Greg Surratt - IR-REV-Rend: Christianity Without the Pretense. Faith Without the Facade

(ded-i-kay-shuhn) noun

1. the act of dedicating
2. a formal, printed inscription in a book, piece of music, etc., dedicating it to a person, cause, or the like
3. honoring some people whom I love very much

I approached our recent vacation in Colorado with three lofty goals:

1. Get a picture of a moose
2. Buy some new cowboy boots
3. Break 80 on eighteen holes of golf

I was successful on the first two. Golf, on the other hand, not so much. Some people say that the game got its name because all the other four-letter words were taken. On most days, Id have to agree.

We arrived in Denver a little before noon on a Friday, and in a couple of hours I was on the links in hot pursuit of the third goal. Since I didnt know anyone at the course, the starter randomly grouped me with three complete strangers.

The first was a guy about my age, a fair golfer and a nice enough guy. His name was John. The second was a very athletic salesman type; Randy was his name. He was an African American and a very good golfer (he complained about shooting 2 over par). We rode the cart together. Our fourth playing partner that hot July afternoon was a guy named Luke. He was an obvious octogenarian, very thin, very wrinkled, and he was pulling a cart full of clubs, intending to walk the entire eighteen holes.

I could sense right away Luke was going to be a problem. I hate doing anything slow, especially playing golf. My motto: Its okay to be bad. Its not okay to be slow. A little obnoxious, I know, but its true. You can play with anyone, as long as you keep up the pace. Im thinking, How slow could an eighty-six-year-old guy, pulling a walking cart, in 93-degree weather be? This was going to be a long, frustrating day, I told myself, not a good way to start the vacation.

I was wrong. It was an incredible experience. Luke turned out to be a real piece of work.

He was a good golfer. He played three or four times per week, and hed shot his age every year since he turned seventy-four. (For those of you who are not golfers, I will not take the time to explain how incredible that is, other than to say that it doesnt look like I will live long enough to ever accomplish said feat.)

I dont hit it as far as I used to, he said. But the truth was, almost every shot was straight. As far as keeping up, by the time my cart crisscrossed the golf course, chasing my oftentimes errant shots, Luke was usually somewhere near the middle of the fairway, pulling his clubs, waiting on me to hit the next ball.

But it wasnt the fact that he was a good golfer that made it an incredible experience. It was his story.

Luke had lived a lot of life in those eighty-six years. Hed worked in the mines in Butte, Montana, until the war broke out in 1940. He served his country with the greatest generation defending our freedoms for the next few years. Luke had faithfully attended Mass every week as long as he could remember, and then started helping as an altar boy in the late 1920s. (That certainly didnt keep him from offering a colorful commentary on misplaced shots from time to time.)

The most amazing thing about his story was that he had been married to the same woman for sixty-one years. More precisely, they had walked the aisle exactly sixty-one years ago from the day that we played golf together. Get it? An eighty-six-year-old man was celebrating his sixty-first wedding anniversary by walking eighteen holes with three complete strangers, in the hot Denver sun.