Author: Dale McGavran

In the early morning of February 3, 1943, the German submarine U-223, patrolled the icy waters of the North Atlantic searching for Allied targets to sink.  She discovered a six ship convoy that included the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, an Army transport ship sailing for a base in Greenland.  At 12:55 A.M., the U-boat commander gave the order to fire on the Dorchester.  Seconds later the torpedo struck its target and gravely damaged the ship.  The Dorchester would sink in less than 30 minutes.  Six hundred and seventy-five men died when she went down.

Though it represents the greatest loss in any World War II American ship convoy, the sinking of U.S.A.T. Dorchester is known for something completely different.  Packed in with the others aboard the ship were four men whose actions taken at that early hour instantly inspired those present, and whose actions continue to inspire those who hear their story.  George L. Fox, Alexander B. Goode, John P. Washington, and Clark V. Poling…names that most people do not recognize.  

Aboard the Dorchester was not the first time George Fox found himself in the crosshairs of the enemy and putting the needs of others ahead of his own.  During the First World War, fighting near the Champagne region in France, Fox removed his own gas mask and placed it on a wounded soldier before carrying him to safety.  In another instance, Fox did the same thing to a French soldier, instantly earning him the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest decoration.  It seemed as though personal sacrifice ebbed through Fox’s veins.

Alexander Goode excelled in sports and in the classroom, receiving among other things, a PhD from Johns Hopkins University.  He wanted to be a rabbi like his father.  He also desired to become a chaplain for the U.S. Navy.  Initially turned down, he reapplied after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and this time was accepted to the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps.  He would later meet his three brothers-in-arms while stationed at Camp Myles Standish in Massachusetts.  

John Washington knew early on that God called him to the priesthood.  Service and helping others were in his blood.  When the family struggled to make it, young John took a job delivering newspapers.  But his call to the clergy almost did not happen.  Once when John returned home from school, he fell ill with a fever.  The doctor could not get the fever down and eventually John fell unconscious.  Fearing the worst, the doctor called for a priest to anoint and bless John.  Desperately needing a miracle, they got one the next morning.  John’s fever broke.  He later told his parents that God must have saved him for something.

Clark Poling seemed destined to follow his father’s footsteps.  Graduating from Rutgers University and then Yale Divinity School, Clark became, like his father Daniel, a minister.  Young Clark believed in the goodness of all men until the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  One day he commented about enlisting and going to Europe to join the fighting, but that he would not become a chaplain like his father, who had served during the First World War.  Eventually Clark’s father persuaded him to join the chaplaincy and work to help other men who fought on the front lines.  Little did Daniel know that the ship which carried Clark and hundreds of others would come under attack from a German submarine, much like the ship that carried him to war more than 20 years earlier.

Four men, living four completely different lives, yet somehow inextricably connected.  They developed a special bond during those days of waiting in Massachusetts that became quite noticeable when the Dorchester set sail.  Soldiers on board remembered how the four chaplains from different faiths came together as if they had known each other for years.  Many had never seen a Catholic and a Protestant get along so well.  This would serve the chaplains well in the days to come, and especially on that fateful morning when their selfless acts would save many of the men aboard the ship.  

To fully understand, we need to know how this unfolded.  After the Dorchester left the New York harbor, the captain received word that U-boats were patrolling the waters looking for easy prey.  He ordered the men aboard to wear their warmest clothing and to put on their life jackets, but because of the heat in the ship’s lower deck compartments, many did not heed the captain’s command.  Others ignored him because the life jackets were not comfortable to wear.  This decision would soon come to haunt many aboard.  

When the torpedo struck, instant chaos ensued.  The electricity went out and men stumbled to find their way in the dark, most leaving their life jackets behind.  Many would never make it out from the below deck compartments.  Those that did find their way to the deck scrambled for the lifeboats.  In the disorder and confusion, men overcrowded the boats causing many of them to capsize, spilling the men into the freezing water.  Seeing this, the ship’s captain called upon the four chaplains to calm the men and to organize the evacuation.  As men reached the deck from below, Fox, Goode, Washington, and Poling would hand them a life jacket, uttering words of peace and calm in the hopes of quieting the men.  However, with most of the issued life jackets still below deck, the chaplains ran out very quickly.  When this happened, the most selfless act occurred.  One by one, each chaplain took off his own life jacket and gave it to a man who was without.

