Stories that Changed My Life: The Town Drunk Became My Mentor

His name was Art Wright, and he was not only known as the town drunk, he was also one of the most despised men in town. His wife was hostess to the women’s organization of the Baptist church and Art spiked the punch. The ladies seemed to think the punch was especially good and the story ended with Art driving some of them home in an open top touring car and dragging main street so the citizens could enjoy the view. That story was still alive when I was a teen.

I do not know the sequence of events in Art’s life but in the 1920’s he had a life changing religious experience, lost everything he had including two farms and a bakery and became a traveling evangelist.

Nor do I know the details of Art’s religious awakening. I do know he stopped drinking cold turkey and had such a toxic reaction. He disappeared and no one knew where he was for several days. They found him wandering in the woods on the other side of the state not knowing where he was or even who he was.

I also don’t know if he lost everything because of his drinking or because of the depression that hit in 1929. Most likely it was both.

I do know he was left penniless and with very few people who believed in him or his conversion experience.

Three men, however, did believe. They were my father, the pastor of the Baptist church and my mother’s uncle. They found an oven that could be set up in Art’s garage so he could bake bread every day and they took turns going by each evening to buy the bread he had not been able to sell that day and my great Uncle gave him a quarter of a beef.

Gradually Art started telling his story in the churches around his area. He was a natural born entertainer with a fantastic sense of humor which was always aimed at himself so the invitations to speak grew. He also began doing after dinner speeches and developed a long and hilarious story about a coon hunt that helped him survive financially.

His testimony became a two-session event as his natural ability as a speaker and humorist turned the story into a very powerful event. Churches began asking him to preach weeklong revivals but Are did not know how to read or write so he was greatly limited in developing sermons.

He found an auto mechanic who did some preaching on the side, and they became partners to cover the revivals they had scheduled. Art would speak two nights in the meetings and the other man the rest of the time. The problem was the nights Art was speaking the house was overflowing and the other nights the place was barely half full.

Jealousy developed and the other preacher got mad and went home leaving Art with a full schedule of revivals and only two sermons. Art’s answer to that problem was to make the local pastor teach him a sermon each morning and Art would then decorate it to fit his style. The actual author of the sermon would not even recognize his own stuff when Art delivered it that night.

So starting at fifty-five years of age and no ability to read or wright Art taught himself to read and write and actually preached in the First Baptist Church of Dallas TX, the largest in the world, before he was through preaching.

Art became a very effective evangelist, especially reaching men. The toughest among them were somehow attracted to this small bald-headed dynamo of a man who knew what they were thinking, feeling and living.

The Laymen’s organization of Oklahoma Baptist bought him a car as a support for the work he was doing especially with the small town and country churches.

He finally became too old and too ill to take the beating of constant travel and speaking and had to retire. He lived in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and the Church where he served as a deacon had a small mission church in town. They ask Art if he would be the pastor of that mission. They explained the job paid fifty dollars a week, Art said he would take the job and would do so at that salary, but he said at fifty dollars a week they could not criticize him. If they would pay him seventy-five dollars a week they could criticize him. They paid the seventy-five.

This is where Are Wright began to impact my life. I had only seen him about three times in my whole life and the last time was many years earlier. My Father talked about Art all of my life, so I was raised on Art Wright stories, and he was a legend in my mind.

I was in college and was ask by a pastor I had known all of my life named Bob Catlett to serve his church as music and youth director. Bob was the other mentor in my life. He and Art are the only two ministers that ever noticed or tried to encourage me. Bob was Art Wrights closest and dearest friend.

Bob insisted that I preach one Sunday night and I found my calling. Art found out I was trying to preach and ask me to preach a week’s revival in his mission. I had found my calling just a few months earlier and had only preached about a dozen times, so I think I replicated Art’s experience of a week to preach and only two or three sermons.

I went there the week before my wedding, lived in Art and Ma Wright’s home and spent eight days listening to the stories of Art’s life. That week was an impactful experience on my life no other source on earth could match. I am discovering more of his impact as I write this blog. He did not try to teach me anything he just showed me who he was and how he followed his Lord and he just rubbed off on me. He set me free to be me. He encouraged me to think outside all boxes. May I share with you some of the things I experienced and learned that life changing week?

