The Dream Catchers: In Pursuit of the Challenge, the Quest, and the Future

Dedication

To the youngest generation of dream catchers in our family: Ashley, Daniel, Geoffrey, Holly, Kimberly, Laureli, and Sean

Carpe Diem! (Seize the Day!)

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Come Meet the Dream Catchers!

Chapter 1 The Cowboys: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Chapter 2 The Beautiful People: So You Think You Are Ugly?

Chapter 3 The Athletes: Are You Running with Me, Jesus?

Chapter 4 All the Lonely People: The Lonely Crowd

Chapter 5 Body Language: What’s It All About, Alfie?

Chapter 6 The Flower Children: The Hippie Trip

Chapter 7 Violent Youth: The Gang Bangers

Chapter 8 Biblical Battle Cry: We Are the Soldiers

Chapter 9 Christians Vigilantes: Conflict in Central Church

Chapter 10 The Actors: All the World’s a Stage

Chapter 11 Social and Personal Space: Forgive Us Our Trespasses

Chapter 12 My Students: The Dream Catchers

Appendix: Professor Daniel’s Research

Permissions and Credits

Acknowledgments

Special thanks and acknowledgments are extended to the pastors and professors who reviewed portions of the manuscript for this book: Gene Acuff, Richard Ambler, Clark McCall, Winona Howe, Leonard Tolhurst, Philip Welklin, and Joe Wheeler. The astute suggestions and words of encouragement from these Christian scholars are deeply appreciated.

Introduction

To the Reader: Come Meet the Dream Catchers!

I bring an unusual combination of educational credentials and professional experiences to writing this book. My college undergraduate and seminary training prepared me for a rewarding pastoral ministry in San Francisco and other California cities. At age thirty-eight, I embarked upon university graduate studies leading to a doctoral degree in sociology and criminology, followed by a long teaching and research career at several universities. Thus, my blended educational and occupational preparation has given me a hybrid perspective as a social scientist—combining an overarching Christian viewpoint with training and experience in empirical research methodology.

As a social scientist and a consummate people watcher, I continue to be intrigued by the many diverse individuals, groups, and subcultures that pass through my social environment—cowboys, hippies, soldiers, gang members, students, athletes, actors, lonely wanderers, dreamers, and people like you. They all have interesting stories to tell—though not all their lives are open books. Through a spiritual approach and the tools of my trade—observations, experiments, questionnaires, interviews, social interactions, empirical studies, and statistical analyses—I have uncovered some fascinating answers to the following profound questions about my human subjects: Who and what are they as social beings? What are their ideals and aspirations, their hopes and dreams for the future? Where are they going and how will they get there? Can we reliably understand and explain what they think and say and do? What do their words, body language, emotions, and actions tell us? What events and experiences have shaped their unfolding lives? Have they known happiness, pain, fear, struggle, failure, or success? What are they running from, or running after? Will their great quest lead them to truth, love, fulfillment, or God?

This book reflects some of the unforgettable experiences and discoveries resulting from my people watching. The following twelve chapters are a series of exciting research reports, each focusing on a different social group that illustrates an issue or problem pertinent to everyone—especially young people. Consequently, as you read these accounts, you will surely identify with some of my subjects. So come with me as we share the adventures of the mind recorded in the following pages. Come sit with me among the hippies on the street corners of San Francisco; come and listen to rap sessions with violent gang members in their hangout; come and vicariously run with athletes in pursuit of the prize at the end of the race; visualize with me the training of soldiers preparing for combat; share in the ride of lonely cowboys on the range; see and hear the actors on the stage of life. Above all, explore the idealistic hopes and dreams of people preparing for the future. And in their stories, your own expectations for an unfolding life course may well become clarified and focused. Come with me.

J.E.B.

The Classic and Contemporary American Cowboy.

One

The Cowboys: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

This chapter is based on my close interaction with hundreds of cowboys and cowgirls when I served on the faculty of Oklahoma State University and on research visits to the Cowboy Hall of Fame and the annual Oklahoma Cowboy Camp Meeting. It helps explain why so many people appreciate Willie Nelson’s 1991 song, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.

_____________________________

Cowboys, round-ups, and rustlers! Range wars, stampedes, and cow towns! Wagon trains, branding irons, and the Pony Express! Do these phrases suggest the nineteenth century American West? Are they word pictures of a unique frontier culture and lifestyle? Could they be a schedule of modern television or motion picture dramatizations?