Many who survived the sinking would later testify to the final moments before the Dorchester slipped below the water’s surface.  They noticed the four chaplains linked arm in arm, praying in accordance with each man’s faith.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.  The four chaplains perfectly embodied these words of Jesus.  On this day these men were leaders with a purpose.

We were led to believe in our history lessons in grade school that on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere rode through the night to warn that the British were coming.  In fact, there were multiple riders that night who spread the message across the countryside.  Of the multitude, there were three primary riders – Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott.  If you are a Costco shopper, you might be thinking that if you could get three riders instead of just one, it would be better, because three is always better than one.  And you would be correct, except for this…of the three, only Prescott reached Concord in time to warn the residents that British troops were approaching.  You see, all three were captured by British sentries and detained.  However, at some point, Prescott was able to jump his horse over a stone wall and escape.  A short time later, Dawes also escaped, but fell off his horse and had to walk back to Boston.  Right about now you might be questioning the “prisoner-taking” capabilities of the British soldiers.  Maybe because Prescott and Dawes had escaped, the British guarded Revere more closely.  We don’t know.  What we do know is that he was eventually released, but without his horse.  All three of the men helped the revolutionary cause that night, but Longfellow’s poem probably should have given the credit to Samuel Prescott.  Or perhaps Longfellow could have written about a similar event that happened a couple of years later.

It’s April 26, 1777, two years after the rides of Revere, Dawes, and Prescott.  On this night, another ride will take place, though it will not get the attention of a famous poet.  The British are once again on the move, this time for the supply depot located in Danbury, Connecticut.  If they capture the depot, it will be a major loss for the Patriot cause.  The problem for the Americans though, is that planting season occurs in late April, and all of the men have returned home to their farms.  Colonel Henry Ludington, the commander of the local militia, has to get word to his men that he needs for them to grab their guns and head back for battle.  Borrowing a page from the Revere method of operations, he has to find a rider to make the grueling trip.  With no real options outside of his own family, he enlists his oldest child, Sybil.  She will have to be the one to make the 30-40 mile trip on horseback to call the militia to arms.  

At 9:00 PM Sybil saddles up her horse and begins the journey to wake up the rag tag bunch of farmers turned soldiers.  She rides from farm to farm, banging on doors and windows yelling instructions for them to meet at the Ludington farm.  At around daybreak she arrives back home, with her mission complete.  In a war that has seen its share of American disappointment, this will energize the revolution and see momentum shift.  Except that it doesn’t.  The awakened men do not reach Danbury in time.  The British burn the supplies, including stockpiles of food, medicine, and clothes.  From there, the British march to Ridgefield, where they meet some resistance from the Patriots.  However, it is not until after the British start to return to the beach and their ships that Ludington’s company of militia arrive, and an ensuing skirmish occurs.  Though not a full blown battle, the Americans do expedite the British troops’ return to their ships.

Though Sybil’s ride gets nowhere near the attention of Revere’s, it is such an important story on many levels.  First, we don’t have enough examples of courageous women in our history books.  While it’s true that the men she awakened did not make it in time to save Danbury, it does not in the least diminish her actions.  To set out alone and ride in the rain through the night for miles and miles, while British soldiers monitored roads threatening to take captive anyone they thought looked suspicious, was a scary proposition.  After all, they had a couple more years of “prisoner-taking” training under their belts.  Add the fact she was a 16 year-old girl, and it makes the event even more incredible.  Second, we should remember that courage, bravery, integrity, and character are not dependent on a specific outcome.  The British still burned Danbury in spite of Sybil’s ride though the night.  But her courage was on full display every minute of that ride.   Third, heroes, especially the unknown ones, exceed explanation.  A 16 year-old farm girl rides like the wind, defying the British empire.  It should be front page news.   No one would have ever believed a teenage girl capable of racing against all odds for the revolutionary cause, so instead of the front page, her story is rarely mentioned.

I’m reminded of what 1 Samuel 16:7 says – “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”  Sybil Ludington and Paul Revere could not have been more different from all outward appearances.  But on the inside, they were both liberty-minded riders on a revolutionary mission.  It’s a reminder, courage wears many faces…including that of a teenage girl.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  That is one of the more famous lines from a movie that has haunted me since my childhood.  It’s why I won’t go swimming in the ocean.  You might recognize the quote from Chief Brody in the movie “Jaws” as he discovers the behemoth shark that has been feasting on swimmers off the coast of Amity Island.  “That’s a 20 footer,” says Matt Hooper the shark expert.  “25” responds Quint, the boat’s captain.  It is at this point where you realize that planning was not high on the list of priorities for this expedition to kill the shark.  After all, Hooper knew it was an exceptionally large shark based on his examination of the remains of the first victim.  If he was the shark expert he claimed to be, he would have extrapolated the size of the bites and from there determined the length of the shark.  You might also remember the scene where vandals have painted a huge shark fin on the Amity billboard.  Hooper is quick to point out that it is anatomically correct.  In other words, it is a massive great white shark.  But here they are in a 40-foot boat, in the deep blue, hunting a 25-foot fish with…enormous jaws.  The mathematician might say that the boat to shark ratio is less than optimal.

