Art Katz

Book Review: katz - Ben Israel: The Early Years: From Flatbush to the Burning Bush by Peter Brock (reviewed by Tom Quinlan)

If you are reading this blog, there is a decent chance that you already know that over the years I have been deeply impacted by the late Art Katz (1929-2007). One of my more popular blog entries attempts to describe that impact. This probably exempts me from being able to write ANY review regarding Art that is not biased in favor of him.

This book was published what seemed like mere days after Art's death (but was in the works for a considerable time before that). While I was hungry for material by and about Art, I was not drawn to the book and resisted a purchase based very much by its cover and by what I felt when looking at the pictures and quotes from the book highlighted on author Peter Brock's own web site The Art Katz Story. The all black/blood-red color scheme of both the book's cover and it's promotional web site, coupled with using only photos that have an ominous, over-posterized look, communicated a nauseous feeling that I had never associated with Art.

A year or so after the book was published, I discovered and succumbed to reading the portions of the book that were posted on the Google Books site, and I was pleasantly surprised at how generously Brock was with including large portions of transcribed messages from Art's ministry over the decades. Reading those excerpts stirred me in the inner man, as has been so common an experience listening to Art's messages over the past two decades. But whenever the author allowed himself to interpret events, and Art's motives, there was an inevitably tangible distrust of Katz. The subjects of Art Katz and Ben Israel, (the Christian community Art helped start in the 70's) appeared to be something that had occupied and maybe even bothered the author for YEARS (33 years according to the book's introduction). Since large portions of the book were missing from the Google site I felt like a jury only allowed to hear small portions of the evidence and only by hostile witnesses.

In December 2008, a Christian brother made a comment to my Online Journal entry regarding Art and he asked if I had read this book. My response was very similar to what I just expressed in the preceding paragraph. A few months later, ostensibly because of those comments about the book, I was contacted via email by Peter Brock himself. He was very pleasant, and offered to send me the book at his own expense. (Peter, for that I offer here a public "thank you.") I interpreted that as an invitation from the Lord Himself to read the book and fully digest it's perspective, whether or not I found it desirable.

Brock's credentials to write the book (besides his profession as a journalist) are his own participation in "phase one" of the Ben Israel community in the late 70's and early 80's, that included some traveling with Art on his speaking tours. The 35 years that Art himself lived at Ben Israel were divided by a couple of years in the mid 1980's when the community was disbanded and dispersed in an uncertainty that it would ever come to life again. Brock obtains his knowledge of the 2nd phase from the community's newsletters and other research.

When I first received the book I was greatly relieved that it contained no pictures other than the cover photo, as I cannot overstate how much the photos on the book's website repulsed me. Before the book was sent to me, Peter insisted that I begin with the "Epilogue", that is, the last few pages of the book. I was happy to oblige, but it made me wonder why those pages were at the end of the book if they were so important.

The following is the last line of the book:

"I think of some words used by Dietrich Bonhoffer and Paul the apostle, and want to say about Art Katz: 'Look what a wonderful man was living with us on the earth.'"

In the Acknowledgements at the beginning of the book Brock says:

"Of course, much gratitude is due the man himself and the breakneck, driving insatiable race that he ran. Who is not breathless again reviewing and reflecting on the plenteous bounty of the Art Katz legacy that remains?"

These two statements are among the few sympathetic statements regarding Katz that you will find in the book. I speculate therefore that Peter was attempting to have me discover his positive assessments of Katz before delving into the decidedly less flattering material contained within.

The first hundred pages of the book chronicle Art's first 34 years as an unbeliever, drawing heavily upon Art's own book, Ben Israel, the journal of his mid-life crisis and search for meaning that ended with an encounter with the Lord in Jerusalem. Brock's book however starts much earlier in Art's life than the Ben Israel chronicle.  I would have liked to know where Brock obtained these early details, whether from interactions with Art himself or some other source. Having re-read Ben Israel myself recently (over twenty years after my first reading), I was taken aback at the amount of "unseemly" material included in that book that had not bothered me when I read it as a young Christian. Brock openly laments the toning down of that material in subsequent printings of the Ben Israel book, and is therefore not surprisingly very liberal with his own additional "spicy" anecdotes.

Unlike the Bible, which reports the defects of it's "heroes" tersely (such as the account of King David's adultery) this account seems to relish somewhat in the recollection of it. I would expect Spirit-filled believer's to be uncomfortable enough reading such accounts to consider abandoning the book early on.

