WHITEY HAUGAN

My good friend and highly esteemed pastor, Harald ‘Whitey’ Haugan has entered into glory after 93 years of a most productive and memorable life on earth. I have known Whitey since 1976 when I moved to Jacksonville, Florida. His wife, Mary, was the realtor who found us our first house. He was then on the staff of All Saints Church, and subsequently planted All Souls Church. I was at the first services of that congregation which took place in the community room of a condo complex and then moved to The Lighting Showcase. All Souls later bought land and built a church campus. Whitey led the church to great growth numerically and spiritually. Before that he served two rural mission churches, was an assistant at two congregations and was helpful in starting three other churches. He also was chaplain to two New England prep schools in the 1960’s. He graduated from the University of Florida and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and also did graduate work at the University of Oslo Summer School in Norway.

He was a troubadour on the guitar, an avid jogger (the image used by All Souls was the sole of a running shoe!) and a dedicated Bible student. He was known for his detailed expositions of Scripture on Sunday mornings outlined in overheads for the viewing of the congregations. He did not believe in sermonettes which produced Christianettes but full-bodied unabridged lessons from the pulpit.

His many books (available on Amazon), however, contain short, easily digested chapters on following Jesus. His chapter titles are creative and arresting: It’s All About You, What Really Runs the World? Time for a New Suit, When the World Falls Apart, What Are We Stewing About, It’s as Plain as the Nose on Your Face, Being a First Responder, Political Correctness? Give Me a Break! Walking Among Vultures, Here’s Mud in Your Eye, Pro-Choice, Post-Choice, Pre-Choice and Re-Choice.

As I read his punchy phrases I came to the conclusion that what I was reading was a modern Imitation of Christ. That classic by Thomas A Kempis was a product of his time. LOOKING FORWARD 2 is the product of a faithful ministry and contains much wisdom and perspective in understanding and negotiating how to follow Jesus in these challenging times. It is clear-eyed and commanding as a military general surveys the terrain of the spiritual battlefield we call earth. If you want ammunition to combat the world, the flesh and the devil, as you seek to follow Jesus, LOOKING FORWARD will supply you what you need.

Another book on the Gospel of John contains this gem on loneliness.

“The ever-disquieting realization that we just might be alone is the singly most avoided thought studiously escaped whenever possible. It is the proverbial elephant in the living room. When we hear songs about it, read books about it, see movies that haunt us with that theme, we dash for the door to find some instant  cure like calling someone,  having a drink, taking a pill, partying, working harder, looking for some new physical, emotional or intellectual adventure to push it back in the recesses of the mind. But everyone knows that this is only denial. There is no way to avoid the fact that we are alone in a big universe. It is an aloneness that harder work, more pleasure and scaling accomplishment can never satisfy.

When we are alone, we ponder the personal questions of self-conscious existence: Who am I? Why am I here? What am I? Why do I feel so alone when I am in the midst of people I don’t know and even when I am with people I do know? Why am I doing what I do day after day? Is it all worth it? Why do I defend myself trying to justify that I feel good about myself? Why do I try to measure up hoping others will think I am an OK person? Why do I live where I do, wear the clothes I do, look for friends who make me feel comfortable? Why do I hide my feelings, my dreams and my fears? Why do I constantly have to prove myself? I am an inconsistent person and could be better, but better for what and how and why?

If these are the questions we ask and face them honestly, we are looking at everyone in the world. So much of human activity is predicated on dealing with the aloneness factor. The final frustration of each person’s aloneness can be seen and summed up in the extremely revealing statement of the mountain climber who, when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, answered, “Because it’s there.” That is the final refusal to face the bottom-line issue of living without God. You just see each moment as a mountain to climb, to keep active, as something to do to keep you occupied, a task to accomplish, just because it is there, because the alternative is to face the great void, the abyss of loneliness and what to do with it.

But then comes the wall of reality that no one ever scaled, aloneness ultimately ends in the darkness of death and beyond. Because when you finish a task, climb a mountain, find the peak of pleasure, get the trophy, find the acceptance, feel good for the moment, they are only as fulfilling as that moment of adulation when you finish them, because then you have to start all over. You are still alone with no permanent sense of fulfillment. And the attempt to keep a record of it all, to live in the nostalgic past of accomplishments is an even lonelier walk when you find other people forget who you are, new people haven’t even heard of you, your self-defenses begin to break down with age. You’ve seen the older person who begins talking to himself because the world around no longer cares. It is taken up with its own hectic escape from aloneness. And there is the dark wilderness of aloneness wanders the heart still East of Eden in the thorns and thistles.

Aloneness is a spiritual void, a deepening darkness that only God in Jesus Christ can fill. This is why the prophets said that a light was coming into the world and Jesus declares He is the Light of the world. He did just that when He came into this world and brought His light to end the frustration of life without God, cancel the temporary fading attempts for acceptance and meaning and bring in the permanency of a real relationship which illumines the heart and its surrounding world.”

(Harald Haugan, The Gospel of John, pp.255-257)

I am trying to avoid paying much attention to the news as it is uniformly negative and obsessed with certain political and medical topics. All too often it is slanted and sensationalistic. Most of us go about our daily lives concerned with our immediate wellbeing and activities not the pronouncements of politicians and pundits. Something my old friend Whitey Haugan wrote resonated with me. His theme was to stay spiritually alert wherever you are with whomever you are in the day-to-day atmosphere in which you live.