If you think about it, you really shouldn’t blame Hooper though.  People can be notoriously poor planners, if they plan at all.  When they do plan, too often they think those plans are solid gold.  And if you are anything like me, you know that things rarely play out like they are planned.  But we try nonetheless.

It doesn’t take a lot of work to find those in our past who planned for things to go one way, only to have them go another.  This week I want to introduce you to another Hooper whose plan did not go as well as he thought it would.  This Hooper’s first name is William, and he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  William was a North Carolinian who has been called the “prophet of independence” because he wrote a letter to a friend in which he stated that the colonies were soon going to establish a new constitution built on the ruins of British rule.  During the American Revolution, like many of his compatriots, the British took revenge on him by destroying his two homes.  As a result, he became separated from his family and he was forced to flee into the countryside.  Traveling through the woods and swamps, he contracted malaria from which he suffered the remaining eight years of his life.  He planned on his circumstances improving with the American victory, but instead, they got worse.  He was disliked by the Loyalists because of his anti-British sentiments, and disliked by the patriots because he refused to enforce reprisals against the Loyalists after the British were defeated.  He went from a prophet of independence to a partner in impecuniosity.     Things just didn’t work out like he thought they would.  But then things rarely do.

Matt and William succumbed to the saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men can still go wrong”.  Robert Burns might have written the basis of that statement in 1785, but it hardly originated with him.  Solomon recorded in Proverbs 16:9 that man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.  Matt, William, and Robert may have approached the problem of planning not working out because, well, things don’t always work out.  But Solomon had a different idea.  He believed that though there existed an element of human planning, God, through his divine purpose, was guiding the whole outcome.  That may be hard to let sink in because we want to feel in-control.  We take the time to work out the carefully crafted details, and now we want things to go the exact way we planned.  And all along God is compassionately saying, yes, make your plans, but know that it is I who directs your steps.

I am thankful for the Matts and Williams of the world.  They give me hope that I am not the only one who believes my planning is good and solid (maybe not gold though), only to see how wrong I was.  I’ve lived through thousands of days worth of plans, and can honestly say that relatively few ended how I originally envisioned they would.  I can also honestly say that I am not disappointed because things didn’t work out like I thought they would, because as we have already seen, things rarely do.

We’ve all heard the adage “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me”.  If only.  We know that name calling and giving people ridiculing nicknames can cause harm.  You’ve heard them, maybe even been called them, or worse, used them against others.  “Four eyes,” “brace face,” “nerd,” “shorty”…the list goes on.  No one is exempt from barbs.  Some pretty famous people were given nicknames.  Patton was “Old Blood and Guts”.  Winfield Scott was “Old Fuss and Feathers”.  Grover Cleveland was “Uncle Jumbo”.  William Henry Harrison, who served the shortest term as President, was “Old Granny”.  Still others didn’t rise to the level of official nicknames, but had physical descriptives tied to their fame.  Napoleon was short.  Lincoln was tall and gangly. 

The commonality in all of these names is that they are based, correctly or incorrectly, on something that is distinct to that person, something they said, or something about their appearance.  Cleveland earned the nickname because of his size.  Scott garnered his because he was overly concerned with how he looked.  And well, I think you probably get the picture about Napoleon (surprise ahead…keep reading) and Lincoln. 

Attaching nicknames to people is almost always bad.  It rarely leads to anything positive.  Flip open your Bible to 2 Kings 2:23-24 to see the extreme tragic results of name calling.  But, what if?  What if there were good nicknames (allow me some leeway in defining what a nickname is)?  What if, instead of four eyes, you were called a child of God?  What if, instead of belonging to the nerd group, you were a card-carrying member of a royal priesthood?  What if you were not a loser, but a victor?  What if you were not shameful in the eyes of others, but sinless in the eyes of God? Well, start celebrating, because it is true.  If you are a Jesus follower, then you have some remarkable nicknames…child of God and royal priesthood are just the beginning.  There is also “His workmanship,” “new creation,” “His Bride,” “Chosen Ones,” “Holy,”and “Beloved.”  God looks past the short stature, the tall and gangly, the skin imperfections, all of it, and sees a beautiful creation.  This alone should present us with hope as we go into our day. 