BE REAL

Since I had found my calling to be a preacher so recently, I had not given much thought to whether or not I would fit the mold. The two pastors that served my home church all of my life up to that time seemed like they were some kind of special and different sex. One was dignified and cold. I thought the other was made of marshmallows and tried too hard to sound holy. If I had given it almost any thought, it would have been evident that I was not like either of the models, nor would I want to be like them or any other preacher I knew. Then I walked into Art’s house and found an absolutely normal human being who was a very earthy man and yet deeply spiritual and committed as a follower of Jesus.

I was shocked or even stunned at first, then I became intrigued, then wonderfully relieved and set free.

Art’s humanity has continued to have impact on my life, for in spite of over thirty years having my faith judged by Baptist congregations and pressure from deacon’s meetings I am still far too much an earthy human being who I hope is also deeply spiritual.

BE QUIETLY HOLY

Art said the result of his life changing spiritual experience was the loss of fifty percent of his vocabulary. Some thought he should have lost about seventy-five percent. There was not a pious bone in his body. Matter of fact he had a struggle trying to like most ministers especially the ones who talk the language of Zion. In a prayer meeting with a group of ministers the one doing the praying was going on and on, using that language, telling God how burdened he was. Art interrupted the prayer saying, “Hey, cut that bragging and get to praying.” Because of Art’s struggle with ministers, he never allowed himself to be ordained as a preacher, he was a preaching deacon.

That week gave me the freedom to just be me. To talk in a normal human way and never try to use language to prove my spirituality.

THE COURAGE TO BE DIFFERENT

Art was an entertainer and a humorist and had the courage to use those talents in the pulpit. He shook up some locked up ridged churches in the process. Some of the things he did sound silly and corny on paper but in real life they touched and changed lives.

He told me about many of his sermons, but I remember one in particular. In those days churches had wooden folding chairs and Art would carry one across the stage simulating Jesus carrying the cross. Then he would fall throwing the chair across the stage. He would lie there until the audience thought he might have had a heart attack then slowly rise up singing “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?”

One of the last things he said to me was, “Doug, dare to be different. They will hear you if you’re different.” I think I was, but I never threw a chair.

THE POWER OF UNDERSTANDING

Art was a powerful preacher, but his real strength was one-on-one with men. He listened to people. He identified with them. He understood and they wanted to be near him.

At the start of a meeting a young businessman whose wife was a member of the church, but he was not; he most likely had been the main target for too many revivals, so he came to the first service and announced that he had to leave town on business. Art said he understood but then said, “Would you do me a favor and pray for me this week? This is going to be a tough meeting and I need prayer.” The man said he didn’t pray much, and Art said he knew but really hoped he would support him in prayer. The man said he would, probably just to close the conversation. Art found out from the man’s wife that he had business in three cities and had a favorite hotel in each city. When the man arrived to check in to the first hotel there was a telegram waiting for him that said, “Pray for me, Art Wright.” He did not check in and drove to the second city to find the same telegram and found the same at the third city as well.

Art said the man knocked on his door at three in the morning looking like he had not slept in days. All he said was “Come with me.” they drove in silence to a dry creek bed and stood in front of the car headlights. Art wondered if he was in for a beating, but the man said, “You knew if I got to praying for you, I would end up praying for myself. We are going to stay here until I can get this deal settled.” In the words of Jesus, Art was a fisher of men.

I have spent my life trying to listen and understand people. Wonder if the seeds for that were planted in the week of Art Wright stories?

In 1954 I saw Art in the hospital shortly before he died. When I entered the room Art laughed and said, “I quit smoking, and as soon as I can get the nicotine stains off of my fingers, I am going to give them Hell about it too.” After a short visit we shook hands and he held on to mine and said, “When I get up there, I am going to find Jesus, pull on his shirt sleeve and when He turns around, I am going to say take care of my boy.” I have always believed he actually did that.