him to take this burden from me as I feel it is close to becoming harmful to my well-being. God is in control; I am not. Let come what may! Everything is going to be okay in the end. It is not the end because it is not okay right now.

 

How It Works

Well it happened again today. I stopped by to visit and guess what I discovered? It must have started yesterday. Apparently, it was once again triggered by "breathing problems" (read as Anxiety Attack) and self-medication ensued. This will not end well I fear. I've been going through this full-on for just over three years now and much longer than that peripherally and unaware. I am haunted by the words from Alcoholics Anonymous' Big Book which are read before every meeting. That the Big Book of A.A. was heavily influenced by the Bible (A.A.'s founders were Christians) can be seen throughout this breathtakingly beautiful and profound excerpt. I am haunted by multiple parts of this which God has been bringing to mind a lot the past several months not unlike how He brings to mind passages of Scripture. It is noteworthy that one can replace the word "alcohol" with the word "sin" and it all works just as well. Each can be seen as a metaphor of the other.


"Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average.
There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it -- then you are ready to take certain steps.
At some of these we balked. Thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power that One is God. May you find Him now!
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery:

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.  Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.  Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.  Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Many of us exclaimed, "What an order! I can't go through with it." Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." 

~ Chapter 5: How It Works

Twenty-Eight Years Ago This Afternoon.....

.... I was at pre-game football practice on the game field at Atascadero High School as starting senior center on this date in 1988. This was after school and before the team was to drive down to Orange County to play Trabuco Hills High School in a CIF Southern Section semi-final game. I was interrupted mid-practice by mom showing up to tell me Granpda McGee had just died (at age 84) at his senior convalescent facility on Heather Court in Templeton, CA. I ended practice at that moment and went home with mom. She and my brother and I drove down to southern California and spent the night in a motel. My team spent a boisterous and distracted night in a motel even closer to the school. I participated in the game the next afternoon into evening. We got blown out something like 42-7 much like the Los Angeles Times sports section had predicted.

My head was only partially in the game for obvious reasons. I had just lost the second most significant male in my life following losing my dad three years earlier during my freshman year of high school. By this point I was already circling the drain mental health-wise as I slid further into chronic and crippling anxiety attacks and depression which I worked hard to suppress from those around me and this would only get worse. I'm still trying to rebuild my life to this very day 28 years later. However, rebuilding I am, and God is good to have me still be here and have rebuilt as much as I have with so much still to go.

Long Time No See Grandpa McGee

This evening on Facebook, a friend of our family, Pastor Don Rhoads, who was a protege of my maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, mentioned in response to my posting one of grandpa's Sunday Sermons from his time at the iconic Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles sometime during the period 1949-1970, that there were video recordings of grandpa on Youtube. I never imagined there was any such thing on Youtube and never bothered to check. How foolish have I been?! Below are what I found with the topmost being the oldest (when he was youngest) and in descending order his newer stuff as he got older as near as I can visually determine his age relative to each video (I might have #1 and #2 switched wrong). Just looking at these briefly really makes me miss him a lot.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Happy Mother's Day, mom! 

You won't read this until a day or more after your day. 

I want you to know I love you more than you can know and I would die for you. 

I want you to know I respect you even if my blunt honesty sometimes come across as suggesting otherwise. 

I want you to know I appreciate you and what you have done for me and what you have been through on my behalf starting with my conception up unto this day. 

I want you to know that it breaks my heart to see the loss you have experienced in your life.

It hurts me when I think about what you have missed out on in life up to this point.

Even all your self-inflicted wounds I can relate to more than you can know. 

We have been through a lot, more than anybody else living knows, and ever will know.

We have lost a lot of things which we cannot ever recoup and yet we are so very rich and blessed.

I want you to know how grateful I am to have you back and don't ever want to lose you again.

It is in my nature and it is one of my current roles to push you to actualize and realize your full potential and not let any grass grow under your feet so please understand that when I seem to be pressing you. 

You are a remarkable person only just now emerging from your chrysalis to become an amazing woman. 

Please keep chopping wood and putting one foot in front of the other every single day of your life.

You have many unexpected and satisfying chapters of the book of your life yet to write.