Napoleon is the target of all kinds of jokes because of how tall he was.  Now, here is the surprise as promised…he was average height for the French men of his day.  In other words, he does not warrant all of the “short” jabs and jokes he gets today.  It is too bad that he is known more for this misrepresentation than for some of the ways he provided inspiration to his army.  My favorite quote of any leader (other than Jesus), anywhere, at anytime, belongs to Napoleon…“A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Today, if you are in a leadership role, then you are in a unique position.  You have the power to help others see themselves in a positive light.  People get enough negativity and name-calling from others.  Your job is to inject hope into their circumstances, getting them to see themselves as God sees them – a beautiful and spectacular creation.  If you do that, all of those who are determined to swing sticks and sling stones will be silenced. 

A new year stares us in the face.  Spend any amount of time on social media or watch the nightly news and you can hear the desperation of countless individuals worldwide.  They cry out for a new year, because in their minds, it represents a new beginning.  While our current problem of this virus isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, it does not stop people from thinking the new year will bring a new start.  And in many ways it will.  However, most of these ways will be, if we’re completely honest with ourselves, short lived.  Don’t get me wrong…I wish nothing but the greatest success for those who commit to fitness, weight loss, better eating habits, eliminating snarky comments on Facebook, and putting down the phone and picking up a book, just to name a few.  But I am a realist, and the truth of the matter is, many will commit, and after about a month, revert back to their “old ways”.  Trust me, you’ll get no judgment from me, because I have boarded this train countless January Firsts, and leapt off thirty days later (if I even made it that far).  

Now that I got all of that out of my system, let me get to the point.  Just because you might have failed at obtaining some goal in the past, does not mean you should not try again this year.  Life is about starting over.  If you’re like me, you appreciate those moments where you can toss aside past mistakes and move forward.  I’m reminded again of when I was a kid growing up in my neighborhood.  Playing pickup baseball or football, if someone made a mistake, they would call for a do-over.  They wanted another chance to hit that game-winning homerun, or scoring the go-ahead touchdown.  The do-over was a magical thing.  It put the failed attempt in the past.  It meant you could try again for greatness.  Such was the case of Hiram.

For thirty-nine years, life kicked Hiram to the ground time after time.  He was a mediocre student…nothing exceptional for ranking twenty-first out of a class of thirty-nine.  He served in the army for several years following graduation, most of them in obscure assignments.  It was during those years though, in side ventures, where he suffered numerous business losses.  He invested in a store in San Francisco, but was tricked by the store owner, and lost his $1,500 investment.  He then bought cattle and hogs, but after prices fell dramatically, he lost his money.  He financed an ice shipment to San Francisco because, well, ice was apparently a big thing to invest in.  You guessed it, he lost his money…because the ship was delayed and the ice melted.  He bought chickens, but the chickens died in shipment.  He joined a couple of other guys in growing and investing in potatoes and onions, along with cutting timber for sale, but once again, luck was not on his side.  The Columbia River flooded and wiped out their investments.  He tried opening a social club, but the investment agent took his money and skipped town.  After all this, one might expect him to turn to the bottle.  And that is just what he did.  It got bad enough that his superior gave him an ultimatum…either resign from the army, or face a court-martial.  He chose to leave.

The next few years were no better.  He struck out at farming, bill collecting, loan negotiating, and real estate.  He had to ask his father for money and a job.  If you asked him, he would have probably said he was at rock bottom.  But then came April 12, 1861.  Fort Sumter was attacked.  President Lincoln put out a call for men, and Hiram responded, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, yes, it was Ulysses S. Grant (whose first name was actually Hiram…his full given name was Hiram Ulysses Grant [H.U.G.]).  It would not take long for Grant to make a name for himself in battle.  He led the Union Army into successes at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Petersburg, to name a few.  He was so much better than any of the other commanders, so Lincoln moved him to the East and made him the commander of all Union armies, with a rank of lieutenant general, the highest rank ever held by anyone to that point.  Not too shabby for a man who, countless times failed in his ventures.  And that should give us hope.  If he could rise up following failure after failure, then we can to.  Grant was an expert at do-overs.

