Experts tell prospective authors that books are a form of the business card, but bigger, thicker, and costlier. I’ve incorporated my book covers in my email signature. Dr. Clark, Assistant Dean of Student Initiatives at FSU-Panama City, Florida, saw the book covers when he read my thank you email. He had delivered a powerful speech at a Toastmasters Conference in Panama City last April. One of his statements caught this writer’s attention: “Life is not a long run-on sentence; it’s a series of chapters.” Dr. Clark invited me to speak at the August 5 Illumination Event about the books I’ve written.
My topic Everyone’s Interruptions Are Worth Knowing came from the working title of the biography of a great uncle I am working on Canned Supper By Moonlight: A Life Interrupted by World War I. It is about the Great War interrupting his college education. Everyone encounters interruptions in life whether in 1918 or in 2025.
What are interruptions? Synonyms include interferences, intrusions, disturbances, stoppages, agitations or butting in. I asked ChatGPT to give me lessons we can learn from interruptions. A.I. offered eight lessons, but I will focus on three of them: lesson of reflection on life and its meaning; the importance of flexibility in making plans; and discovering the invitations hidden in interruptions. I want you to enroll as a lifelong learner in Interruptions University.
I’ve experienced countless interruptions in life. A year after college graduation, I entered Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary northeast of Boston, Massachusetts. The Tall Ships arrived in 1976, and so did Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. I saw them all. A young woman viewed the Tall Ships in Boston Harbor from her brother-in-law’s boat. Two years later, that beautiful woman met me and interrupted my life. Jan and I quickly fell in love.
I graduated from seminary in 1992 with a Doctor of Ministry degree. My thesis focused on AIDS Education in the Local Church. The thesis review committee did not accept my first draft due to a lack of sufficient data. This delayed my graduation plans. The delay disappointed and discouraged me. A supportive friend came forward to help me organize more events to gather additional data. I added a trip to Natal, Brazil, and taught Catholic nuns about AIDS.
A major purpose of books is telling stories worth knowing. The biographies of relatives I’ve written include stories of their lives being interrupted in one way or another. The first example illustrates how interruptions may teach us to reflect on life and its meaning. I mentioned above the biography of a great uncle, Elmore, that is in progress. The 1918 military draft interrupted his university studies, just as it did for thousands of college students’ education. As a result of my research, I came to this conclusion: his war service helped him reflect on his life and career choice. Let me explain briefly.
The Armistice ended the fighting in World War I on November 11, 1918. After the fighting ceased, the US Army created a university for the soldiers who remained in Europe. Elmore became an instructor at the university because of his three years of agricultural and animal husbandry training at Cornell University.
In the fall 1919, he returned to Cornell and finished his undergraduate studies. He changed his original career goal of farming due to his teaching experience in Europe. He reflected upon that period. After the war, he became a public school teacher and principal He returned to Cornell again, to earn a master’s degree in rural education. Interruptions bring opportunities to reflect on them and their meaning. Each new day may bring new insight to our understanding and their meaning for us.
The second of lesson we can learn from interruptions is, they can bring hidden invitations to us. The first book I self-published is the biography of my dad, A Last Chapter of the Greatest Generation. After dad died in April 2014, I discovered a truck load of family material. I concluded his story had value. His World War 2 Army aviation career, medical career, Vietnam War experience, NASA, private practice, and medical missionary service in Malawi, Africa were worth telling the world. His death prompted me to share his story. My wife says writing the book helped me grieve. I’m sure it did.
Dad volunteered to serve as an Air Force surgeon in Vietnam. We possess photos and videos of Bob Hope, President Johnson, and General Westmoreland awarding Purple Hearts to wounded soldiers in the hospital. Instead of writing about interruptions for dad, I want to tell you how his service in Vietnam interrupted my mother’s life.
Mom became the single parent of their five sons. She was the major figurehead in our upbringing, but even so, she depended on dad for his emotional support and intimacy. Four of her sons were teenagers. She continued to run a tight ship as best as she could. She carried on with our family traditions. We attended Sunday School, church, and youth group. The oldest son graduated from high school and entered college.
While dad was in Vietnam, I got drunk Homecoming Weekend when mom was out of town. She returned on Sunday and she asked me what I had done. In a split second, I processed my drunkenness, the fear that someone told her about it, and that I better tell the truth. After I told her, she replied, “You know your father and I don’t approve of that kind of behavior.” Her response to my assumed secret presented me with the invitation to choose a better lifestyle. This became more of a reality two years later. A few weeks before entering Judson College, I trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins and received him as the Lord of my life. With his help, I continue to strive to cooperate with him.
Dad interrupted mom’s life again twenty-three years later. He volunteered to serve as a medical missionary doctor in Malawi, Africa. Mom’s response was, “Fred, what have you gotten me into?” Mom thought there was enough work to do in our country, but when she returned from Malawi two years later, you couldn’t shut her up. She talked incessantly about her new friends and the needs in Malawi. The results of their service in Africa and her advocacy for Malawi continue to this day.
These interruptions invited mom to trust God in the midst of her parental aloneness during the Vietnam War. She also unraveled the mystery of serving Jesus Christ and his church in another country. She succeeded at both invitations.
The value of flexibility with plans is a third lesson we can learn from interruptions. In 2023, I published the biography of a young great, great uncle, A Modest But Crucial Hero. George volunteered to serve as a missionary in one of the most difficult regions of the world.
In January 1898, he applied and was accepted to a position with a ten-year old Christian missions organization, the Arabian Mission. Thousands of college students like him joined the Student Volunteer Movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to devote themselves to serving Jesus Christ overseas.
George was quiet, a reader, marvelous musician, and an excellent student. At Hamilton College, he participated in extracurricular activities such as the mandolin and glee club. He liked debates, served as football manager, and became president of the college YMCA. He graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society member.
George immersed himself in learning Arabic on the island of Bahrain in October 1898. In February 1899, an urgent need arose at the mission station at Muscat, Oman. The married couple overseeing the rescued slave boys school needed replacement due to illness. The mission personnel found themselves in a pickle. George hadn’t finished his required year of language training, but he was the only person available to replace the couple in Muscat. He accepted the assumed temporary interruption of language training.
The Oman station operated a rescued slave boys school for eighteen Tanzanian boys. The school opened in 1896 when the boys were rescued from the slave trade. Oman was a protectorate of the British empire, so slavery was outlawed but slave trade existed as big business on the east coast of Africa.
George readily accepted the interruption, even though he didn’t think himself qualified for the assignment. He served. He made friends with the boys. He worked every day in spite of illness. George’s replacement arrived several weeks later than originally planned. When Rev. James Cantine arrived, George suffered with boils, and outbound ships were quarantined due to a cholera epidemic. His service was modest, lasting only four months, and it was crucial because he filled a pressing need. George died before his twenty-sixth birthday and is buried in the little Cove Cemetery in Oman.
We make plans, and then, events or people interrupt them. Flexibility in plans is a valuable asset. There’s a popular saying, “When you make plans, write them with a pencil and give the eraser to God.” We can’t anticipate or prevent every intrusion that comes our way, but we can learn to adjust.
We’ve looked at examples of interruptions from my life and the books I’ve written. Are you ready to enroll in Interruptions University? As students, we learn that interruptions can contain invitations, serve as catalysts for reflection about life and its purpose. The University also teaches us to build flexibility into our planning.
Let’s determine to look for value in our interruptions. Everyone’s Interruptions Are Worth Knowing because this mindset humanizes people, builds connections that minimize isolation, and opens our eyes to opportunities to serve others.