Grimes County Doctors: Part One... and #5 in my TOP TEN of TEXAS

Someday many years from now, one of you is going to ask this question and do a search on the Internet, and WA-LA, this will pop up… another of Cushman’s blogs that he wrote back when nobody was asking... bless his heart.

ANSWER: The Doctors of Grimes County. The question is who were the first leaders and benefactors of this land, later to become the Republic of Texas? Who were they and why did Navasota and the surrounding area have so many, when the rest of the country was deprived of medical care? And even more amazing, how did they survive such dangers and hardships?

The following study of these, men, is an attempt to finally do them justice after so many years of neglect. I think you will find their story interesting…

No account of Texas doctors would be complete without prefacing it with the quintessential proto-physician of the Texas frontier; Cabeza de Vaca (and this gives me a chance to plug Dr. Robin Montgomery’s book, which I illustrated, called March to Destiny, where his and many other great stories can be found). Cabeza de Vaca means Head of a Cow. Yes, "Head of a Cow" was a Spanish nobleman who had the misfortune of being named Royal Treasurer on an ill-fated trans-Atlantic voyage to the Spanish held lands north of Mexico.

A flotilla led by Narvaez left Cuba with hundreds of men and landed first in Florida, where they met one disaster after another. By the time de Vaca and his men arrived on Galveston island, only a few dozen were left, and they were dying off quickly. In rags and famished from days on the open sea, he and his men were glad to be taken in by the Karankawa Indians and become their servants in exchange for survival.

Over time, de Vaca found himself nearly alone, yet a venerated healer among the stone-age men that owned him. His combination of common sense, prayer and experimentation made him seem to be almost a divine- ent medicine man, and he selflessly served these primitive tribesmen for two years. Eventually he made his escape, and like most doctors since then, had to weigh the needs of his patients against the greater good. De vaca spent ten years wandering in Texas, New Mexico and northern Mexico, making a splash wherever he arrived, finding the natives were totally believing he had powers of healing, and making testimonies about that gift. So convinced were they, those healed would escort him to the next village in his path, where they would take everything in sight, in trade for doing that tribe the great service of bringing him there. The stunned villagers would shrug, get their folks healed, and then repeat the cycle. It is quite possible that no doctor in Texas has covered as much ground, or had such success and made such a name for himself as de Vaca, until the mass Media came along and made our heart doctors in Houston world famous.

Not really a trained physician, Cabeza de Vaca typified the frontier Texas doctors that would come three hundred years later. Not greatly educated, but still much more than the average citizen, who was illiterate and superstitious, and feared doctors; Men of faith and cunning who were there to do something when everyone else was wringing their hands.

Their effectiveness may have been questionable, but at least they tried. Over the years, after considerable “practice,” they made the “art of medicine” appear to be science. But as each of these stories will show, they were “great men,” or as some like to put it, not necessarily extraordinary men, but average men doing extraordinary things…

Sad but true, de Vaca went on another mission for his King in South America, only to suffer a mutiny and be returned to Spain in chains. It seems his constant empathy, mercy and healing ministry to the natives irritated his associates, who did not understand de Vaca's demands to be escorted through the jungles on a litter, a kind of man-powered vehicle known as a lectica (ancient Rome), jiao [较] (China), sedan chairs (England), palanquin (also known as palki Bengali'পালকি' ) (Bangladesh, India), Woh (วอ, chinese style known as giao เกี้ยว) (Thailand), gama (Korea) and tahtırevan (Turkey). [Thank you Wikipedia] basically an emperor's style stretcher of sorts (probably for effect, to show the natives his authority). They finally had enough and whopped him on the side of the head and sent him home, so they could resume their search for riches.

An embarassment to the Crown, and perhaps a threat because of all he knew, (after all, he had covered almost two continents and never found any gold... the justification for these excursions) so he spent eight years in prison, before his case was heard. He had been banished to Africa when finally the Crown snatched him up and dusted him off, and gave him a pension and some amount of vindication. For all is efforts to help mankind, Cabeza de Vaca is remembered mostly as the first writer to chronicle the American Southwest. In fact his writings about his adventure in South America is much greater. Alas it is still hard to ever get published... especially when your words do not feed the popular delusions of the day.

So Cabeza de Vaca is, hands down one of my "Top Ten in Texas" if not in the Western Hemisphere.

I think I have around four left to go...

Next time… on the Navasota Current.

Dear Blogreader; This is part of a series called my "top ten in Texas" and part one of a series about early Texas doctors. You can go back to the main page and type in "top ten in texas" or "benevolent bones" in the search button, and then click on the button to find the rest of the articles.

Part IV: A final conversation with the cowboys...

Part IV

Soon the time was over, and many of the gathering got moving, as there were obligations and commitments. As most of us “cowboy types” slipped out of the restaurant, which had served as our meeting place, a few men stayed behind, not yet finished with this special time. There was a desire to say a few last things, pose for pictures and ask a few follow up questions… The focus soon became the most famous man in the room, as well-wishers and some actual fans circled around him.