As the book progresses to the days of ministry, beginning a decade or so after Art's conversion, Brock quotes generously from the actual messages spoken by Katz and occasionally provides helpful summaries of the themes Art presented at various times. Those quotations are, in my view, the most redeeming portions of the book. There are some genuinely interesting nuggets scattered about, such as the account of Art weeping profusely after learning of the death of his brother Lenny.

In the second and third sections of the book, the accounts sometimes move back and forth from the 1990's-2000's "Ben Israel II" era back to the 1980's era that Brock experienced. I found the switch to be confusing, but that could be partly due to the fact that I did some skipping back and forth myself.

As Brock recounts the history of the early community life, which he tasted personally, the names of all the persons involved in that community have been changed to avoid "embarrassment and misunderstanding." In retrospect I think it is safe to say that neither of those stated goals were accomplished.

Throughout the book, when Brock inserts his own commentary and observations, it is almost always from a perspective of bitterness and condescension, perhaps returning what he felt from Art: "We endured the Katzophrenic twists and turns, the habitual suspicion and outbursts..." Additionally the reader should expect a frequent if not continual examination of observed discrepancies between the man and his message. As I write this the follow admonition comes to mind:

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1

Anyone aspiring to a ministry such as Art's will think twice after reading this book as Brock brings an intense scrutiny. Those looking to learn more about a man they admire will no doubt have the wind knocked out them, as Peter uncorks his own disappointment after disappointment regarding Art. Most painfully, Brock saves a little bombshell of insinuation for the last page, offering no details but leaving the reader to imagine the worst.

Brock warns of all this early in his own introduction:

Anyone who knew him knows of his oft-declared passion for truth in it entirety - without reservations or qualms, and with the bark on. If what follows is disagreeable, then let those who would take the initiative and provide additional and more approvable volumes. Katz left everyone a lot to think and talk about.

In conclusion, read it only if you must. It is not an enjoyable book and was apparently not intended to be.

Interestingly, since publishing the book, Peter has moved back to Ben Israel, now in a post-Art era. Art's wife Inger has recently released a "more approvable" volume of anecdotes about Katz called A Treasure in an Earthen Vessel. In her introduction she credits Peter with "editing" assistance.

Prospective readers of Peter's book would do well to have Inger's booklet close at hand to provide some much needed relief.

This audio message by Art Katz on widows and slaves inspired me to leave these comments at Sermon Index in early 2007 when I heard it for the first time. A year later, after Art had passed on, the transcript was published on the new Art Katz Ministries site and it had a similar effect. As the demands and pressures of my current job have increased in recent months, I have felt the need to listen to it again. I did that tonight and I am reminded of the power and radical nature of the thoughts he and the Apostle Paul have expressed.

In particular, I am struck by the possibility of a bond slave (someone who, in their outward circumstances, is not free to do that which they would prefer to do) being apostolic, or SENT, from heavenly places. This is where the "rubber meets the road," so to speak, or rather where it is openly revealed if we REALLY believe that in Christ we ARE seated in heavenly places, as we are serving our earthly masters/employers.

We see this at work in Christ Himself in the garden of Gethsemane, when He cried out for His Father to take His "cup" away if it were possible, and yet a breath later added, "Not My will, but THY will be done." Jesus was living on earth but was acting from the heavenly fellowship He had with His Father. Jesus was a willing bond slave to the will of His Father. And this is what WE are called to do. Paul says that we are seated in heavenly places in Christ. We may live in this world out of the relationship we have with God in Christ Jesus and this is not possible without truly being apprehended by the Lord. Human determination cannot fake this reality.

While in great physical pain, Jesus was able to be gracious to the thief on the cross next to Him, or to consider the future well-being of His mother, or even to utter a prayer for those responsible for His great suffering because GOD was in Him, reconciling the world unto Himself. Without His Father's initiative and power is was not possible for Jesus, and it certainly won't be possible for us ("by the grace of God Jesus tasted death for every man").

Reggie Kelly's recent article on Daniel (Daniel As A Type Of Godly Remnant) got me thinking about Daniel's long life as a servant to ungodly men. It seems that at about the time he actually began to see some evidence of his impact on one king (at great personal cost), he would be placed at ground zero with some new one. Day after day, decade after decade he served these men AS IF they were the King of kings, and only objected when they claimed that they WERE God. He had no "ministry" to point to as evidence of his devotion to God, and yet God has used him in ministry to generation after generation through the pages of scripture, and perhaps most of all to this LAST generation.