Your son, 

Kimmer 

Top Ten J.V. McGee Things You Probably Didn't Know

Here are ten things I bet most of you did not know about my late maternal grandfather, John Vernon McGee, known to you as Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

1. Hated his first name John, hence "J. Vernon" McGee.
2. Was a reserve in the US Army cavalry as a very young man. 
3. While casting about as a youth, at least once attended a Communist Party meeting.
4. Met his soul-mate, Ruth Inez Jordan, on a blind date set up by mutual married friends.
5. Tried to enlist as a chaplain during World War II but was informed he was too old.
6. Was an avid rockhound often heading to the High Desert in the 1940s & 1950s. 
7. Enjoyed photography, especially of flowers and Pasadena's Rose Parade.
8. Favorite flower was the camellia which grew in abundance in his back yard.  
9. Was strongly afraid of flying in an airplane (but flew a lot anyway).
10. Once received a high-end popcorn maker from actress Joan Crawford (long story). 

My Rockhounding Pedigree Runs Deep

Today my mother showed me some images she recently received of herself and her parents (Dr. and Mrs. J. Vernon McGee) taken back in the 1930's and 1940's. The source of the images are the Dunn Family whom attended Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, CA, people whom the McGee's liked and respected. Amongst the images a member of the Dunn Family recently sent mom are three showing my grandparents out on the Mojave Desert on a rockhounding excursion with the Dunn Family. We already knew the McGee's liked to do that sort of thing back when my mother was a child. Mom had childhood memories of making such trips out to the Mojave Desert back in the 1940's into the 1950's including to Scotty's Castle back when it was still managed by the Gospel Foundation which repeatedly allowed the McGee Family to lodge there. What we did not know was that my grandparents went on rockhounding jaunts prior to my mom's birth and that they specifically visited the mining town of Calico, CA, in the late 1930's, something we realized as a result of viewing the images below. Calico is a place that has always been special to me and my parents as they used to take my brother and I out there when we were growing up in the 1970's into early 1980's. I visited the place again twice in the 2000's. Now that I know more fully my family connection to the place I feel compelled to get back out there as soon as I can make the trip. I also now know that my family rockhounding legacy goes back about 75 years. It is also worth noting that my paternal grandfather James Edwin Noyes also cast about on the Mojave Desert back in the early days around this same time and ultimately worked for Continental Conveyor which designed and built conveyor belt systems for mines and quarries around the world. Special thanks to my friend Mark Wiberg for digitalizing these images for me and to Lin Kerns for cleaning them up for me.

Grandpa McGee at far right and Grandma McGee second from left.

Grandpa McGee resting on a blanket while Grandma McGee snacks.

Grandpa McGee (foreground) walking out of the Calico General Store circa late 1930's.

  All photos by Gene & Alice Dunn or Luther & Helen Dunn courtesy of Margie Dunn (All rights reserved).

Dr. J. Vernon McGee's LA Times Obituary

Rev. J. Vernon McGee, 84; Pioneer Radio Evangelist

December 04, 1988|TERRY PRISTIN | Times Staff Writer

The Rev. J. Vernon McGee, a pioneer radio evangelist and pastor of the Church of the Open Door in downtown Los Angeles for 21 years, died Thursday of heart failure at a nursing home in Templeton, Calif. He was 84.

McGee's "Thru the Bible" series, which he launched in 1967, was eventually heard on 600 radio stations and was also broadcast overseas. The program was based on a midweek Bible class he had begun teaching in his early days as a pastor.

McGee first recognized the value of radio ministries in the 1930s, and his popular broadcasts and powerful personality helped swell attendance at the downtown church at a time when other urban parishes were in decline. Under his leadership, membership grew by a third, with as many as 4,000 worshipers crowding into the church on Sundays.

Despite the acclaim, McGee played down his oratorical talents, often describing himself as "just a plowboy," according to the Rev. Dale O. Wolery, associate pastor of the Church of the Open Door.

'Not a Pulpit Thumper'

"I do not feel that I have the gift of an evangelist," McGee said in 1965. "I am not a pulpit thumper. I just talk."

But it was precisely McGee's down-home approach that inspired his listeners. "He was very practical in his Bible teaching," Wolery said. "He explained the Scriptures verse by verse and taught them clearly."

Born in Hillsboro, Tex., McGee and his family moved 24 times before he was 14. After the death of his father, a cotton mill engineer, the family settled in Nashville, Tenn. McGee became a bank teller but left that job to study at Southwest University (now Rhodes College) in Memphis, Tenn.

He earned a bachelor of divinity degree from Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia and master and doctor of theology degrees from Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas.

Ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1933, he was pastor of churches in Nashville and in Cleburne, Tex., before taking up the pulpit at Lincoln Avenue Presbyterian Church of Pasadena in 1941.

Retired in 1970

After eight years in Pasadena, he became pastor of the nondenominational Church of the Open Door at 558 S. Hope St.--famous for its neon "Jesus Saves" sign--where he remained until his retirement in 1970.

Fifteen years later, he delivered the final sermon at the church's downtown site before the congregation relocated to Glendora. Wolery said McGee preached at dedication services for the new facility last July.

McGee had a well-publicized break with the Presbyterian Church in 1955 after he charged that the church's "liberal leadership has taken over the machinery of the presbytery with a boldness and ruthlessness that is appalling."

 McGee, the author of more than 100 books on Bible subjects, is survived by his wife, Ruth of Pasadena, a daughter and two grandsons. A private graveside service is planned for Monday. Officials of Thru the Bible Radio Network plan to hold a memorial service next month.

Source

A Marathon of Loss

Twenty-six years ago this morning I lost my father, James Gordon Noyes, in a tragic and freak accident less than a month after his 39th birthday. I outlined my experience with this part of my life two years ago today in my Losing a Father piece on the 24th anniversary of that sad day. Two years later and I reflect upon a marathon of years of loss in various forms.

My family was always small with both my parents being only children and their parents having not many siblings and those siblings and their offspring having at best a peripheral presence in my life or more commonly none at all. I lost my father in 1985 to start off the train of tragedy. Three years later I lost my maternal grandfather, the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee, as touched upon in my Dr. J. Vernon McGee Was My Grandfather  piece. At that time his wife, my late maternal grandmother, Ruth Inez Jordan McGee, began to die from her mind outwards through her body, a process that would not reach its conclusion until nine years later as she slowly descended into death which finally occurred in 1997. Then a year-and-a-half later my paternal grandfather, James Edwin Noyes, died at 84. Now all I have left are my mother, Lynda Karah McGee Noyes, with whom I have had an at-times troubled relationship with over the years although God has healed that fully. Then there is my only sibling, my  brother Andrew Carey Noyes with whom I am not close after years of a troubled relationship which seems to be undergoing some healing. Finally, there is my relationship with my remaining grandmother, Martha Virginia Van Stone Noyes, with whom I have also had an at-times troubled relationship which it appears God has likewise healed.

Loss has been an overriding theme in my life not limited to the physical death of people. Spiritually I was dead for most of my life until quite recently. My sanity died in 1988 and not coincidentally did not fully return until quite recently as well although that process began several years and preceded my spiritual Renaissance and Great Awakening. The church that comes closest to being my home church while I was growing up and which left the greatest mark on me in my life to date lost its way and made spiritual shipwreck while I was still young. However, it left an indelible mark on my both good and bad.

Through all of this there has been little comfort to be derived from my fellow human beings. I have felt largely on my own because I have been largely on my own. God has used this to teach me to not lean on people nor on myself but to look to Him for guidance and comfort and healing. My process of becoming who I was created to be is far from complete but at least I can see this process underway. Indeed, it has always been underway even when I didn't recognize it and was in darkness and blindness. Everything that has befallen me to date has been part of God's plan for my life and has been engineered by Him to instill in me the qualities I will need in the future and to teach me hard lessons I could and can only learn by experiencing my life as it has been and continues to be.

I remain to this day haunted by the subject of loss and how the news of it is delivered and received.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee Was My Grandfather

This is not a biography of my late maternal grandfather for which there is a good one on the Thru The Bible Radio website as well as a good one on Wikipedia. This is not my own life story (for which the following isn't even a complete outline) nor is it my testimony which is something I plan to share here at some point in the future. What this is for me is a public embracing of something with which I have had an uneasy relationship with all my life and thus have most often not embraced by not even acknowledging it to others.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I dearly love Grandpa McGee and I miss him terribly. I probably miss the version of him I never met that lived before I lived and was dead before I was born more than the version of him that he had become by the time I arrived on the scene. I was 18 and in my senior year at Atascadero High School when he died at age 84 in Templeton, California. He fathered my mother Lynda when he was about my age now (40ish) which made him a father who was old enough to be a grandfather and later a grandfather old enough to be a great-grandfather. Consequently, I did not have him in my life for as many years as most people get to have their grandfather who lives to be 84 years old.

