Other Writings

An introduction to The Banjo Pilot

You’ll notice that bluegrass music sounds significantly different than other types of American music you can name:

Barbershop quartet,
rock and roll,
popular music of the ‘40s and 50s. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra, Mills Brothers
Doo wop
Country and western
Western (Sons of the Pioneers)
Old Timey
Folk music

Bluegrass was invented in 1945 when a very special banjo player named Earl Scruggs was invited to join Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys which had very popular performances on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN every Saturday night.

It was Earl’s special 3-finger style which brought Monroe’s music to prominence. It is this very special coalescence of synergy which keeps bluegrass music in this original form prominent in bluegrass festivals today. To emphasize the importance of bluegrass music to you, perhaps you can contrast it to the festivals you can go to which feature rock and roll, or country and western, or barbershop quartets, rap, hard rock, or other music types which are important to Americans and the world. There aren’t any.

To be fair, you can attend events which feature jazz or western music. But they pale in comparison to the quantity of places a person can enjoy bluegrass music each summer weekend in the eastern part of America.

The Banjo Pilot novel introduces a character named Duke Steel who is a locally famous banjo player based in his hometown of Mt. Airy, NC. That’s right next to the Blue Ridge mountains. We also meet his daughter Lisa, his brother Gus, his father Pop, as well as Duke’s wife Sweetie and their grandfather who bought their land, developed it, and build a cabin on it. The same cabin where Duke and Lisa and Gus where raised and lived when Lisa decides to tell the story of her famous father and put it into print.

Duke had a small band during the 1940s but was hired into Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1949. There he spent nearly a year, being taught true bluegrass by the father of BLUEGRASS, Bill Monroe.

After he left this band, Duke started up his own Pilot Mountain Boys band in 1950. He’d fly to many of his distant events with his wife Sweetie in a small, single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza. Occasionally, ten-year-old Lisa would go with them to these concerts.

Mind you that these were not festivals. Festivals didn’t begin until 1965.

On one of these trips, when Lisa was not with them, They had an airplane accident. This is a cause of contention in the Steel family because Gus accused Duke of killing Sweetie. And it took twenty years before Duke was able to break out of the guilt involved here.

He joined a major airline in 1958 and worked there successfully for 20 years. After retiring in 1978, Lisa took her father to his first BLUEGRASS festival, which were going strong at the time.

It was at this festival that Duke and Lisa meet a fledgling bluegrass band called the Appalachian Flyers. He spends time with these kids, teaching them how to play bluegrass the correct way: the way Bill Monroe taught Duke to do it.

It is at this time that Lisa decides to write a biography about her father Duke. Lisa is the narrator and storyteller here.

We cover a lot of topics which are close to my heart: bluegrass music, flying and Christianity. I am an evangelical Christian, thus so is Duke and his family.

I began flying in 1965 and was a professional pilot for United Airlines when I retired at the age of 60 in 2005. I had a wonderful 17,000-hour career in many aspects of flying and have some wonderful stories to share with you in The Banjo Pilot. I share some of these stories through our fictional hero Duke Steel.

The book opens with a flying event, and ends with a flying event. After you read the book, you’ll probably have an idea of whether you think Duke is a good pilot or not. After you reach this conclusion, please get back to me and we’ll discuss it with you. My opinion may not be the same as yours.

*******

The Tragedy of America and a Symphony. An Article about Safety.

By Captain Barry R. Willis

Council 5 Safety Chairman. United Air Lines

Honolulu. September 11. 2001

It was such a beautiful flight over the Pacific in the middle of the night on the way home to Honolulu from Narita on United’s flight 826, a Boeing 747-400. Captain Chuck Arthur and his two first officers, myself and Len Packett, had just received a silent message from Dispatch saying that there was some terrorist activity somewhere and that we should restrict our cockpit to no one.

That was simple. We could do that. Captain Arthur then began his scheduled two-hour break with the confidence that we could protect the door as ordered.

First Officer Packett and I reviewed the Security chapter of our Flight Operations Manual. The part on hijacking. Good review for what could affect us if things got out of hand. But it turns out that what was to occur was not included in our Manual. We’d have to “wing” it.

The company frequency was alive with chatter. Most of it was in Japanese. Occasionally we heard the names “United” and “Delta” mentioned. Packett recalls thinking that he should have requested them to speak English so we could all share their messages.