I am often grateful for the 18 years of obscurity that scripture totally overlooks in the life of Jesus himself. Between the ages of 12 and at least 30, we get not a peep about what Jesus was doing, except that He yielded up the religious discussions and debates with the doctors of the law and submitted Himself to Joseph and Mary and went DOWN with them to Nazareth. Not one act of "ministry" as we think of it in religious circles, and yet God said "This is my Son, in Whom I am well pleased," before he performed anything besides this great act of submission to his fallible earthly parents.

So, as I go to work day after day, and the demands on my time and attention to earthly matters seem to increase and not decrease, my only hope is that the God of Daniel is aware of where I am and what I am doing every hour of the day. I am comforted by the awareness that He is extravagant in the amount of discipline He is willing to inflict, or the amount of time is willing to allow to pass before He determines that the fullness of time has arrived for His visible purposes to unfold.

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.

In the last year of Art Katz' life, one of the few passages of that he ministered on multiple times was Isaiah Chapter 6. His emphasis was always upon apostolic sending, as in Isaiah's cry, "Here I am, send me!", but there was always mention of the crisis that was the catalyst for Isaiah's encounter with the Lord. That crisis would be the death of King Uzziah.

I believe that Art was aware that to some of us, he was as one who was sent from the throne of heaven, and, as such, ran the risk of being given a place of honor in our lives that was beyond that of the One who sent him. Personally, I cannot think of a single individual in our time who has impacted my Christian walk more than Art Katz. [For honor's sake, I should, once again mention Annette Marsnik and Jewell Courtney, who sold everything they had to start an informal Bible School/Christian Community where I lived for two and a half years.] This morning while perusing some pictures that Art's wife Inger posted on the family web site, I ran across the photo of Art's grave stone and realized that today is officially one day over a year since Art went on to receive his reward. And so the wondering began: Did I encounter the Lord in a greater measure this year that could constitute a basis for the kind of "sending" that Isaiah received?

That begs the question: Did I hold Art Katz in a place above that which the Lord deemed appropriate? If I did then certainly I wouldn't have the vision or ability to discern it. So that consideration will itself have to be committed in the Lord's hands. And perhaps the Lord Himself dealt with it when He kept me from going to Ben Israel in 1985 when I pleaded with Him in prayer and fasting to let me be a part of what was going on there. Or the second time when Art was kept from coming to my Church in January of 2006 due to the onset of his illness. [I said more about that last year in this blog in "How God Used Art Katz in My Life".]

I'll leave that question alone, but I would like to ponder the nature of Isaiah's sending and the message he was told to give. Preceding Isaiah's sending he received a revelation of the Lord's holiness and his own uncleanness. He saw the angels crying "Holy, Holy, Holy! The whole earth is filled with His Glory!" Here he is, perhaps lamenting the death of Uzziah, when the glory of the LORD is in fact filling the earth and not being spoken of by men. Something else is coming out of our lips, but not the right confession of "Holy, Holy, Holy!" No wonder he exclaimed: "I am a man of unclean lips amidst a people of unclean lips..."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, THIS has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

I believe that this was a coal off of the altar of the eternal sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Himself. Even though in history, Isaiah's life preceded Jesus, his vision was a glimpse into the eternal, much like Moses when he saw the pattern which was in heaven and constructed the tabernacle based on what he saw there. A coal off that perfect altar: "THIS has touched thy lips." After this Isaiah has a different confession. He is in agreement with God's assessment of the situation. He has seen the Lamb upon His throne.

And Isaiah overhears an eternal question that is always being asked: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us (note the plural)?" There seems to be an element of willingness rolled into the issue of sending, as if it were critical for the sent one to be a volunteer, not just a hireling. Isaiah does not seem to hesitate with his "Here I am, send me," and neither does God with His response, "Go and tell this people..."

The message that God gives to Isaiah is further evidence that what Isaiah saw was something of the eternal horrendous sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, because Isaiah does not argue with it. Listen to what God asked him to say:

"Go and tell this people:

'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.

Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.'"

Not a whimper from Isaiah. However, knowing God's promise to establish His kingdom in Israel, Isaiah does ask an appropriate question: "How long O Lord?"

The answer is even more devastating:

"Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,

until the LORD has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.

And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land."

