Junior High Wisdom
To say that Jay Carty is an unusual communicator is a mild statement. Maybe a little nuts would be more accurate. Not a preacher, not a teacher, more a storyteller with a very important message. Where some deep preachers are too snoozy for the rank and file, and where some humorists don’t have much to say, Jay’s stuff is generally regarded as an unusual blending of humor and profound content. A former Oregon State basketball star and LA Laker, Jay has dedicated his life to helping people say yes to God. Now, we hope you enjoy Carty’s Contemporary Classics.
I had spoken at the prison. I was speaking at the chapel. We had 600 there, officers and their wives. It’s a training center for officers of all the branches of the military, so some pretty highbrow kind of folks. And I’d had a big workout that day. I work out for two hours, I lose four pounds of liquid, just four pounds. And then I drink four pounds. I got to have a 44-ounce magnum of diet, something. I’d had my 44-ounce a little too close to speaking time.
Difficult for a preacher when you’re halfway through and you got to go, but you can’t go because there’s no place to go. I mean, because you got to go. I mean you can’t go though. And my eyes were changing color and it was getting tough. I was starting to dance a little and I finally… I got to the end, and the chaplain came up to pray, so I exited left very quickly. Did my business, came back in time to say goodbye to everybody. And as I walked back into the chapel, they’re all laughing. I’ve got a major down on the floor. Can’t even stand up, spinning around on his elbow with his little feet churning in a fetal position. I mean, they can’t even stand up and I, “What? What?” and they point to my microphone.
It seems that the sound man didn’t turn me down at all. And in the silence of the chaplain’s prayer, there were significant tinkling sounds going on. Now folks, from my altitude, those are substantial sounds. I just want you to know that. I’m just really fortunate they weren’t any more personal than that. And I guess right on cue, when he said, “Amen”, I went. That really happened to me. And I have had a 44-ounce magnum of Diet Coke. And we’ll just hope we get through this in time.
See that piano over there? Great piano. That piano may be the result of random catastrophic atmospheric catastrophe. Oh, might be. Tornado came through, ripped down this tree. Tree hit the rock, rock splintered off pieces of wood, and the pieces of wood got caught in the funnel cloud and being shaped, fashioned and formed purely at random as it bumped into other debris within that center of holocaust. While that occurred, some fissures and volcanic activity happened, and this pressure squirted this stuff out of whacked off at various links and caught in the funnel cloud where the pieces of wood were being shaped, fashioned and formed purely at random as it bumped into other debris in the funnel.
So while that was happening, some shellac came blowing by and some steel wool, and an elephant happened on the scene. And as the lightning and the thunder had emerged from that Holocaust, ta-da, a piano. What do you think? Maybe? Maybe? Well, now I can’t prove to you it didn’t happen that way. Just let me give you another way that maybe is a little easier to believe, okay? Never seen him, touched him or smelt him. Wouldn’t recognize him if I passed him on the street, but if I had to bet and I do, I’m betting there’s a piano maker.
Now, that’s not terribly profound, given those two options. The piano either happened by chance or somebody made it. And if you had to bet on that, which would you bet on? Somebody made it. And yet we’ve been taught that some lightning hits some and made you. And you’re intimately more complex than the piano, if you won’t believe it’s possible for the piano, how in the world can you possibly believe it happened to you? Especially, in light of the law of the sail squirrel. Second law of thermodynamics, it was the law of the sail squirrel. You run over a squirrel in the road, it does not get better. It gets flatter and flatter and dryer and dryer. And pretty soon, you pick it up by the tail and sail it. It is a Frisbee. It is a sail squirrel. Meat rots and fruit spoils. And I’m getting old. I got to check in that, right there.
Nothing winds up, everything winds down. Now, I don’t know how God did it. It’s just hard for me to believe, as I said, nothing plus nobody equals everything. I mean, that’s an absurd equation. Nothing plus nobody equals everything. And then the latest research that there are the seven primary systems in every cell, they would all have to develop simultaneously. And the odds on seven basic cellular systems that are so complex evolving simultaneously to allow a single cell to occur are just off the chart kind of odds. I can’t…
You know why we have to do it, don’t you? Do you know why the folks tell you that? Because if you agree there’s a God, then all of a sudden it’s real tough for you to be your own God. So if you can get God out of the equation, then there’s room for you to be your own God, ta-da. Now, we know why that’s such a big deal. I don’t know how God did it. All I know is when you remove him from the equation, you’ve now made room for you to be your own God. And that in fact is what sin is, isn’t it? In whatever shape, form or fashion, you want to be your own God. And folks, that’s why there’s just one penalty for sin because there’s just one sin.
There’s lots of ways to measure it, but the bottom line is you want to be your own God, there’s a place for you. There’s a place where there is no presence of God. And you don’t want to be your own God, there is a place where there is the fullness of God. And you get to be wherever you want to be. I know this, when the experts tell me something, I’ve decided to check it against the book. When the Quran said that the world’s a tabletop held up by two elephants and a turtle, and never told us what the turtle stood on… When everybody said the world was flat, Job said it’s a sphere that hangs in nothingness. He knew, God had already told us. I’ve decided when the experts tell me something that’s contrary to the Word of God, it may sound simplistic, I’m going with the book.