He was accompanied on this day by his tour manager, Charles Lynn, musician, theologian, free spirited man Friday. Michael Martin Murphy is still someone whose songs you hear regularly on country radio stations. Songs like “Geronimo’s Cadillac,” “Wildfire,” “Wild Swans Against the Sun,” “Cherokee Fiddle” and “Carolina in the Pines” made him a Southwestern favorite. He sang “I Just Wanna Be a Cosmic Cowboy,” back in the 1970’s when the Texas-based progressive country revolution was just beginning. “Murph,” as his friends call him, has always been at the vanguard of things.

He has in recent years been the leader in reviving the old cowboy music of the Sons of the Pioneers variety. As if driven by a seeking heart, Murph has spent his career studying, experiencing, reading and processing Southwestern lore and landscape and history. Besides his family, and music of course, his love for two things have emerged. Cowboys, and God. He has immersed himself in the cowboy way, and almost lost himself in it. And more importantly, he has chosen to make himself a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. And it is the love of these two things that brought him to this cowboy gathering today. Not to lead it. Not to even speak, but to be there in support of it and to learn and listen. A small group pulled up chairs and began to share.

Greg Hunt expounded on his theme about the powerful impact cowboy churches are having. “Cowboy Churches are going to be the center of spiritual revival in this country.” The emphasis was that this was an untapped demographic that took special treatment. Cowboy people are nothing if not independent. “America has always been the cauldron of self-reliance...” agreed Murph. That American style of independence, with all its random, untamed nature, could still drive a Christian revival where even the organized church has failed.

It was that same self-reliance that brought many of our ancestors across the oceans, and established a country based on mutual respect and freedom of religion. It was self-reliance that propelled the great evangelical movement of this Continent. Self-reliance and pioneer spirit had established a basically Protestant, democratic empire, the first of its kind in the world. Some remnant of it is still visible in these emerging cowboy churches.

Murphy spoke to singer-songwriter Brian Kalinec, who had not had an opportunity to speak as the larger gathering had run out of time. Kalinec was all smiles. He like the rest of us, found the meeting very inspiring. They discussed the gift of music, and what a special purpose it plays in worship. Brian froze pensively for a moment, trying to express what music was for him… “It’s God’s little magic,” he offered. We had only scratched the surface concerning the possibilities of this group of gifted men.

“Sometimes we don’t think big enough…” offered Murph. He went on to express his concern about the effect of the secular Media on our youth. “Today a child can watch something on television for a day that will ruin him for life…” he lamented. He was incredulous that we have not, as a people, offered a Christian counterpart. He offered with all those TV channels, surely we could create something kids would watch that might balance the scales.

And that is where my notes ended. That is what I think I heard. Certainly I have editorialized, it is after all my blog! Murph spoke to me, after everybody had said something. I told him that I had come to listen, that I had some concerns about cowboy churches and did not understand them very much. This meeting had been as much for me as anyone, a borderline skeptic who came to be convinced. As I explained to him, I had been attending an afternoon fellowship in Whitehall, Texas that was full of real cowboy types… horse trainers, horse owners, country singers, trail riders, people who came to church in hats and boots. It had been a Christian gathering of people just like we had discussed, but we never once called ourselves a “cowboy church.”

Why not? Because if anything, Christianity must be all inclusive, and we would never do anything to appear otherwise… like put a label on our fellowship that would sound exclusionary. I don’t think we should call them “cowboy” churches or “Indian” churches or “biker” or “lawyer” churches… that would tend to undermine the magic of the amazing sufficiency and diversity of the Body of Christ.

Tony King, administrator of Bar None Cowboy Church was glad to handle my questions. His answer was more or less that the cowboy churches are like a mission, aimed at people that will never enter a regular church. It’s just a focus on a particular group of people, largely unchurched, with a strategy to get into their world, any way possible.

Like Young Life, it is targeting the farthest person from Christ, and sometimes that takes extraordinary measures. I worked a great deal with Young Life as a young man. My ministry there was blessed, but I have to admit, I was always concerned with the low numbers that stuck with the program. When you make something too easy, too accessible, it can become easy come, easy go. But his answer was reasonable, so I shot him another question.

Of more concern to me was his and Jason’s story about an entertainer who had been invited to perform at one of their events. It had been learned after the fact that he sang a lot of “beerology” songs and church members expressed their concerns about him appearing there. But they went ahead, convinced that the somewhat worldly performer might be the project that day, as much as anyone.

“What do you say to someone like me who might ask, what about the impressionable young person who hears this person and their beerology at his church and their music, whether played or not, is legitimized because they heard it first in church?”

This was no problem at Bar None, the entertainer with questionable songs was not welcome to sing his “questionable” songs. I guess Jason and Tony were true to their all inclusive name… “Bar None.” That's an example of "cowboy logic." But this does not realistically address the question. Young kids will see the star, go buy the CD’s, and listen to that music the rest of their lives. Parents will go buy it for them, because he was at their church. I know firsthand how impressionable I was at around 17 to 21 years old, when I listened to Jerry Jeff Walker and Co., who were the high priests of beerology in my youth. I can’t imagine how much more I would have worshipped at that twisted altar, had I seen them first in church! In effect, this kind of twist is exactly the kind of wrong message that Murph started the conversation about. We as Christians should be offering something to counter the world and the Devil, not something to accommodate it.

