Called Back to Balance.

Where's the balance? 

When I was a boy growing up in Miami, Florida the world was filled with drama.  It was the drama of fear, a horror film of Hitchkockesque proportions. A young boy's years from ages 9 to 12 on their own are tumultuous; innocence and fantasy fade morphing with the changing body chemistry into
manhood; that unforgiving place of false premise and uncertainty.  Add to this volatile combination a mad world and a life trending can go way off balance.

My insulated child's life was not totally buffered from the ordinary events of the day.  In south Florida what maybe were ordinary events to the rest of the U.S. were extraordinary for our families; the first example being the failed Bay of Pigs. I do not remember much about this event but I know now that it was the beginning of a different sort of atmosphere in our neighborhood.  Where my memory starts to get clearer is when I remember finding myself routinely under my desk at Morningside Elementary school with an obnoxious siren wailing in the background. I believe at the age of nine we have natural built in buffers and modulators against stress that makes it easier to absorb the insanity of the world. Perhaps it is because we know we can go back home to Mom and Dad? Though I cannot imagine what mom and dad were going through!

These Civil Defense air raid drills were the result of the Cold War being waged between the world's two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, which finally moved to the back porch of Miami with the advent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  History says that the two leaders Kennedy and Khrushchev had the exact right personalities to find enough balance to save the world from nuclear annihilation. I would call this divine balance.

I am not sure if Harold and Jeanne, our parents, considered that they were providing respite for my brothers Marty, Hal and I by sending us to Camp Rockmont for boys (blog post:East of Lake Eden, March 2015)  in Black Mountain, N.C.   I always believed it was because they needed a break from us.  Nevertheless, the camp years (1959-1964)  for me at least, gave me a different taste of faith in God from what I was used to from our Trinity Episcopal Church in Miami. These summers provided a balance to the world of close proximity to Cuba.

In our summer camp world in the scenic mountains of western North Carolina, there was a presence that permeated all of our activities.  It was no coincidence that a stones throw from our Black Mountain location was and is a small hamlet known as Montreat. This village gave humanity Billy Graham. All I can say is that whatever the effects on me of the anxious world of south Florida, the summer influence of Rev. Billy Graham provided a calming balance.

I am sure it is this influence that kept me from wandering off the path to a point of no return. I recently stumbled upon a Charlotte Observer press clipping from November, 1978. (Copy posted below this post). After about a decade and a half  I found myself face to face with Rev. Graham. It was at a point where I had turned my back on my Creator. I was fully invested in the world as a budding Public Relations executive at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  My job this day was coordinator for a Press Conference for a 60th Birthday Gala for Dr. Graham. This event is another example of God calling me back to balance. It was not the effect of any Graham spoken word but the presence of the man I remember. Peace and balance, that is all there is.

So grateful to have been here during the same age as this divine messenger.

Amen Brother

Bradford Bosworth
May, 2016

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Copy from 1978 Press Clipping, The Charlotte Observer

Graham fete

to leave him

dry, not high

      The Rev. Billy Graham will cele-

brate his 60th birthday in fine but

 dry style this evening among near-

   ly 600 male well-wishers at Meyers

                                                       Park Country Club.

  "There were supposedly only

                                                       400 engraved invitations," said

   Brad Bosworth, who handled press

    arrangements for the 7:30 p.m. din-

ner party. "But somehow it bal-

                                                       looned to almost 600.

      The only women invited to the

                                                        black-tie event were Graham's

wife, his mother and a radio sta-

                                                        tion reporter.

    Following a "cocktail party

without cocktails," Bosworth said,

will be a four course dinner includ-

ing prime rib of beef. Fifteen local

and national business and clerical

leaders are scheduled to speak be-

tween courses, and Bosworth pre-

dicted they would finish by 10 pm

        Among the out-of-town speakers

will be Dr. Jimmy Allen of San

Antonio, Texas, president of the

   Southern Baptist Convention: Don-

ald M. Kendall of Purchase, N.Y.,

                                                       president of PepsiCo;  Carl  H.

 Lindner of Cincinnati, president

and chairman of American Finan-

cial Corporation, and Dr. Harold

Lindsell of Wheaton, Ill., editor

emeritus of "Christianity Today."

******