Soon a voice in American English announced that he was being required by his company to return to Narita. We didn’t catch the name of his airline nor did we realize that something big was about to unfold. We did some quick figuring which indicated that we didn’t have enough fuel to return to our point of departure. We could stop at Midway Island, but that didn’t seem necessary at this point. No need. Yet.

Another message arrived after an hour or so. Dispatcher Sandy Reedy emphasized that NO ONE was to be allowed into the cockpit due the confirmation of terrorist activity in New York City. There was really no word to us what happened.

That was to be our last message from Dispatch. We were on our own to gather information of the unfolding events as they occurred.

We tuned into the powerful KHVH radio station out of Honolulu and continued monitoring the Company frequency to get a better idea of what was happening. As the picture became clear, we couldn’t believe it: The New York City Trade Center had been destroyed, as well as a portion of the Pentagon. What is this? A motion picture? No word from Dispatch about what had happened yet. We didn’t know yet if a United Airlines plane had been involved, but we did hear on the radio that an American Airlines flight was involved.

It was time to wake up Captain Arthur from his break.

This is the purpose of this article—an article about safety. For it is after Captain began his second shift, and Packett began his break, that things started to happen. It was a beautiful thing to watch: a well-trained and experienced Captain for United Airlines conducting the activities for his ohana—his family of pilots and flight attendants on board the Boeing 747-400 that night of tragedy. He solicited our contributions and opinions of nearly every activity and all of us involved had the impression that he not only listened to us, he actually used our inputs toward decisions which often were better than the sum of its inputs: We call this “synergy.” All decision-makers should strive toward synergy; United’s pilot training can help achieve this goal.

It was a time for patience, planning, selflessness and the execution of the result of United’s training. Captain Arthur exhibited it all. This is not an article about Captain Arthur, really, but it does reflect how United’s pilot and flight attendant training is really quite effective and up to the task of enhancing a Captain’s skills beyond what he or she may envision he/she may have. If a pilot has been paying attention, if flight attendant have been paying attention to the training, if Customer Service Representatives have paid attention to what United has taught us, then we may be able to exhibit skills far beyond the ordinary. All we have to do is do our job and be open to a little creative thinking. That means paying attention to our manuals and taking our training seriously. Captain Arthur sure did. And it showed.

But this situation was different than our training. We are trained to generally comply with terrorists and to not resist our attackers. That would be in an attempt to preserve your own life and the other lives in the airplane. We are not, however, trained to react to what happened to us. Nor to react to the scenario that the hijackers were planning to use the plane as a destructive tool: a lethal weapon full of fuel and astonishing potential for incredible damage.

Our responses to this unfolding situation caused us to rely on some of our training, but mostly our common sense. And in this process, we were forced to compartmentalize our thinking in order to think clearly.

Captain Arthur’s creative process and problem-solving capability was generally uninhibited by not having to fly the airplane. He turned that responsibility—say compartment—over to me. I tried to concentrate on this because we had some severe weather up ahead. And he gave Packett his specific orders and expected them to carried out. And Chief Purser Deedee did her job exceedingly well, too.

After a rather sparse briefing by our dispatchers (which I didn’t hear), but after listening to what his first officers had to tell him about what we had learned of the situation, Captain Arthur briefed the Chief Purser. She then left the cockpit to solicit, clandestinely, passengers who appeared to be military. She found one and moved him to the top deck close to a good defense position for the cockpit door should any attack become evident. It became apparent that Captain Arthur was analyzing every possibility and that he was planning for the worse. He kept on asking Len and me if he was acting with overkill. We supported him completely and we learned what the difference between precaution and excessive caution is. His actions led us toward the recognition that the situation might be more serious than we thought. Certainly it was more serious than Dispatch had communicated to us.

Captain also solicited the assistance of a former U.S. Army First Sergeant (Delbert, who now is a well-qualified flight attendant) to remain in our cockpit to further defend our barrier should it be broken. He was shown where the crash axe was located. Other male flight attendants (Aaron and Wayne) were also deemed as large enough to help defend our position in the cockpit and they were pressed into action.

AIRINC called. We were notified that all United States airports were closed except to aircraft which declare an emergency. That was one of our easiest decisions; we declared an emergency.