Isaiah's vision in chapter 6 was certainly a precursor to chapter 53's "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?" He has been asked to proclaim a message that no one wants to hear at first. And he must wait for the Lord to do the work in the hearts of men. There are no accolades or "Thank you's" from the hearers. The messenger himself becomes despised and rejected. And yet it is that rejection that leads to the greater vision of chapter 53 and beyond when the Kingdom IS restored.

So to answer my initial question: Did I encounter the Lord in a greater measure this year that could constitute a basis for the kind of "sending" that Isaiah received? That I cannot answer for certain. There has been no seeing with the eyes. But perhaps there has been a greater measure of clarity, an increased ability to articulate what is transpiring in the heart and a keener realization that it must be the Lord that sends.  Knowing that He is our exceeding great reward is not optional, because the  reward we receive from those to whom we are sent just might be the same reward Jesus and the prophets received.

"Honor your father and mother"—which is the first commandment with a promise— "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." Ephesians 6:2-3

"Give everyone what you owe him... if honor, then honor."

In 1984, God apprehended me for the first time; mercifully bringing to an end the outward rebellion of my college years, which included a couple of years of Ayn Rand style atheism, and then a whirlwind tour of practically every religion under the sun except Christianity. I thank God for the people He employed in bringing about my birth into His Kingdom. On some other day I will honor those others (those whose names I know), but today I would like to thank the Lord for Art Katz, a man He introduced to me during that first year of believing as I cried out to Him for my daily bread.

I had volunteered to serve for 6 months at a Christian community in the Southeastern US that was assisting refugees (who were fleeing from Central America) get to Canada legally. I was looking for the closest thing to New Testament Christianity I could find and so far that was it. As the weeks turned into months I found myself starving for the Word of God. The ministry there was to the body only, and though I knew that there was something of a far more urgent and penetrating kind (having recently tasted it), I was powerless to adequately express it.

I began to fast, and spend most of my free time in prayer or scouring the Christian radio stations for food. One of the refugee families gave me some material by one of the "Faith" ministries in the midwest, and I latched onto it for dear life, perceiving that in that was greater life than where I was currently abiding. This ministry had a Bible School and I promptly applied and got "accepted" for the curriculum that began in the fall.

In the meantime, someone gave me a brochure from a Pre-Internet audio-cassette Tape Ministry. You could have them send you 2 or 3 taped messages of well-known ministers (although they weren't well known to me) for the cost of shipping, and when you returned them you would then be allowed to check out 2 or 3 more. I began randomly picking messages that sounded good to me by their titles.

There were at least a half dozen messages by a man named Art Katz available through the tape ministry. After listening to only a few I just knew that I would not be attending the "Faith" Bible School. It was clear to me that this was something of a different order. That "something" in my belly rumbled when this man spoke. I do not believe it was the man himself, but rather, God speaking through the brokenness of the man. It did not take me long to exhaust the messages that this tape ministry offered. Nearing the end of my volunteer term, I prayed earnestly that the Lord would let me go to the Ben Israel community that Art spoke of. I wrote a letter addressed only to - Ben Israel, Laporte, MN - and I prayed that the Lord would cause them to ask me to come, if it was His will. It was not until 20 years later that I found out that Ben Israel had shut down for a year or two that encompassed the time of my letter. No one but the Lord would have read it.

I waited as long as possible for a response. Receiving none, I chose an obscure "Charismatic" Bible School in Upstate New York that had been brought to my attention by friends. I attended that school for one year and gradually forgot about Art Katz, having no copies of those tapes and no further contact with his messages. During that year I found out about a little Christian fellowship called Zion Ministries that was only 6 miles from my childhood home. They were meeting daily for morning prayer and then also bible classes at 9am, 10am and 7pm daily. This seemed to me to be the New Testament type of fellowship I was longing for. I was given a small room in the basement and I got a job at a hamburger place from 12 to 5pm, six days a week, which allowed me to participate in all the meetings.

During the middle of my second year there (late 1987,) a dear sister gave me five new tapes (3 long messages) by Art Katz on the topic of Israel and the Church (Now available here). Again, something deep within was moved and shaken, but my efforts to express the message in my own words were feeble if not pathetic. I do remember that in one of those messages Art sang a few verses from Romans 11 in a very "special" singing voice. Unable to discern a melody in Art's singing, I asked the Lord to give me a tune to those verses. That He did, and he also gave me a bonus verse preceding the ones Art sang:

God hath concluded us all in unbelief,
that He might have mercy upon us all. 2x

Oh, the depths of the riches,
Both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable are His judgements,
and His ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord,
and who hath been His counselor?
Who has first given to Him
that it should be recompensed to him again?
For of Him, and through Him,
and to Him are all things,
to Whom be glory forever, Amen...
to Whom be glory forever, Amen.

