I share the namesake and the legacy of the Methodist Bishop John Lloyd Decell, who penned those words in an epistle written shortly before he died in 1946. I’ve lately by reading a collection of his sermons and personal notes including the old leather-bound preacher’s journals that he carried with him as he rode horseback through the back country of northern Mississippi in the decades before the first Great Depression.
The Bishop Decell took the long road to the episcopacy, the highest leadership in the Methodist Church. The elders notes, written in the 1930’s, describe that when Decell was first recommended for ascendency to Bishop, some felt he was too young and that he “didn’t yet have enough dirt on his boots”. The notes next reflect that he apparently took those words quite seriously, and thereafter devoted himself entirely to the humble work of serving the very poorest people in his world. It was written that he had the heart of a warrior and the soul of a crusader and that he had an all consuming passion to make the world a better place in which to live.
Family legend has it that Decell infected my great grandfather with that passion when the two collided late one night. One spirit left him, but another took hold. And soon thereafter the bishop consecrated my grandfather with his name. My papaw in turn bequeathed the name Decell to me, Matthew Decell Weidner.
In these coming trying times, this next Great Depression, this great legacy will be extended and the spirit of the great man will rise once again. It really quite disquieting how we are heading back to where much started for all of us. Think about the poverty and the deprivation that exist for so many of us only in black and white photographs.
For just a moment, close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Picture the elder Decell sitting in a scrap of a cabin deep in the Mississippi back country. He reflects on his days of riding and pens the following words:
Squandering of substance is but one way to material and spiritual poverty; lack of frugality and foresight is the more general for it is the far more common way. The finagling financier and casual commoner both face disaster and the piddler is never shown to be wiser than the plunger.
Worst of all is what happens subjectively within the personality when life has dribbled down to where shock of crisis is required to elicit response and then produces no more than hasty efforts to meet normal needs. The voice of wisdom would indicate alert awareness, improved method, determined effort and steady preparedness to meet growing needs.
It is midnight over the world and there is a cry for bread- The Bread of Life! Out of near and far places they come and they call. Some are immature and misguided, some shameful and sinful, obsessed and obstinant, some bewildered and blighted, some broken and bleeding. They plead for sympathy, long for brotherhood and hunger for hope. Resournes are adequate and available. They may not be had nor used without prayer. Only the man or the church having a house with bread can rest the weary and feed the hungry. The man with the goods is the man of the hour.