Was this a movie we were in? It was seeming unreal! It was not, and Captain Arthur kept on fertilizing the creative-thought processes and continued coming up with ways to solicit input from all us underlings. The synergy was rampant. We could almost see the gears turn in Arthur’s mind. Continued input led to continued creative ideas on how to handle this ever-changing situation.

Packett’s law enforcement training would become invaluable to set up a critical defense of the cockpit door should that become necessary. Get the idea? Use a person’s skills to its maximum. While the Captain and I were busy in the cockpit, Packett set up a physical defense for the cockpit door. There were suitcases used as barriers, empty wine bottles used as bludgeoning weapons, and the bad-ass attitude that if anyone should come up those stairs to the upper deck, they should treated as the enemy. He briefed the upstairs flight attendants that if anyone were to come up those stairs to the upper deck, they were to defend the cockpit “at all costs”! Packet’s words to those under his command can be paraphrased thusly: “If a person comes up those stairs, it may be with the intent to kill the pilots. You are not to simply stop them, you are to take any action necessary to keep them from getting to the cockpit door.

To further isolate the cockpit from a potential hijacker, Captain Arthur asked that the Chief Purser DeeDee remove as many of the upper deck passengers as possible to seats away from the cockpit door. Packett and Deedee worked this “compartment,” too. She used her Japanese speaking skills to help facilitate the moving of passengers away from the area of the cockpit door. If necessary, they’d explain to the passenger that we had to move people to other seats because of the airplane’s weight and balance restrictions. None of the flight’s passengers objected. They never suspected; they didn’t expect a thing.

All the while, we debated how much information we should give to our passengers. If the passengers were to suspect that we were defending our position by publicly announcing our intentions, we feared that it might trigger one of two possible scenarios: First, if we had a terrorist on board, he might attack. Second, an announcement of that sort might trigger panic or irrational actions. We wanted neither.

It was decided to not tell the passengers anything until after landing. The last thing we needed was an emotional problem from an irrational passenger. It was agreed that Delbert would make the announcement after landing while the Captain and first officer manipulated the airplane toward the gate.

That was another excellent, synergistic decision.

Another decision we discussed was how much our Purser should tell the other flight attendants. We all kicked this idea around for a while and decided they should not know anything other than inform them of a heightened sense of hijacking and/or terrorism. They were simply told that some terrorists had done something somewhere and that they should review this area of their manuals if they had time. This worked out well, the entire crew feels now after the landing, because it kept any distractive thoughts from interfering with the work at hand. And it kept any panic or over-reacting from occurring.

After landing Captain Arthur asked Deedee to hold the flight attendants from leaving the airplane until he had a chance to de-brief them. The meeting was an explanation that we chose to keep them “in the dark” because things were unfolding so rapidly and, frankly, he wanted to avoid irrational responses to this situation. He apologized to them for not telling them more but they understood completely and were grateful that he handled the situation the way he did. Deedee then admitted that she was “in the loop” but was just too darn busy to tell everyone. That would have been an unnecessary use of her time. There was just too much to do and it would just be best if the non-critical flight attendants didn’t know. At the Captain’s meeting, they understood completely and were confident that Arthur handled the situation correctly.

After all is over and we are safe and sound on the ground, we now have a chance to ask what could be done better. While we may wonder if that flimsy cockpit door is really adequate for the job. And it seems to me that security of this type would be better handled at the Airport Security level, long before they board an airplane. If that were done properly, perhaps the flimsy cockpit door would be adequate. Another thing: When Dispatch instructed us to disconnect the airphone system, I wonder if the phones should have been left available to our passengers… That way they could report to the rest of the world what’s happening to them on the airplane.

One last thought. Why did I mention a symphony? It’s because of the way Captain Arthur handled the situation. He handled the other crewmembers as members of an orchestra, each person playing his/her part. While we read from the music, he orchestrated the entire ensemble toward efficient accomplishment of the symphony. It was a beautiful thing. All of our Captains should be equally skilled.

****

From: Barry R. Willis,

A Letter to IBMA June 1, 2001

A City of Our Own

Quick, name a city associate with jazz. I come up with Chicago, Portland OR, and New Orleans. Now, name a city associated with Dixieland: New Orleans comes to mind. Blues? Memphis, Chicago. Country music? Branson or Nashville.