So, no matter where you are in life, tomorrow represents a chance for a do-over.  You can leave the past behind.  You can start out on a new adventure.  In case you ever wondered, God is creator of the do-over.  Remember Peter denying Jesus?  He got a do-over.  Does the story of the prodigal son come to mind?  Do-over.  The leper?  Ummm, do-over.  The man with a withered hand?  Yep, do-over.  That crippled man near the pool of Bethesda?  The blind?  The deaf?  The demon-possessed?  Do-over, do-over, do-over, and, do-over.  And if you ever doubted, be encouraged the same One who granted these do-overs, can reach down and pick you up, and grant (pun intended) you a…you guessed it…a do-over.

My all-time favorite TV show is the Batman series from the mid-1960s.  You know, the one starring Adam West and Burt Ward.  I can watch that show anytime, even if it is an episode I’ve seen dozens of times…and for the record, I’ve seen every one of them dozens of times.  I am not sure why I like the show so much, for it is quite ridiculous.  I mean, how can you not tell by the voice that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person?  And by putting on a black eye mask, Dick Grayson suddenly looks nothing like Robin?  Then there is Batman’s utility belt – it has everything a crime fighter could ever want or need.  Need to scale a 20-story building.  No problem, the Bat utility belt has rope and a grappling hook.  Need to get that pesky shark off your leg?  No worries, grab the can of shark repellant from the trusty Bat utility belt.  Got a headache?  There’s a Bat Pill for that.  Need to protect yourself from being hypnotized by a siren?  There’s a Bat Pill for that.  Need to counteract a deadly concoction that was slipped into your drink seemingly without your knowledge?  There’s a Bat Pill for that.  There’s a Bat Pill for literally everything under the sun.  And they are all inside the Bat utility belt.

Then there are the villains.  The Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman, Egghead, Mr. Freeze, and many, many more.  They are self-described brilliant minds.  Yet none of them could figure out how to permanently get rid of the dynamic duo.  The best part of each episode occurred when the “guest villain” of that week, captured Batman and Robin, and then put them into an absurd “death trap”.  And instead of waiting around for a few minutes to see the two breathe their last, they leave in a hurry so that they can carry out their dastardly crime.  I remember one particular episode where Batman and Robin were tied to racks with a giant magnifying glass mounted over each of them.  Batman remembered that a solar eclipse was going to occur in just moments, so he tells Robin to angle the lens 14 degrees so that the sun will burn the wrist ties.  It had to be precisely 14 degrees.  One degree off and it would have been lights out for the crime fighters.  I’m chuckling as I write this because of how silly it sounds.

But I loved it because, in spite of all the corniness, Batman represented all that was good in man.  He would never break any law, even chastising Robin at times when the Boy Wonder suggested doing otherwise.  (There is one episode where Batman parks the Batmobile in front of a parking meter.  Batman pulls a coin out of…you guessed it, the Bat utility belt…and puts it in the meter.  Robin tells Batman that no policeman is going to ticket the Batmobile, but Batman responsibly instructs Robin that it is the right thing to do, and that parking meter money is used to pay for and maintain the roads.)  

Batman always seemed to want to see the best in everyone, including the villains he captured and recaptured (and recaptured) week after week.  Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to this version of Batman, and perhaps you are too.  You see, we should want to see the best in people.  We should want to see people succeed and come out on top.  If you are interested in becoming a better leader, at work, and at home, then this has to become a priority.  If you want to be in the business of helping others, you have to start by seeing the best in others.  The challenging thing is this…those you are trying to help will sometimes put you in a bad position.  They probably won’t tie you to a rack and try to fry you with an oversized magnifying glass until you’re crispy like bacon, but they might abuse your kindness, your patience, and even your time.  It doesn’t matter.  Your job is to keep coming back, looking through the flaws of the individual, and seeing their best.

Batman, of course, is fiction.  But there is one person who ALWAYS sees the best in us.  He was, is, and will forever be, the greatest leader ever.  Jesus.  

He knows your voice no matter what persona you might try to hide behind. When you try to put on a black eye mask, He still recognizes you.  If you have a 20-story problem that you need to scale…He is there with you.  Need relief from mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual pain?  He’s got you, not with a pill, but with a reminder found in His Word that He is your help.  Caught in a trap where there seems to be no escape.  Trust me there is.  His name, when called on, will provide the way out.  And when you try to bend the rules a little, Jesus is right there to remind you that integrity is the best option.