But something tells me that Bar None will be more discerning in the future. The teachings of Christ leave no question that for those who lead these little children astray, it would be better for them to have a millstone tied to their neck and to be thrown into the sea. A special judgment awaits those who misuse this trust.

The cowboy church is new and rough around the edges. We all need to pitch in and make sure it does what Greg Hunt thinks it will. But this movement is vulnerable to swift, unmanagable growth and an abundance of "git‘er done" types like Simon Peter and a shortage of doctrinally sound individuals like Paul. Even though Chuck Montgomery was right about Pharisees, Paul had the training and wisdom of one, and without him, we would not have most of the great writings of the New Testament. The idea of “Bishops” in the early church was developed for just this reason. Without wisdom, this whole thing could end up as just another embarrassing whim.

But it will be meetings such as this one, with open minds and hearts like these, where wisdom will be found. The only spiritual measure of success in this world is changed lives. That is happening if these men in the room were any example of the leadership in ths movement. Men are being brought into every day ministy that mainstream churches might have never considered twice. It says in the Bible that God often uses the foolish to confound the wise. You gotta love a God like that!

The Taming of a Texan Part II

I have seen some wonderful, memorable performances in my life. Sunday evening’s Cowboy Christmas with Michael Martin Murphy ranks right up there. Usually, it’s not the music that makes it memorable… The music, which you have heard before, is supposed to be good. It’s a human connection that might be made with the artist, which made the performance stand out. You go expecting to see some famous person do their thing, and you are just a pebble on the beach admiring the ship that comes in. But then they take the time to sign autographs, or sing you an extra song upon request, or shake your hand while riding around the arena full of thousands. And suddenly it becomes a lifelong memory. An idol becomes a person, another regular person doing extraordinary things…

But this time, it was the performance. And it was still enhanced by a striking level of personal connection. Michael Martin Murphy came out and energized his audience so thoroughly, that for a moment in time, every person there seemed like they were in spiritual unity with the performers, enthusiastically embarking on a mass teleportation to Anson, Texas, where Murphy illustrated what has been lost in our bloated, compassless culture. The theater at Houston Baptist University was beautiful and new and blessed with excellent acoustics. But more importantly, Murphy was in his element, because he brought it with him, and the theater was effectively transformed into his chosen heartland, and the crowd sensed they were experiencing something great. Great music you bet, as large projected images on the stage accompanied each number, and our eyes followed snow covered cattle in the high country, cowboys facing the elements, and Murphy’s family hauling hay. Murphy and his band enjoyed three standing ovations, as the Texas Baptists in Houston displayed a comfortable familiarity with the man and his message, and the trip he took them on.

You have to see his Cowboy Christmas for yourself, but one number during his concert really tells everything about Michael Martin Murphy’s gift for storytelling, and soulful communication, through music. He stood before his audience alone, almost in the dark, and he had no microphone, and even the spotlight seemed dim for a deeper, serene atmosphere in the room. Murphy remarked that even Carnegie hall had nothing on the acoustics in HBU's Dunham Theater. This simple, humble presentation was proof of it. He told a story of a Jesuit Missionary in the 1600’s who had been living with a tribe of Hurons in Canada. Father Jean de Brebeuf had written a Christmas carol in their own tongue, and set it to music, to teach them the Christmas story. There was dead silence as Murphy told the audience that the priest had been killed, along with most of the tribe by the non- Christianized Alonquians.

But the carol had survived, and he believed it to be the oldest known Christmas carol from North America. I felt my throat tighten, and a tear pop into my eye, as he told how some Hurons had escaped, and told the other missionaries what had happened, and they wrote it down, as remembered by the Huron refugees. They had the song buried in their hearts, and Murphy buried it in ours. He sang it with Faith and cowboy dignity. The multiple ironies filled my mind. This modern day songwriter cum cowboy, once the dissident poet of Geronimo’s Cadillac, lifting up a 350 year old hymn, embraced by a nearly forgotten people, telling of and praising the birth of Jesus!

Halleluiah! Praise God!

It may have been the bravest and most heartfelt communication I have ever witnessed. True, Murphy is a showman, and a good one, and yet this was the message of his evening with us. Christ is born, no matter what language you speak. Then he advised everyone to roll with the punches as the secular world tried to kill the word Christmas from our national celebration. He grinned as he reminded everyone the original pronunciation of their supposed alternative, “holidays.”
It was originally Holy days. That’s more Cowboy logic, and something tells me after this performance, more than a few Baptists are going to be digging out their old dusty cowboy hats.

Welcome home Michael, and God Bless you in your mission. Did you know your namesake was an Archangel? That means he was the highest ranking messenger of God. That’s a pretty tough act to follow, but I’m pretty sure if God was to look for somebody on this earth to serve in that capacity, he would get somebody like a cowboy to do it.