Now, name a city associated with bluegrass. Nope, Nashville and Washington, D.C., only have a couple of venues which embrace bluegrass. Nashville couldn’t be it because it’s too involved with country music and I wonder about their motives (they’ve succeeded in destroying much of what country music should be). Washington’s association with bluegrass is of the past, not the present. Owensboro? Not really. Only IBMA people would possibly recognize the city’s association with bluegrass. It’s certainly not recognized as a bluegrass town outside our community.

Actually, then, there is no city which can be identified with bluegrass as the cities above are identified with a certain kind of music.

Bluegrass needs its own city! Thus the reason for this letter. I have some ideas on this topic and hope you will spend a few minutes with me reading this letter, then follow it up with IBMA Board members for further discussion.

In this letter we’ll discuss which city we could choose as our own and some ideas on how to do it.

To make this idea reality, we’ll have to concentrate our efforts through the IBMA; it has the organization to make this possible and I believe the idea should be a prime function of the Association. I believe the Mission Statement concurs with this idea. It reads, “The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) is a professional trade association dedicated to promoting and expanding the success of bluegrass music.”

Which cities might we choose? A little analysis on your part might come up with a couple candidate cities: those which might be potentially linked with our wonderful music. Nashville? Washington? Branson? Owensboro? Or even Grass Valley, California? How about Louisville?

I believe that Louisville should be our city of choice so I’ll address this discussion accordingly. I must eliminate Owensboro from the discussion for several reasons including lack of easy geographical access, convention facilities and venue infrastructure. Only the International Bluegrass Music Museum is a drawing card there, not a substantial population base or any of the other needs to make this happen.

Let’s take a cursory look at the city. Louisville is a nice, clean city with an excellent transportation system: easy access to the rest of the world by road, airlines or even river. We now hold our Trade Show and the World of Bluegrass there and plan to do so in the foreseeable future. Louisville’s WFPK has its own bluegrass show every Sunday night with local Berk Bryant as its host. Berk has been a bluegrass radio icon in the area for nearly thirty years now. The Kentucky Fried Bluegrass Festival was a part of the city for many years and many, many folks can recall attending the festival and the band contest associated with it. And Louisville is still in Kentucky, a requisite for many bluegrass aficionados who prefer to keep it in the state from which bluegrass music got its name. And I think the Louisville city planners and Chamber of Commerce would heartily embrace the idea described here.

So, how do we do it? Let’s outline a few preliminary steps—goals, if you will:

Those involved should understand that such an idea as this one takes years to pay off, starting from this letter to the involvement of the IBMA and other organizers, then followed up by bluegrass promoters and booking agents making a concentrated effort to send bluegrass bands to Louisville. The IBMA should offer its help to Louisville in getting our bands into its town; don’t expect the town to know how to contact our bands.
IBMA should make this a priority. We should embrace it and promote Louisville as “our” city in our promotional activities.
When meeting with Louisville officials, the IBMA should send in its “big guns” (top officials) for this one, starting with the premise that the city is the most important factor in this idea and essential for the idea to succeed. The first meeting with these folks should at least be with our president, executive director and secretary.
Approach not only the Chamber of Commerce of Louisville but also its clubs such as Kiwanis, Rotary, etc.. They could wield considerable power if called upon to do so.
These above named organizations would then, in turn, contact bar owners and venue owners about this plan to have bluegrass music regularly in their town. They should be enticed to embrace this idea with all the vigor at their disposal. This is a most-critical aspect of this idea if it is to succeed.
The Education in Schools Committee should be actively involved. Let’s start ‘em young; enable them to know and appreciate bluegrass music at an early age. By the time the kids grow up, they would actually seek the bars and other events which include bluegrass music.
The identification of Louisville as a bluegrass city would be helped along significantly by street banners declaring that the city is now associated with bluegrass. Travel brochures would include the declaration of Louisville as a “bluegrass city.”
Continuation of the Galt House as host of the World of Bluegrass.

After all these things have occurred, you’ll find more bluegrass books in stores and libraries, more bluegrass music for sale, more bars and restaurants signing on for a bluegrass band on a Saturday night or even for a weekday.