Living under the shadow of a great man, and Grandpa McGee was a great man I can assure you, is never easy for anybody. Certainly his over-sized personality and life overwhelmed my personality and life. Like all great men he was very complex. Those who think they knew him in most cases did not. He had two distinct personalities, his public persona whom his listeners came to believe they knew and his private personality his family knew which was his true self. He possessed a great many internal contradictions which created tension between these two versions of himself. That tension never found resolution during his natural life.

As a young male human being growing up and later coming of age and trying to make sense of it all and just simply trying to fit in at a time when fitting in is a foremost social imperative I found the drama that being the eldest grandson of Dr. J. Vernon McGee engendered was oft disruptive to life and on some occasions even a bit overwhelming. That situation continued into my early adulthood and became conflated with my own mental-emotional-spiritual issues which lead directly to my present condition and status in life.

For much of my adulthood I would have given anything to have experienced a normal life growing up and thus one would think, a more normal adulthood. Given I had no other frame of reference with which to compare my life being Dr. J. Vernon McGee's grandson in some respects it often seemed somewhat normal even while clearly even back then being anything but normal. 

Being the grandson of Dr. J. Vernon McGee afforded a modest share of material comfort. For example, grandpa was generous at Christmas and for our birthdays and we often ate out at nice restaurants. Also I grew up in a middle-class Atascadero home that was payed for by Grandpa McGee. My childhood was physically comfortable while otherwise less so.

Although Grandpa McGee lived comfortably he was hardly a wealthy man by the standard of way too many of his contemporaries and even more so those who have come after him. After he died his trust left me enough money to pay for college outright which was quite generous. However, there were no grotesque sums of money accrued through his book royalties and no money personally gained through his ministry (Thru The Bible Radio) as grandpa was not driven by the love of money nor was he ethically-challenged as seems to be the industry standard for "men of God" (particularly those utilizing electronic media) in the modern era.

I experienced my own internal conflict growing up in Grandpa McGee's shadow. Part of this conflict was the sense of while loving grandpa dearly and he being my favorite grandpa I nonetheless felt trapped when talking to his fans who always seemed to tell me how lucky I was to have that legacy. These well-meaning people had no idea what they were talking about given the complexity of that "legacy" which was loaded with positives and negatives. Grandpa McGee was not always easy to be around (he was moody and self-absorbed at times) and I did not always get along with him even though he was often a lot of fun to be around, too, because he was also playful and funny and charming and highly intelligent. Another part of my own internal conflict was the sense that everybody expected me to follow Grandpa McGee into the ministry which idea I eschewed.

Like Grandpa McGee, I have always possessed my own set of internal contradictions. My entire life I have always been a free spirit and a highly socialized loner with many acquaintances but few close friends which is one of my own internal contradictions: I'm an introverted extrovert (or rather an extroverted introvert). To a fault I have always preferred to follow my own path. Part of this was driven by my own stubbornness. However, part of it was out of necessity as I struggled alone with mental illness for the better part of 20 years starting in my senior year of high school when the sum of everything in my life to that point, to wit, my dad dying and other family turmoil (of which Grandpa McGee was a central element) overwhelmed me and crushed me. This was possible because I was not walking in unity with God and He used mental illness to discipline and transform me in pretty much the same way He did with King Nebuchadnezzar.

I am now dangerously sane and yet to my somewhat surprise I have discovered that the world seems to have gone utterly mad (or was it already?) while I was away (in a manner of speaking). God and Time  healed me after years of reading and self-educating and journeying and searching a lonely path. That path has by way of a number of twists and turns led to where I am sitting this very moment in Paso Robles, CA, in my modest home where I live simply but comfortably while I make ends meet while underemployed following the demise of my small business in this moribund economy. I am now going back to school attending classes at Cuesta College where I am maintaining a 4.0 G.P.A. I am working on my general education there with the intention of transferring to a university sometime in the next few years. My current direction is Emergency Management but that could change if God directs because I'm through making my own decisions and am now simply following God's appointed path for me.

I am now starting over in life in my early 40's. For the first time in my life I am happy and have found peace. I have also thoroughly come to terms with Grandpa McGee and forgiven him and forgiven myself just as God has forgiven both of us. I am now able to embrace that legacy and can even see some of him embedded and encoded within me and my personality and am thus honored.

Other posts on Granpa McGee:

Dr. J. Vernon McGee's LA Times Obituary

A Marathon of Loss 

Top Ten J.V. McGee Things You Probably Didn't Know