We’ve talked about the poem U2 frontman Bono wrote for Ruth Bell Graham before. He visited the Graham house in 2002, read poetry to Ruth and presented her with a book. A photo appeared in Decision magazine capturing the moment. But with that book of poetry Bono also included a poem he wrote about Billy Graham.
“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 ‘25 Things’ meme is sweeping the nation (or at least Facebook), with an estimated 5 million people taking part. So maybe it’s time for 25 Things About Billy Graham:
Billy Graham’s first formal sermon lasted eight minutes and included four separate sermons, the only ones he knew.
As a senior in high school a young Billy Graham found himself in a dark classroom with a girl who begged Graham to have sex. Instead of rounding the bases, Graham made like Joseph and ran away.
In 1964 Billy Graham’s name came up as a potential presidential candidate. His wife, Ruth, put a stop to any consideration of forsaking his call to evangelism: “If you run, I don’t think the country will elect a divorced president.”
In 1937 Billy Graham fell in love with Emily Cavanaugh and proposed to her in the summer. She had to think about it and eventually said yes in the fall. But by 1938 she was having second thoughts and in the spring she dumped Billy Graham for one of his classmates, Charles Massey.
Billy Graham served as a pastor to Western Springs Baptist Church in Western Springs, Ill., for a year in the 1940s. It was the only time he would officially pastor a local congregation. During his time there he changed the name to the Village Church since there were few Baptists in the area.
In 1979 the Mexican Navy detained Billy Graham for trespassing. At the time he was wearing nothing but a borrowed swimsuit belonging to George H.W. Bush.
In 1948 Billy Graham became the youngest college president in history as president of Northwestern College in Minneapolis.
As early as the 1950s Billy Graham held integrated crusades, at one point tearing down ropes that separated white sections from black sections, causing the head usher to resign in protest.
Billy Graham attended Bob Jones University for one semester and upon leaving Bob Jones Sr. predicted nothing but failure for Graham.
At Florida Bible Institute Billy Graham would paddle out to a small island in the Hillsborough River to practice his sermons and preach to the alligators and birds, like a St. Francis of Florida. If the animals wouldn’t stop to listen, he’d preach to a captive audience of cypress tree stumps.
On his wedding night Billy Graham had trouble falling asleep in the bed, so he crawled out of bed and fell asleep on the floor. In the morning Ruth woke up to find her new husband gone—it took her a few minutes to find him curled up on the floor, sound asleep.
During World War II the U.S. Army rejected Billy Graham for the chaplaincy program because he was three pounds underweight.
Billy Graham left on a trip the day his first child was born, dismissing Ruth’s insistence that the baby would come soon and he should stay home. Billy predicted it would take another two or three weeks. Virginia “Gigi” Graham was born that evening.
He has always tried to minimize his own prominence, to the point that he strongly resisted naming his organization after himself in 1950 and when the Billy Graham Library opened in 2007 he declared there was “too much Billy Graham.”
In 1993 Billy Graham participated in an AOL chat session, his first foray into the world of online evangelism.
Billy Graham once loaned money to then-president Richard Nixon. When the offering plate was passed at a 1970 crusade in Knoxville, Tenn., the president didn’t have any money on him, but Graham discreetly slipped the president a few bills. A few months later Nixon repaid the loan.
Billy Graham is one of the few Americans who can get mail that’s simply addressed, “Billy Graham, America.”
Bessie is an animatronic cow that greets visitors to the Billy Graham Library. Seriously.
She has the Southern twang and low, sugary voice of an old black woman (an early voice over was determined to be “too Yankee”) and serves to draw kids into the experience. Bessie talks with pride of young ‘Billy Frank’ and emphasizes how God used Billy Graham. She also urges kids to take a quiz and exchange it for a prize at the end of the tour.
Dedicated on May 31, 2007 with a crowd of dignitaries and former U.S. presidents,the Billy Graham Library is a vital stop on any Billy Graham pilgrimage tour. Located next to the BGEA headquarters, the Library is part museum, part memorial and part on-going crusade. But that’s not how the BGEA would prefer to describe it.
“The new Library will not be a memorial to Billy Graham,” said BGEA board member Graeme Keith. “Nor will it be a museum. It will be a ministry that we believe will touch and change the lives of thousands of people in the years ahead as they visit this facility.”
Though the memorial aspect of the Billy Graham Library is hard to miss, especially since Graham’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham, is buried at the Library and Graham himself will be buried next to her when he dies. Ruth Graham had reservations about being buried at the Library, calling it a “circus” and a “tourist attraction,” before apparently relenting and agreeing to be buried there.
The Billy Graham Library is a tourist attraction in Charlotte, N.C., dedicated to the lanky evangelist who has spread the gospel throughout the world.
Wait, no. That’s not right. It’s dedicated to that gospel message, not the lanky evangelist who the Library is named for. Hmm. Suffice it to say, the barn-shaped not-a-museum has its share of controversy.
But the attraction itself tells the story of Billy Graham and the gospel he preached. Visitors enter through a 40-foot glass cross and meet Bessie, the animatronic cow. The 40,000-foot facility covers Graham’s lifetime of ministry, from his roots in a Charlotte dairy farm (hence the cow and a theme that permeates the place) to a tent revival in Los Angeles that pushed him into national prominence, to a recreation of the Berlin Wall and his efforts to share the gospel behind the Iron Curtain.
The Library includes a gift shop and a cafe dubbed the Graham Brothers Dairy Bar. Outside the Library you can also find the grave of Graham’s late wife, Ruth Bell Graham. Nearby is Graham’s boyhood home, restored and open for tours.
What you won’t find at the Billy Graham Library is books or scholarly research. You can find that at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Ill.
The Billy Graham Library is open Monday through Saturday (yep, closed on Sundays) and there is no charge for admission. The Ashville Citizen-Times offers a virtual tour of the Billy Graham Library, complete with video.
"I'm counting totally and completely on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not on Billy Graham. I'm not going to heaven because I've read the Bible, nor because I've preached to a lot of people. I'm going to heaven because of what Christ did." Learn more about Jesus > >
We’ve talked about the poem U2 frontman Bono wrote for Ruth Bell Graham before. He visited the Graham house in 2002, read poetry to Ruth and presented her with a book. A photo appeared in Decision magazine capturing the moment. But with that book of poetry Bono also included a poem he wrote about Billy Graham.
The ‘25 Things’ meme is 
Dedicated on May 31, 2007 with a crowd of dignitaries and former U.S. presidents,the 
The 