“It is especially hard when the media pummels us all as we move around. Media are designed to make money and the way they do it is to keep your attention centered on what its designers believe will keep you tuned in. Look at the following listing: the bizarre (that’s intentional because it sells), the bleating of minority paranoia (that’s intentional because it sells), carnage in war, natural climatic tragedy at home (that’s intentional because it sells), sex; its heroes and its abusers (that’s intentional because it sells), divisive reportage, that keeps ethnic groups emotionally embroiled (that’s intentional because it sells), keeping economic unsettledness before us (that’s intentional because it sells), rape, murder, incest, robbery, scandals in every field (all intentional because they sell). Listen closely to questions reporters ask. They intend to rile and then file for later use to keep us upset.

The media are designed to hold you emotionally attached to issues over which no individual has control. All we have is opinion and that opinion shaped without the benefit of personal involvement or knowledge. That’s the point. Even the writers know little. They only write from second-hand knowledge dressed in opinion. And they are really good at it. Politics, economics, religion, sports, and the emotion they stir up are the means to sell what their advertisers offer. Media moguls have experience in how to keep all of us on the edge of our personal ego trips.

Ever hear of sin? This word may not be a conscious tool in the minds of media practitioners but it is certainly rampant in the halls of media decision-making. Media are manipulative as they exploit ethnic, class, political, racial and economic differences. Using the opinions of fringe groups that may not number more than 6 people gives them fodder for media exploitation. The more the spirit of divisiveness is used the more feverish emotions are aroused. Exploit the emotional furor and you have an abundance of stories to sell. How much of the economic and racial upset in recent history has not been the result of media exploitation? Add to these pride, getting ‘the story’, winning an award, employing talking heads to appear sophisticated and knowledgeable, then engineered to smile or be serious at the right time, saturated in studied but fake objectivity. Look beneath the surface of what you see. They are simply extensions of sin enticing us to buy in. None of us are free from their grasping tentacles ready to wrap themselves around our mind, our emotions, our hearts and our spirits.

The media are like an enormous vacuum cleaner drawing us into the dust bag of frustration, helplessness and hopelessness. Their lure is to isolate us in the issues of the moment and alienate us from the log term biblical values of committed patience, prayer, Scriptural reasoning and trusting God’s will which have ‘no place to lay their head’ in the purposefully manufactured ‘heats of the moment.’

God, faith and spiritual thinking don’t sell. Personal and interpersonal heated opinion does. Note again when we place the Cross over these two that the first is the vertical beam rejected and the latter is the skewing of the horizontal beam. …We must recognize when we stand on the precipice of being drawn into the pit of controversy or mastering the moment by knowing God’s will we have a choice. We can choose self or God. Scripture says this; ‘The work of God for you is to believe on the One He has sent (John 6:29).’

Several ways to overcome the temptation to react in haste:

First, remember that you are a disciple of Jesus, an image of God and a spiritual being before you identify yourself as a political, economic, intellectual, ethnic or religious individual (Gen.1:27).

Second, you know the end of the story. God wins, therefore you win (Rev.21:22-27).

Third, Scripture gives us momentary foot brakes, “Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly” (2 Timothy 2:14-16), and “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20).

We are constantly living in the throes of political competition. But hear this, there is no salvation through politics. Only in Jesus can we find a solution to the constant turmoil of sin and the media barrage that complicates it. Life starts in a faith relationship with the Lord. His thinking is the way and His Spirit is life. Our task is to present Jesus, keep our thinking Jesus centered, our hearts Spirit led and our spiritual faithfully presenting Jesus. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Col.4:6) “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:150. Stay focused on Jesus.”

(The Rev. Harald K. Haugan, In and Within, Out and About, pp.131-133)

 Another book includes this wonderful poem, which can serve as the lyrics for a Christian rap song, and an aspiration for all of us.

From Inner Desire to Outer Fire in Spirit Attire

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

I want to be a new man not a stew man or a brew man or a blue man, like I said, a new man, a new man not an old man, a do-man not a mold man.

I want to be a faith man not a wraith man.

I want to be a trust man not a dust, rust and lust man.

I want to be a God man not a sod and clod man.

I want to be a Jesus-man not a tease-us, grease-us and please-us man.

I want to be a Spirit man not a fear-it man.

I want to be a Word man not a nerd man.

I want to be a level man not a devil man.

I want to be a belief man not a thief man.

I want to be a dare-to-be man not a scared-to-be man.

I want to be a love-from-above man not a blow-from-below man.

I want to be a brother man not just another man.

I want to be a see and feed man not a bleed and greed man.

I want to be a real-and-feel man not a wheel-and-deal man.

I want to be a knowing, growing and glowing man, not a stowing, slowing, to-and-fro-ing man.

I want to be an action man not a fraction man.

I want to be an upright man not an up-tight man.

I want to be a zoom man, not a gloom-and-doom man.

I want to be a whole man not a dead man, a soul man not a dread man.

I want to be a mind man, a one-of-a-kind man, an easy-to-find man.

I want to be a fair man, a care man, a share man, a here-and-there and everywhere man.

I don’t want to be a Pharisee in heresy or a Sadducee, it’s sad you see.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite or a phony or a fake in a world of slash and dash, break and take.

There’s so much more waiting at the Gate; when you ask, seek and knock you never have to wait.

I’m moving from fearitude to Spiritude.

All in all, what do I really want?

I want to be what Jesus saw in me when He set me free to be in Him and Him in me.

I thank God for this faithful and good servant who blessed the lives of countless people. May we aspire to his great example.