We may eventually see our Museum moved from Owensboro to Louisville. But since there is a lot of money and prior agreements involved between the City of Owensboro and the IBMM, this may take a long while to occur, if ever. As much as I’d like our museum to be in Louisville, it may never actually happen because of the strings attached. I wouldn’t count on this happening.

Folks, I believe the IBMA should embrace this idea as its own. If you agree, contact the Board of Directors members and discuss it with them. They are: Andy Owens, Mike Drudge, Art Menius, Kirk Brandenberger, Bill Evans, Andrea Compton, Jim Winger, Bev Paul, Murphy Henry, Terry Woodward, Nancy Cardwell, Missy Raines, David Crow, Greg Cahill, Jed Malischke, Terry Herd, Kitsy Kuykendall and Wayne

Bledsoe. The officers are: President Pete Wernick, VP Bertie Sullivan, Secretary Saburo Watanabe Inoue, Treasurer Brenda Clayton and Legal Counsel Larry Harrington.

Sincerely in bluegrass,

Barry R. Willis

barry@barryrwillis.com or banjobarry5@gmail.com

808-896-2749

73-1400 Hamiha St., Kailua-Kona, Hawaii 96740

Dear Reader. This was written long before Raleigh, NC became this city for our World of Bluegrass. But perhaps this letter helped focus the society to the relationship it has today (June 2021) with Raleigh.

*****

Bluegrass Is a Small Town

By Barry R. Willis 1998

“Bluegrass music right now is like a wonderful, small town that we all live in where we don’t have to lock our doors at night. And if somebody gets into trouble, we all go and help ‘em out with a benefit or whatever.” So said John Hartford in 1994. But, you know, there are a lot of folks out there interested in changing our cute little town. They want to change everything about our town by inviting a huge corporation to the outskirts of town and bring the business which goes with it. This factory can supply jobs and “progress” but it also invites the rest of the world to town.

We find ourselves having to lock our doors at night. The new folks who will come with the factory might be the businessman who comes to work at the factory to help manage it or sell its product. He wasn’t a part of our little town before, but he is now. He came here to work, and will stick around as long as there’s work. He really doesn’t care about our town. He is just one of hundreds who come to our town who only come to make money. They don’t care a whit about our town; they only live with us because there’s work nearby.

We townspeople have lived here most of our lives, raised our kids here, educated them, carved out a livelihood here, visit our friends at the barbershop at this place very similar to Mayberry, NC.. There are now strangers in paradise. We try to be friendly to them but we know that they don’t really love our village, that they will leave when the money leaves. We’ll remain here. Hopefully they haven’t destroyed it before they left.

Friends, that village, our home, is bluegrass music as we know it today. It’s very precious to us now and we know everyone involved. We trust each other. We love bluegrass music for its honesty, its passion, its wholesomeness. We villagers know that the music will change through time; nothing will stay constant. Hopefully, it won’t change from why we love it in the first place.

Our bluegrass music is very fragile. We have to protect it from the outside influences which may destroy why we love it. If we let the outsiders come in without planning for them, they might overrun our town with their greed and avarice. This doesn’t mean that all the outside world is like that, it just means that we have to set down the rules before we invite them in—IF we invite them in! We have to be very careful not to allow business to change our music.

What we also find is that there are individuals in our little village, our own people, who invite these business people in and not really care or understand what the long term effect might be. They would “sell out” the town if they had the promise of making a few bucks.

According to pioneer Ina Patterson in 1990, “The biggest thing that I can say that is a drawback to the music, or any artistic adventure, is commercialism. Now, anytime you make something strictly for sale, you weaken the product. You’ve got to make the product what is and make the market for it. If you can keep it that way, you can keep it true and clear and clean of all outside influences.” We have to be on the lookout for the homogenizing of our music, for when you blend artistic endeavors with commercialism, you risk losing the original product. In the case of bluegrass music, it’s just too precious and fragile to allow outsiders to ruin it.

Look what happened to country and western music and we can see the effect of outsiders on country music.

Most of the C&W artists seem to strive to sound the same: They try to crack their voices the same way; they use the same instruments; there is little variety in the licks. In short, it has been homogenized to sell. And sell it does! And while carefully-groomed country stars can make much more money than anyone in bluegrass, their music seems to be lacking the earthiness of its roots. It seems that the folks who gain the most from C&W care the least about its roots.

