Michael W. Smith and umbrellas

When I typed on this blog Sunday night, I listened to Michael W. Smith’s wonderful song “Jesus is the Answer”.

Smith reminds me of this interesting story about my time at Pensacola Christian College.

PCC’s located in Pensacola, Florida, which receives lots of rain. If there are any prospective PCC students reading this blog posting, I’d strongly advise them to purchase a good umbrella.

Preferably, one that’s not too expensive. Umbrellas at PCC (at least when I was there from 1991-1995) tended to magically disappear. In my four years there, I lost two of them. Ironically enough, to try to keep my second umbrella from getting stolen, I wrote in bold black letters RICHARD ZOWIE’S UMBRELLA and STEAL THIS AND GET SHIPPED! (At PCC, getting “shipped” meant getting kicked out). That umbrella disappeared, and a friend a year behind me told me the year after I graduated it showed up again on campus.

My favorite form of umbrella art belonged to one student named James W. (anyone who graduated from PCC in 1995 probably knows whom I’m talking about). James listed Bible verses that talked of how stealing was prohibited and a sin, but then talked about how he would still forgive the person who committed such an atrocity just as Jesus forgave us. I liked it. James was a serious but very good guy, and he mentioned once wanting to use his engineering degree on the mission field.

One student took umbrella protection to a new level. A fan of Dr. Jack Hyles, “Andrew” filled his umbrella with Dr. Hyles quotes. One panel said, “Yes, I support Dr. Hyles” while another quoted Hyles calling out another minister and saying, “He ain’t no fundamentalist!”

Dr. Jack Hyles

Another panels showed Hyles’ fervent dislike for pants on women along with contemporary Christian music (which, I must confess, I wasn’t a fan of at the time). There was a quote where Hyles referred to Michael W. Smith as “Michael W. Smut”.

Pretty harsh.

I wasn’t too surprised to find out later that Andrew transferred from PCC to either Hyles-Anderson College or some college like it.

As for Smith, “Jesus is the Answer” is one song I’d love to have played at my funeral. I find it to be an encouraging song that also helps to evangelize.