On the contrary, these phrases have a much older and broader application. They refer to many specific individuals, incidents, locations, and stories recorded in the Bible. Amazingly, the patriarchs, prophets, psalmist, apostles, and other writers of the scriptures often related incidents and episodes that strikingly parallel our historic American frontier experience. I will illustrate this concept with a synthesis of Bible translations and commentaries and historical sources, first by paraphrasing a very familiar Old Testament anecdote.

Trouble at the Circle J Ranch

Once upon a time, there was a God-fearing, prosperous old rancher who had worked hard for many years to build up his spread. In addition to the huge acreage, encompassing numerous barns, livestock pens and pastures, and the homes of his large family, his brand was on 78,000 sheep, 1,000 camels, and 500 yoke of oxen. His wife and seven sons, and a large group of faithful herdsmen and cowboys, all worked to maintain the far-flung ranching empire out on the prairie.

Suddenly, the good times came to an end through an awesome series of catastrophes. First, a gang of outlaws attacked the hired hands out in the pasture lands, killing some of the cowboys and rustling all the cattle. Then the rancher received more bad news. His foreman rushed to the ranch house and shouted: Boss! There’s been a big grassfire out on the range—probably caused by lightning. The sheep couldn’t be saved and some of the shepherds also died in the blaze!

As the rancher reeled from the accumulating disasters, a third messenger arrived and breathlessly reported more trouble: J.B., your enemies have jumped the camel drivers. They stole the camels and I barely escaped! And the rancher leapt into action: Round up my boys and we’ll head off the rustlers at the pass! But then, the most crushing news of all came from the trembling lips of a fourth man: J.B., we can’t do that. A tornado just flattened one of the ranch houses. I’m sorry Boss, but the twister killed all your sons. And at that moment, as that last message penetrated his mind with the horrific reality of his terrible loss, the old rancher clung to a humble faith that has inspired and strengthened millions of individuals suffering unfathomable losses: The lord gave, and the lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

By now you have probably seen through J.B.’s thin semantic disguise to identify the patriarch Job, whose story may be the oldest book in the entire Bible. Thus, Job’s experience is an appropriate place to begin our comparison of ancient and nineteenth century frontier cultures and lifestyles. We will emerge from our study with a conclusion already reached by countless historians: the industrialized and urbanized mass societies of today did not begin until two hundred years ago, and our contemporary, technologically advancing culture and lifestyle did not fully develop until the twentieth century. In other words, life during Bible times was astonishingly similar to life on the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’ American frontier. This conclusion is illustrated by an abundance of biblical and historical references (e.g., Hicks, 1954, 245).

Frontier Culture and Comparisons

Most of us have read accounts or seen pictorial presentations of our American pioneers crossing the western plains in long wagon trains. However, the first wagon train on record left Canaan to travel west into Egypt some three thousand years ago (Genesis 45:19, 21, 27). Similarly, the Pony Express that delivered mail across our sparsely settled American West in the early nineteenth century was not a new idea. A prototype mail service was implemented in the reign of Queen Esther. And the Prime Minister wrote in the king’s name, and sealed it with the king’s ring, and sent letters by posts [postmen or mailmen] on horseback, and riders on fast mules and camels (Esther 8:10, KJV).

Cattle ranching is one of the most ancient human occupations. According to Genesis 13:2, Abraham was rich in cattle. And the first recorded range war was between Abraham and Lot. Their respective herdsmen (or cowboys) began quarreling over pasture or grazing rights for their herds of cattle. Later, Joseph said of his brothers: Their trade has been to tend and feed cattle (Genesis 46:32, KJV).

During the Exodus of the Hebrew tribes out of Egyptian slavery, one of the things that angered Pharaoh was when Moses ordered a cattle roundup and headed for the Red Sea bordering the Sinai wilderness (Exodus 10:24–27). Forty years later, as the tribes of Gad and Reuben (noted for their large herds of cattle) entered the Promised Land, they claimed the area of Jazar and Gilead, For behold, the place was a place for cattle (Numbers 32) [i.e., a place of much grass, good for grazing livestock].

The early pastoralist occupation and lifestyle were extended and widely replicated in many exact details down through the centuries. As recently as 1890, the American Southwest and Midwest witnessed huge cattle drives when millions of Longhorn cattle were driven from range to railhead to market. My own paternal grandfather worked as a cowboy-wrangler on the famous Chisholm Trail at the beginning of the twentieth century. American literature of that time describes places like Omaha, Kansas City, and Fort Worth as cow towns because of the extensive stockyards or holding pens for cattle on their outskirts. The ancient Israelites had the same arrangement. The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs thereof for our cattle (Joshua 14:4; 21:2, KJV).