The roots of C&W music and bluegrass are the same: They both came out of early country music which was represented by groups such as the Carter Family, the Delmore Brothers, the Monroe Brothers, and even the string bands which played in the 1920s. About the same time when Hank Williams became popular on the Grand Ole Opry in the early 1950s, Nashville was becoming a recording center for this kind of music. But more important to this topic is that the style of music which Nashville was recording was the same which was becoming extremely popular with the youth of America: rock and roll. Country music changed when it became recorded with electric instruments and used modern techniques such as overdubbing.

As most of Nashville embraced this music came to be called country and western, bluegrass and its artists were, for the most part, waning. We now saw a split between the two forms of music which were, only a decade before, the same. Commercialism had caused the split in country music.

Record companies began to control the radio stations, too, telling them what to play. What was to be played over the air was closely controlled and, as a result, what people heard. They bought this music which they heard and it became popular.

Bluegrass was not played over the airwaves; it was considered “hick” or “hillbilly” and unsophisticated. It was not widely purchased because it was not heard. It became restricted to bars with chicken wire and other small venues such as an occasional appearance at a folk festival until the festivals came along. The phenomenon of the bluegrass festival basically saved bluegrass from obscurity. We enjoy this surge in popularity today.

We all know that even the most popular bluegrass artist can never make as much money as an average C&W star. There’s just no comparison. But is that okay? Is it permissible to starve most of your musical career just because you like bluegrass and don’t want to play other types of music? Does everyone…

(friends, at this point, the rest of the article was lost to the digital world. I don’t know where it is)

And then the Cock Crowed

The Thoughts of the Apostle Peter

A Story by Barry R. Willis February 2022

My God, what do you want from me, my Messiah Jesus, my friend? My Lord! What am I supposed to do? The Pharisees have put me on the spot about knowing you, Lord. I think they want to know what I know about you so they can get more information about you. I don’t know what they’ll do with this information but they are insistent that I am one of yours and that I admit it. Help me do the right thing.

I keep on going back to my human side instead of doing what you’ve trained me to do. I feel like just telling them a little lie and get it over with? I’ll just plea ignorance.

I’m sitting in this courtyard where Jesus was captured and led. It is dark and nearly dawn and we gather near the courtyard fire for light and to keep warm. Then some woman, a servant girl, comes up to me in the firelight and accuses me “You also were with Jesus the Galilean.”

This sounds like a Roman plot to get me and my friends involved with the insurrection to get Jesus in trouble. I’ll bet she was just a plant by the governor to get me involved in those Roman politics. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’ll just tell her no.

I may be impetuous and acting too often on impulse, but the others rely upon me to lead them, show them what to do and how to act. This fisherman now knows what it’s like to be a fisher of men and that I need to set the example. I mustn’t disappoint him.

Telling that servant girl “no” would be a lie and Jesus wouldn’t want that. He’s been enthusiastically enforcing the ancient law and certainly would not tolerate me sinning in this manner.

There’s Matthew over there taking notes of what’s happening. It seems he’s very meticulous about writing about what goes on here so I’d best do the right thing and tell this girl the truth. Physician Luke is here too. And Mark and John, and of course my brother Andrew; we’re all here to find out what’s going to happen to Jesus after his arrest.

It would be a lot easier if I just made myself inconspicuous and left quietly. Yeah, that’s what I should do. That would end the confrontation with this urchin.

But then, that’s not why Jesus picked me to walk with him. It’s not the kind of act which would build character. That would be the coward’s way.

We all know that the whole reason for Jesus to be here is to start a revolution. Not an insurrection of course, which would be a revolt against the government, but a transformation about the way people think of him. I’ve learned a lot about the kind of rebellion he is here for, and it’s certainly not his way to cower and walk away from confrontation, to avoid the people who don’t understand why he’s here. He’s always upfront and forthright about telling people why he’s here. He’s been training me and the others to be the same way.

But, I’m not him! I’m just human and don’t have God’s divine spirit watching over me like Jesus does. After all, Jesus is the son of God and has a special blessing…certainly more than me.

