That hand-written poem is on display at the Billy Graham Library:

“The journey from father to friend
is all paternal loves end.
it was sung in my teenage ears
in the voice of a preacher
loudly soft on my tears
I would never forget this
melody line
or its lyric voice that gave my life
a rhyme,
a meaning, that wasn’t there before.
a child, born in dung and straw
with The Fathers love and desire to explain
how we might get on with each other again….”

for The Rev. Billy Graham (that preacher)
Ruth and all the Graham Family
from Bono (March 11 2002)
with much love and respect….

(Special thanks to John Schroter for taking the photo and jotting down the words.)

The evangelist geared the evening to young people, intertwining mentions of the rock group U2, St. Augustine and MTV. U2’s lead vocalist Bono, visited him and his wife at their Montreat, N.C., home,  he said, and composed a song for Ruth Graham.

“In his song, he said we are ‘estranged by sin and bones,’ ” he said.

Which raises the obvious question for U2 and Billy Graham fans: Where is this song? So far a U2 song with the lyrics “estranged by sin and bones” hasn’t surfaced, and it doesn’t look the song will appear on U2’s latest studio album, No Line on the Horizon, which comes out next week.

BGEA
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has an official Twitter feed that offers links and updates about what the BGEA is doing and what’s new on their web site. In addition to pointing to quality content, BGEA on Twitter can also hook you up with some inside information. According to the feed, the BGEA is working on a redesigned web site.

Cliff Barrows
Billy Graham’s long-time song leader, the 86-year-old Cliff Barrows, also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Is it really him? He notes that his wife Ann does the typing and he dictates: “I’m 86 and learning. Staying relevant to the times and anchored to the rock.” He also says, “Old soldiers never die, just fade away.” Awesome. When most people on Twitter talk about getting on their scooter to get some ice cream, it’s an entirely different visual.

Billyspot
You can also find the Billyspot on Twitter. We’re cranking out updates on Billy Graham, quotes, links and other fun stuff.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

It’s a powerful prayer. But it’s not Billy Graham’s prayer. More than a few folks have debunked it, including Snopes, Truth or Fiction, Trans World News, Bible Belt Blogger and more. It’s actually a 1996 prayer that pastor Joe Wright gave to open a session of the Kansas House of Representatives (and he based it on a 1995 prayer by Bob Russell).

Billy Graham weighed in with the booklet The Bible and Dr. Kinsey, opening with this quick and clear condemnation:

Nearly every magazine and newspaper has carried a review of Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s newest book. He has used over eight hundred pages to give the most intimate details of the private lives of 5,940 women. No details are spared. It is impossible to estimate the damage this book will do to the already deteriorating morals of America.

The moral laws governing marraige have been scorned and immorality advocated. Young people are encouraged to have pre-marital experiences.

Happily married husbands and wives are going to start suspecting each other when they read that one out of every four wives is unfaithful to her husband. Doctor Kinsey’s report shows itself to be completely lopsided and unscientific when it says that seven out of ten women who had pre-marital affairs had no regrets. He certainly could not have interviewed any of the millions of born-again Christian women in this country who put the highest price on virtue, decency and modesty.

(Booklet courtesy of Knightopia)

The answer is yes. According to wowOwow’s 50 Sexiest Men Over 50 list, Billy Graham’s oldest son Franklin made the cut: “[Franklin] is best known as Billy Graham’s rebel son. The title rebel automatically denotes sexy in our book.”

Admittedly that’s only one opinion (and who the heck is wowOwow?), but it’s not the first time. Lark News included Franklin Graham in its 2004 “Sexiest Man Alive in Christ” poll. So is this perhaps the first serious sexiest man list Franklin has made?

No disrespect intended, but Franklin Graham as sexy? Really? Others have pointed to Franklin’s suspicious hair which may disqualify him.

I know Billy Graham was quite the looker in his day, but I don’t think they ran ’sexiest men’ lists back then.

It seems that Bono wrote a poem of his own inside that book. The book is now on display at the Billy Graham Library and thanks to a visitor’s review we can see the first line of that poem:

“The journey from Father to friend is all paternal loves end. It was sung in my teenage ears in the voice of a preacher loudly soft on my tears.”

Bono has joined a cast of other celebrities in expressing thanks to Billy Graham. As an added Billy Graham-Bono connection, there are pictures of Billy Graham, Bono and Franklin Graham taken that day during Bono’s 2002 visit. To my knowledge, those photos have never been made publicly available.

Author and pastor Dan Kimball, who has a stylish and gelled head of hair himself, noticed the wavy locks of the young evangelist on a visit to the Billy Graham Center Museum in Wheaton, Ill., and blogged about it.

Oh, Kimball talked about the importance of evangelism and some other stuff. But the hair, that’s pretty cool.

A few pixelated screen shots of the game play show a first-person shooter style game where you shoot Bibles at heathens to turn them into conservatively dressed fellows with halos.

It actually has very little to do with Billy Graham, but he does get the name recognition and shout out. You can play a simplified version of Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster on the Simpsons web site (alas, close shots don’t result in Unitarians).

The exchange of dialogue from the Bible Blaster scene:

Bart: When I’m feeling low, you know what always cheers me up?
Todd: Is it love?
Rod: Kindness?
Bart: Ooh, tough room. Videogames! Whaddya got? “Billy Graham’s Bible Blaster?”
Rod: Keep firing; convert the heathens!
Bart: Got him!
Rod: No, you just winged him and made him a Unitarian.
Todd: Look out, Bart! A gentle Baha’i!
Bart: All right! Full conversion! Thanks guys, this really cheered me up.
Video: Second Coming! Reload, reload!
Todd: Can we play now?
Bart: We are playing. We’re a team.
Rod + Todd: Yay!