The marking of livestock with branding irons to identify ownership dates back to the Egyptians dynasties and was a common practice in ancient Israel. In the American West, a branding iron consisted of an iron rod with a simple symbol or mark which cowboys heated in a fire. After the iron turned red hot it was pressed against the hide of a steer or cow. The unique brand meant that cattle owned by multiple ranchers could then graze freely together on the open range. At the time of the Spring Roundup the cowboys would separate the cattle into their respective ranch herds before driving them to market.

This helps us to understand what Jesus was talking about in His parables describing how the wheat and the weeds, the sheep and the goats, the good ones and the rebellious mavericks, would grow and live together until the harvest or roundup. Similarly, the saved and the lost people will live together in our common world until the final harvest when the angels separate them into two groups. Those heavenly range riders have been trying to corral you and me for a long time. But in that great judgment day, our brand of living will have marked and designated each person for the devil’s herd or the flock of God. Each of us will carry a brand of commitment on the soul that will indicate his or her eternal destiny. The choice is ours to make. What will it be for you and me—the mark of the beast or the seal of God? (Matthew 13; Revelation 9:4; 13:14).

The American Cowboy

The Judgment Day Roundup has been a recurring theme in the ballads sung by young American cowboys on their lonely watch over the cattle herds on the Western trails. Their songs often carry a wistful, plaintive, even spiritual overtone. The cowboy was able to put into verse and musical parables his own uncomplicated religion when he sang of The last Roundup and Ghost Riders in the Sky. For instance, The Cowboy’s Dream contains this rich imagery and symbolism:

Last night as I lay on the prairie,

And gazed at the stars in the sky;

I wondered if even a cowboy,

Could drift to that sweet bye and bye.

They say there will be a great round-up,

When the cowboys like doggies [little calves] will stand,

To be marked by the riders of judgment,

Who are posted and know every brand.

(Author Unknown)

There are still thousands of real cowboys in the small towns and rural areas of the United States—men with calluses on their hands and manure on their boots—who know the great satisfaction of working with livestock and the land. There are genuine cowgirls, too, who share these values and lifestyle. I had the pleasure of interacting with many of these admirable young people in my classes at Oklahoma State University and visited their Cowboy Hall of Fame and the annual Cowboy Camp Meeting.

Many of our Old Testament heroes, at one time or another participated in the independent, physically demanding, and occasionally dangerous work of the herdsman or cowboy. The unforgettable experience helped prepare them for later hardships and demands in God’s service. For instance, the prophet Zechariah reported that he had worked with livestock in his youth (Zech. 13:5). And when King David assembled all the officers, stewards, and mighty men of Israel to explain his plan to build a great temple to the glory of God, he also invited the leaders of the herdsmen or cowboys (1 Chronicles 27:29, 30; 28:1).

The Crisis and the Call of God

Viewing the human experience in the larger context of unfolding world history, we can perceive the repeated rise and fall of kingdoms and empires; we can see the nations struggling for survival and desperately in need of dedicated leadership and inspired direction. And through all the chaos and confusion, a divine hand and master plan guide the unfolding destinies of nations (Daniel 2). In the Bible, God has His own criteria of qualifications for leadership. He seldom called the famous, wealthy, powerful, and well educated to serve His specific objectives in the world. Rather, it appears that a divine principle often favors the appointment of humble, poor, and unexpected persons—with an unsophisticated, straight-forward faith in God—from the desert places and wilderness, the rural and remote villages, from the flocks and herds. Those humble country preachers, herdsmen, shepherds, and cowboys have learned to depend upon God for their resources and thus have served His cause very well (1 Corinthians 1:20–29).

Even Moses, though highly educated, a celebrated military commander, and heir apparent to Pharaoh’s throne, needed additional preparation before he could lead the Hebrew exodus out of Egyptian bondage. Moses spent forty years caring for livestock in the wilderness of Media. In the solemn grandeur of the everlasting hills and mountains he beheld the majesty of the Most High and, in contrast, realized how powerless and insignificant the gods of Egypt were. The deliverer was to go forth as a humble shepherd with only a rod in his hand, but God would make that rod the symbol of his power (Exodus 2, 3).

The entrance of young David onto the stage of Old Testament history is another illustration of this phenomenon. When imposing King Saul was faltering on the throne and the nation of Israel was taunted by her enemies, the prophet