But then again, just by choosing me to walk with him and learn from him gives me a very special blessing. And someday, after I learn more from him, he’s going to bless me to do more than just learn from him or perform baptisms or just be here to support him. He’s going to turn us loose to do his work. So, really, I do have a special blessing. All of us who follow him are blessed. And we’re supposed to extend that blessing to others of the world so they too can be an important part of his world.

What Jesus has been teaching us these last three years since I joined him are rather heretical according to the Law of Moses. Some even say that these teachings have political motivation. That’s not true, of course, but the Romans and the priests here see him as a threat to what they’ve built up in their society all these years. This arrest is just another attempt to get Jesus to admit that he’s the son of God and they’re going to ask him directly if he definitely is the messiah. The Sanhedrin have asked him this before but this particular arrest seems pretty serious. They were trying to get Jesus to explain if he’s just a prophet or if what he says he is that he really is the messiah and the son of God. That would be antithetical to the teachings of the Jewish faith, according to the Pharisees.

Those chief priests and scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him, but they were careful to wait for the right moment for they said, “Not during the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread or there may be a riot among the people.”

So the Temple guards of the Sanhedrin and some Roman guards went to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus led us. Gethsemane is a garden on the Mount of Olives on the eastern part of Jerusalem. They were really after Jesus! They’d paid Judas Iscariot, one of our brothers—one of his chosen followers—to identify Jesus to them by walking straight up to Jesus and kissing him.

When they came to arrest Jesus I resisted them with my sword. I drew my sword from its scabbard, took a swipe and I even managed to cut off the ear of one of them. Jesus called me off and told me to put my sword away then he healed the ear of the arresting officer. Jesus reminded us all that “all who live by the sword shall die by the sword.” I should have known that! After all, I’ve been with Jesus from the beginning.

There in the Jerusalem courtyard the high priest was waiting, along with all the chief priests, the elders and the scribes. The priests and the whole council were looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. Many even gave false testimony against him and their inconsistent testimonies did not agree with each other. Some stood up and told lies against him saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” But even on this point their testimonies did not agree.

After those confrontations by the high priest, the priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?” But he was silent and did not answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”

Jesus said, “I am; and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven.’”

We disciples are all watching and paying attention to what everyone in the courtyard says and does. And we’re writing it down just as Jesus asked us to do. They’re my friends and compatriots and fellow students of Master Jesus. They look up to me to do the right thing but I wonder what they’d do in this confrontation by this girl. It seems, because they’re right behind me, that they’re expecting me to do the right thing by Jesus. I’m sure they’re wondering what I’m going to say to this accusing woman, so they’ll know what to say if these accusers come up and ask them the same question. Right now, I just want to go back to fishing on the Galilee.

Matthew keeps reminding us of the importance of public witness as an essential element of discipleship. He wrote that down in his journals in a quotation by Jesus: “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

But it’s up to me, I guess. Many thoughts go through my mind before they are to be put into deed. I know that Jesus wants us to think clearly about our thoughts before acting upon them. What I’m going through now is just another example of this. Jesus taught us in the Psalms of David that “They defiled themselves by their actions and they prostituted themselves by their deeds.” Well, I certainly don’t want to do or act in any way which would reflect badly upon myself or my rabbi. He might take his blessing from me. And now that I’m one of his chosen disciples, I certainly don’t want to mess this up.

And we learned from Solomon, “I have always tried my best to let wisdom guide my thoughts and actions. I said to myself just the same as what the wise Solomon thought, I am determined to be wise. But it didn’t work.”

Well, it may not have worked for Solomon, but I must measure my words carefully before they are spoken to this girl. She may be only a servant girl but with all the other people in the courtyard listening, she might get us into trouble. I mustn’t respond by saying the wrong thing.

But, what is the wrong thing to say? The worst that could happen if I denied knowing Jesus is she will walk away and find someone else to bother. Maybe she’ll just go to Mark or Matthew. Then they will have to figure what to say on their own. And then I’d be held blameless in the eyes of the crowd since she’d moved on to someone else. This sounds convenient and efficient.

Then I remember what Jesus told me just last night about denying him three times. We were all there. Jesus told me, “I tell you the truth, Peter: This very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times you even know me.”

