Jack Perkins - Finding Moosewood, Finding God: What Happened When a TV Newsman Abandoned His Career for Life on an Island

J ack Perkins wasnt always a person whose presence could fill a room just with the sound of his deep James Earl Jones voice. That would come.

When we first met at NBC Washington back in the 60s (that would be the 1960s, not the 1860s, for you ageists), Jacks official job description was to be a writer for the nationally known broadcast journalist David Brinkley. Being a writer for Brinkley was like being a hitting coach for Ted Williams. Brinkley wrote virtually all of his own stuff in a unique style. Jack covered the doings of government and oversaw the editing of the film Brinkley wanted to use on the show that night. After some of that, he was sent out into the field to cover the story of the day: the Civil Rights Movement across the South. I, through all of this, was a lowly copyboy at NBC News in Washington, but Jack and I both saw ourselves as in the door at this great journalistic institution.

Like all of humanity, we were searching for the meaning of life, but didnt know it at the time. In journalism, one can quickly become cynical because we see so many tragedies and so many political phonies and religious hypocrites who fail to live up to promises they make or to practice what they preach. And so even if one decides to search for objective truth, one can often wind up lost by focusing on things below, rather than things above.

After leaving NBC in Washington, Jack was dispatched to Saigon to cover the emerging Vietnam War. Three years later, he was back in the States, posted (along with broadcasters Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw) to NBC in Los Angeles, which served as a kind of farm team for up and coming talent.

On both the NBC Nightly News and Today, Jack was widely seen reporting on offbeat stories that set him apart from many other journalists. He became successful, and earned and appreciated a certain celebrity. What he did not realize, though, was that his real journey, the nonprofessional one, was leading him to a place he had not sought and in a way that surprised even him.

Abruptly retiring from NBC, Jack and his wife, Mary Jo, moved to a little island off the Maine Coast. They were the only residents, living in a small cabin surrounded by Acadia National Park. Inspired by a TV visit he had made with the great master Ansel Adams, Jack took up photography. He also began to write poetry, a discipline that has eluded some of the best writers in other fields. Jack discovered not only that he was good at both photography and poetry but that these pursuits led him to a new place. Ultimately, his commanding presence found an outlet on the A&E cable network, where, along with actor Peter Graves, Jack hosted the popular Biography series, which probed the backgrounds of celebrities and other people of interest.

When one wishes to see the stars clearly at night, astronomers advise to get away from the bright lights of a big city so they might be seen clearly and in their splendor. It took moving away from the bright political lights of Washington and the brighter celebrity lights of Los Angeles for Jack to see clearly and to recognize the splendor of the One who wanted his attention and, much more, his life.

In this book, Jack Perkins takes us on his personal journey, which led him to Jesus of Nazareth and to a new life with more purpose and power than anything Washington can offer or Hollywood can deliver. The problem with so many of us is that we never begin the journey, and thus we never know that what is waiting for us is so much more exceedingly, abundantly, above all we ask or think, as Scripture puts it than the petty, unimportant, and disposable things in which we place so much of our puny faith.

Jacks faith in Christ is real because he has processed it worked it out, as Paul the apostle of Jesus commanded. Finding Moosewood, Finding God is as unique as Jack is. It avoids the cliches of contemporary evangelicalism and introduces us to what seems like an exciting life interviewing celebrities, only to present a much more purposeful life after Jack meets the Creator of all.

It is said that God has his people everywhere seemingly less so in journalism and in the arts, perhaps because of the view that these professions contaminate any follower of Jesus who enters them. But microphones and cameras carry only what people put through them, and failing to engage culture guarantees its remaining a vast wasteland, as former FCC Commissioner Newton Minow called it fifty years ago in a far more innocent age. It is true that it seems one must either hide or downplay ones faith in order to rise through the ranks, but it is not impossible if we are determined to honor God.

Maybe thats one of the many reasons I love Jack Perkins. He and I have been saved not to leave the world but to serve God in the worlds of writing, broadcasting, poetry, and photography. Perhaps there are others who, after reading Jacks book, will be inspired to follow Jesus, and then us as well.

Cal Thomas, former NBC News copyboy and current syndicated and USA Today columnist