I ran a Christian Conference Center for a while, Southern California. My first junior high camp… junior highers, pre-people, that’s what I call them. We confiscated fifth of vodka, four joints, bottle of reds and caught one couple having sex in the bushes at a junior high camp. But it’s Southern California, so you can understand. What I remember most about the week though, was a little guy who was there. His name was Carrie and Carrie had skin cancer. He had cancer on his face and scalp. He had nine operations on his face and scalp. He had divots in his hair where hair wouldn’t grow. Just scar tissue. Kept it from growing. His nose had been removed and his lips had been surgically removed because of tumors.
So he was grotesque. He was socially stunted. It was hard for him to say words. He couldn’t link sentences, but he had hormones raging like every junior higher tends to do. And it was real tough to eat with him because he would have to put the food in his mouth and then take a napkin and hold the food in because he didn’t have any lips. Do you remember junior high? That’s the time when you make yourself feel better at somebody else’s expense. Remember? So everybody used Carrie for that.
They had a tradition at this camp. You don’t want to change too many traditions too fast, it’ll get you fired so I didn’t change this when the first year. And the tradition was dress up nights on Thursday and you decorate the tables and it’s kind of a date night if you want a date. And girls could ask guys, and guys could ask girls, and you could go by yourself. All three were acceptable depending on how your hormones were raging, but you couldn’t ask anybody until Tuesday.
Now, the camp fox was Marcy. Marcy was the cutie. I mean she was just a darling girl. She was something else. And the camp stallion, the camp dude, the camp lover, he let everybody know that Marcy will be with him on Tuesday. So hands off Marcy. But he didn’t tell Marcy and Marcy asked Carrie. You need to understand what’s at risk here because doing something uncool in a group in junior high gets you kicked out. And getting kicked out of your group in junior high is the most traumatic thing that could happen to you.
Group in junior high is really important, less important in high school. Important in college… it’s not that big deal, but junior high, whoa. And she was going to have to endure all the mean, cruel things like what was it like to kiss him goodnight? Mean things like that. She asked him anyhow. So we gave Carrie a crash course on how to treat a lady. How to open the door for her. Some of you guys couldn’t stand to learn that one. Some of you ladies could stand to wait. How to seat her at the table without breaking the back of her kneecaps.
He went out in the forest and he rummaged around and he made a corsage for her. And on Thursday, he takes off to the girl’s dorm, got a coat and hat on because the sun’s poison to him. And I got my binoculars on this one. I want to see what’s going on. And she comes to the door and she’s got this full length blue dress on, trimmed at the bottom. Waist, yoke and sleeve with a darker ribbon, pale blue with a darker blue ribbon. Her hair’s pulled back, a little flower in her hair, just a little touch of this… She’s looking so good. I mean, she was cute. And she made a boutonniere for him. She pinned it on his coat.
And then that horrid moment of truth. I don’t know who the saddest is, who devised this? It is the worst thing perpetrated on man. What do you do with that corsage? It goes right here. That is a hands-off area anyhow, let alone with a pin in your hand. What do you do with that corsage? And he was fumbling around not knowing what to do. And she took the corsage and she pinned it on herself, and she took him by the arm. And she wasn’t too close. She didn’t want to say that. She wasn’t too far away. She didn’t want to say that. As they walked, body language spoke volumes. I want to be with you. I do, no strings attached.
He got her through the door. He got her seated. I saw then the greatest demonstration of love and caring that I’ve ever seen from anybody of any age. And I learned it from a junior high girl. She thought through the evening… So that when somebody took a shot at him, asked him a question that she knew he couldn’t answer because he couldn’t string words together, she would restructure the question and deliver it to him in a way that all he had to do was nod or give a one word response. She wanted to make him feel like a king. And went up to the chapel for the meeting, not in the front row, not in the back row. They were just there. Not too close, not too far away. Girl had class.
Afterward, we had a 60 foot banana split. Rain gutter lined with Saran Wrap, filled with ice cream, chocolate, marshmallow, bananas, cherries and slop. And the little mongers came down and scarfed it up. Then up to the chapel for a concert. And then he took her to the dorm to say goodnight. And as they said goodnight, she took his hand in both of hers and holding on with one, she cupped that scarred, grotesque cheek, held it, touched him in a way that he’d never been touched, said goodnight, turned and walked into the dorm.
And I don’t think old Carrie’s feet ever touched the ground once on the way home. He just kind of floated on home and that little girl gave up a night of her life to make a lifetime out of a night for a little guy who would never again be with a girl before he died. If she’d listened to her peers, what would she have done? Gone with the dude. And who would’ve known? We’re pushing a half million people now who’ve heard Marcy’s story because she chose to listen to the still small voice of God and swim upstream against the peers. Oh, there’s wisdom in counselors, but there’s rarely wisdom with your peers. Especially, when what your peers want you to do are contrary to the book. I’ve just decided when the experts tell me something that’s contrary to the book and when my peers tell me something that’s contrary to the book, I’ve made the decision, I’m going with the book.