That’s absurd of course, but Jesus was very sincere when he said it as if he knew it was going to happen. Now I’ve seen Jesus being emotional like that many times, but this seems like a pretty trivial incident for him to weep. After all, it’s just me and this woman, this rabblerouser, this wench of the street, this relative of the high priest. It’s not like it’s important or anything like that.. So I’m going to just get myself off the hook by denying any contact with Jesus. What harm could it do? It would just be a little fib. It wouldn’t be a real lie, you know. And I’m sure my compatriots, my companions in “the way”, would agree this is the way to go.

Jesus knows I love him as a brother and that I trust him implicitly. We all do. Perhaps he is only testing me to see what I’ll do. I mean, it’s not as if Jesus is not used to being disappointed by people. I’m sure we’re a source of great frustration to him. And if I tell this lady that I don’t know him, it won’t have any repercussions. What harm can it do?

But I told Jesus then that I wouldn’t deny him. Of course I won’t deny him! And I told him that last night at supper. I said, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And I looked over to the others and they nodded their heads affirmatively, agreeing with me.

Again, what’s the worst that could happen? It may get him into a bit of trouble but I’ve seen Jesus talk his way out of these situations before. He’s able to confound the Romans and Pharisees or whomever accuses him of any wrong deeds with logic which can only come from God. I remember once that when Judas betrayed him, he confused them with logic as only he could give it. He said to his potential captors, “Put away your sword. Those who use the sword with die by the sword. Don’t you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and would send them instantly? But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

And then Jesus said to the crowd and to those priests, “Am I some dangerous revolutionary that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there teaching every day. But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures.”

Well, we were all scared at that time but we knew Jesus could take care of himself. I have seen it firsthand. In this instance, I went in after he was led in and we came to the courtyard of the high priest Caiaphas. I sat at a distance from the proceedings, close by the fire to keep warm from the chill of the night air, curious as to what would happen next. The high priest demanded that he answer his questions but Jesus remained silent…right up until the priest said, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man sealed in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Caiaphas was so frustrated that he tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict?”

All the people in the courtyard said he should die. This was getting nasty. I saw the whole thing! I was sitting there and watched it happen. It was at that time that this servant girl, this peasant, came up to me and accused me of being a part of the Jesus of Nazareth expedition.

What was I supposed to say? So, just to get myself off the hook and not get thrown in jail myself. This girl said to me and the others that she knew me before I could get away…loud enough for others to hear so when I went out to the porch. I told her, “Woman, I don’t know him.”

What did I do! How could I be so foolish! Just last night, Jesus told me I would do this but I guess I didn’t believe him or didn’t have the guts to stand up to this peer pressure, in spite of Jesus being just a few cubits from us.

I left the courtyard and proceeded out to the gateway

There, another maid saw me, and she said to the bystanders, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.”

What have I gotten myself into? It seems that everyone in the entire courtyard there is a part of this plot to arrest, maybe even kill, Jesus. This girl insisted that she had seen me with the Nazarene and said it loud enough for the others in the courtyard to hear. She challenged me before I could get away, “Didn’t I see you with him in the olive grove?”

Well that’s probably true that she was there and saw us together, but I certainly don’t want to get myself in trouble. I was nervous and just wanted to flee or just go fishing. I looked over to the gateway and was planning my escape. But she was loud and obnoxious and everyone in the courtyard was watching. So I had to say something! I needed to protect myself.

Yes, to protect myself. But was it simply self-preservation or was it just to get out of there to be able to fight again? I’m confused and it’s all happening so fast!

I don’t know what possessed me, but I had to do something to get out of there. I tried to protect myself. I told her, “I don’t even know the man.”

That got me out of the courtyard and the gateway area but some other bystanders came over to me before I could disappear and they said, “You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.”

Well, the little lies had gotten me this far—almost out of the area—so I simply repeated what I’d told the woman earlier. I was really emphatic this time. I said, “A curse on me if I’m lying—I don’t know the man!”

And the immediately the rooster crowed.

I recalled the words of Jesus: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”

Jesus then looked at me. He looked straight into my eyes. Then I remembered what he had said about anyone who denies him: “But everyone who denies me here on earth, I will also deny before my Father in heaven.”

I wept bitterly. For not only had I committed the sin of lying, I doubted Jesus to his face and betrayed my friends. I betrayed my rabbi, my master. His staring eyes went through me into my soul. I was so ashamed. I am broken.