I exited a bit early from a family tour of the Carnton house (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) since I’d heard the docent’s narrative twice before. Positioned at the edge of the 1864 Battle of Franklin, John McGavock’s home was pressed into duty as a field hospital, wherein as many as 300 wounded Confederates were laid, awaiting care. In many cases, amputations were necessary, and blood stains still mark the wooden floor. (About 200 Yankees and 1,700 Rebels were killed that day, along with another 6,000 casualties inflicted—2,000 from the North, 4000 from the South.)

I was in a hurry to get to the estimable Landmark Booksellers in downtown Franklin, lest I miss a book signing by Philip Yancey, whom I’ve been reading for almost fifty years. When I was a newly-minted pastor at First Baptist Church, El Dorado, Arkansas in the early 1980s, a deacon, John Henry Moore, was able to bring Dr. Paul Brand to our town to speak both to local doctors and our congregation. Brand was a renowned hand surgeon and also uniquely adept at treating Hansen’s disease (leprosy), whose patients were concentrated at a hospital in Carville, Louisiana. Moore was also a surgeon, and the two had performed operations together in New Orleans during Moore’s residency. (Moore’s account of those surgical-training days and of Brand’s visit to E0l Dorado appear in his memoirs, published this year as Doctor John Remembers: The Spiritual Journey and Ministry of a Christian Physician.)

When he visited El Dorado, Brand had recently co-authored with Yancey a book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, about a wonder of God’s creation, the human body. (He and Yancey co-authored another book, In His Image, a few years later.) I read it in my El Dorado days, and then, a few years ago, I mailed a copy to a missionary in Southeast Asia who’d been cultivating a witness relationship with the son of a Muslim cleric. They’d linked up through language lessons, and the young man was eager to lay his hands on comprehendible English books, so I sent him Yancey’s and Brand’s first collaboration. (On a trip out that way earlier this year, he came over from a neighboring island to have supper with us.)  

Back to Franklin last Saturday: Philip graciously signed a copy of his new book, Undone: A Modern Rendering of John Donne’s Devotions. And while I was waiting in line, I heard the lady at the front tell him he was Sam Schulz’s daughter. “What?! Did she say ‘Sam Schultz?” He was a distinguished faculty colleague back in the 1970s at Wheaton College when I was an undistinguished faculty colleague. She brought up her dad’s name since Yancey had also studied at Wheaton. I jumped line (and later jumped back) to make sure I’d heard her right and to tell her of great times I’d had with her dad.

Throughout a cold winter, when snow covered the ground from November to May, I paired with Mark Amstutz (political science) to play tennis doubles against Sam (Old Testament) and Rolland Hein (English) in a covered racquet club in neighboring Glen Ellyn. We got court time for cheap since we were willing to start while it was still dark outside.

So, my short visit to the book store brought back to my mind and heart a rush of associations. God’s been so kind to me. And I added one more Yancey book to my library. He’s written dozens, sold tens of millions, with translations into dozens of languages. But I got my latest on October 7, a week before its scheduled release date of October 15. I guess that makes me special.