I remember the tune that God gave me to those verses to this day.

In 1989, I married Patricia, a wonderful sister in the Lord from Guatemala, who had moved to Asheville to be a part of the local ministry. Interestingly, she found out about the fellowship in Asheville during two days of special meetings (a convention or convocation) in Minneapolis in 1985 that Art Katz also attended. This was during his "Sabbatical" in which he "could not be coaxed to speak." Patricia remembers that Art wept either from something said or prayed during those gatherings.

After marrying, I spent an entire decade adjusting to living by faith for a growing family rather than just myself. To put it more accurately (if not quite so politely), the Word of God was being choked out by the many cares of THIS world.

In the late nineties, someone who was trying to stir our generation to rise up was making a note of saints who had recently gone on to be with the Lord. Somewhere in the list they mentioned Art Katz. I was taken aback, and stirred to search the internet to see if I could find anything on Art. To my surprise, I found a thriving Ben Israel web site, with ALL of Art's books available for reading, and DOZENS of messages available for downloading. Best of all there was an itinerary of upcoming engagements, which is not very common for someone who has passed away.

I still had not figured out that Ben Israel was closed when I had made my plea to the Lord to go there fifteen years before. Therefore I was still under the impression that the Lord had resisted me in my request. So I was cautious in allowing myself to consider that as an option. Also, by this time, my wife and I had had five young children, and making ends meet was like walking on water. This made long vacations to attend the prophetic schools and convocations a seeming non-option.

In the summer of 2004, I happened upon a television program with Kirk Cameron (the actor) talking about modern day idolatry, and using the Law as a tool to prepare an unbeliever's heart for the gospel. His comments on idolatry were some of the most insightful I had ever heard on television (especially by an actor) so I turned aside to see his (and Ray Comfort's) website. This was the first season of their "Way of the Master" Series on evangelism, and I ordered the whole set. Our whole congregation watched the entire series together and contemplated reaching out to our city. That set of programs was a fuse that ignited two decades of Art's messages in my being. I kept hearing in my inner man "... to the Jew first... to the Jew first..." as I considered acting upon their messages, and I just knew that what they made look easy would not be so easy in that arena. As an aside, it had not escaped my notice that Asheville's two Synagogues AND the Jewish Community Center were within a mile of our fellowship. I wrote a message called "The Law Shall Go Forth Out of Zion..." (now available slightly modified on the ZCP web site) and delivered it one Sunday I had been asked to speak. At the conclusion of the meeting the pastor exclaimed that it was no accident that our fellowship was called "Zion". Later that month it was announced that the name of the fellowship would be changed to "Glad Tidings Family Church".

For almost two years after that there was a perpetual groaning for enablement in my being. I started the Zion Christian Press dot org website as a way to begin to articulate what was happening in me. I had taken the name change personally, and as a result there seemed to be a divide happening between myself and my fellowship of 20 years. No one else, including my wife, was sharing my vision for reaching out to the Jews. I had also recently decided to change jobs after 11 years, which provided additional strain for a short period of time. I had talked (translate: stammered and stuttered) to the paster about the two issues that troubled me most (the recent name change and the question of whether she should have taken her husband's place as pastor a couple of years earlier when he was asked to step down). Weeks later, she made it clear that that our conversation would go no further than herself and I (which was not what I was hoping). She also approached my wife and I and suggested that we get marriage counseling. Not a bad idea, but WHO would have the understanding to give wise counsel in our circumstances. I could only think of Art and Inger Katz.

At about that time, in late 2005, a notice appeared on the Ben Israel website that said Art would be ministering in Tennessee and South Carolina in January of 2006, and that if anyone was along the route, it might be possible for Art to come and minister. Those of you familiar with geography and highways will know that it is not easy to get to South Carolina from Tennessee without passing right through Asheville, North Carolina. To me this seemed like the perfect timing and provision of the Lord.

The pastor was open to having Art speak in our church. I mailed out flyers to dozens of significant acquaintances over the years, as well as the Christian radio and TV stations, etc.

We also drove down to hear Art speak at the Fire School in Charlotte in October. After more than an hour of very loud, repetitive worship and an additional half hour or more of church business, Art was given the pulpit. He spoke briefly (45 minutes) on the "Strange Fire" that Aaron's sons offered before the Lord. Art was hurried out after the meeting and I literally ran, chased him down, to speak a few words to him. He was kind and said we would talk more at his January visit to Asheville.

Those of you familiar with Art's itinerary can fill in the blanks. It was on this trip that the disease that eventually ended his life first appeared. Just days before his scheduled arrival, all of his remaining appearances were cancelled, including ours. This was a cause for great soul searching; not just because a meeting was cancelled, but because it had seemed so much like the hand of the Lord, and it was the second time the door had been shut hard to being around this man.

When the day Art was supposed to visit arrived, I was exhausted. I still had it in my heart to reach out to the Jewish Community, and as yet had not the substance within me to move. I was still struggling with the fellowship's name change, and as a result of that arose the issue of women in authority over men (see my Mothers in Israel post). Not wanting to be confrontational (having already spoken with the pastor privately), I decided that night that we would stop attending the fellowship.

The following Sunday we visited a Church that I found out about through a precious "older" couple who had contacted me in regards to Art's planned trip to Asheville. They had known Art for years. We had good fellowship with the couple but the church itself was disappointing. I knew at that moment that we would be meeting in our home for awhile.

In August of 2006, Art went experienced a downturn in health before the "Prophetical School" and it was uncertain if he would pull through. I pleaded with the Lord to let me have more than the 30 seconds of contact I had with Art in Charlotte. It seemed impossible. My job was such that no one was trained to take my place for extended periods of time that driving would entail, and the plane tickets from Asheville to Bemidji were around $600 or more (far beyond what we could fit into our budget). One night, a few weeks before the School and Convocation, I rechecked the flights. To my amazement there were 5 available tickets for $350. Within hours I had the required approval from my wife, my boss and from the Ben Israel Office to come to the Convocation.

Added February 25, 2008:

Those five or six days at BI were blessed. I claimed a chair on the front row next to Art. I was desperate for impartation and proximity, and by the grace of God I believe I obtained something in the Lord, although it remains to be seen exactly what it was. The preaching by Jim Borchert of Texas was inspired and powerful.

I was able to squeeze in a few conversations with Art here and there and I shared with him some of the things that were taking place in my life regarding the faith. A day after I had shared about leaving our fellowship, he made the remark that he felt we may have left prematurely. I "received" that correction but my interpretation and the outworking of it were probably not what he had in mind. All that is another story that is still being written.

I made key friendships with other saints who gathered there, and, I was also able to linger for a day and a half after the Convocation, so twice I got to attend the smaller prayer meeting in Pearl's ("Mama Rose") trailer. On the final morning Art invited me and a precious couple from Washington State to have breakfast with him. I made further comments about a change I felt the Lord was leading me to make to the Zion booklet I had written, which Art either did not hear or disapproved of because he got up from the table and went to the kitchen without comment. The couple from Washington tried to comfort me, but I felt that it was more a rebuke from the Lord for seeking Art's approval for something HE had already approved by giving perfect peace.

I talked to him on the phone twice before his death. The first time he was polite but it was clear that he didn't know who he was talking to. The last time was on Mother's Day 2007 and I had a good conversation with Inger, who then let me talk to Art. That conversation was more personal (he seemed to remember me) and I am grateful for it.

My wife (who is from Guatemala) has a sister and her mother in Minneapolis, and it just so happened that she (my wife) was needed to be around her aging mom in early July. I signed up for the 1st of the Table Talks with Art and Reggie Kelly, knowing full well by this time that Art might not make it that far. But I knew that if he did pass over that the funeral itself would be "an Event" (as Art would put it) worth witnessing and being a part of.

He died two days before we were to leave. We arrived in Minneapolis on Sunday night and drove up to BI on Monday just in time for the funeral. I thought it was powerful. Afterward, I had good fellowship with Mark Klafter, the brother who feels called to write Art's biography and a few others. We stayed the night and I did not sleep one wink, but lay awake the entire night contemplating what I was witnessing. The next morning we went to the prayer meeting and then breakfast at Art and Inger's house, with a myriad of guests including Paul Volk (Scott's uncle), and Reggie, who had been busy with medical issues concerning his wife at the previous convocation.

To be continued someday when the dust settles.