Deck Cheatham: Just because

Published 4:30 pm Monday, October 28, 2019

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2, NKJV).

Beginning at the beginning, June, 27, 1958, I arrived on the scene. No Roman numeral behind my name, the moniker given to me became the outline between which my life and personality would color. Ubiquitous is not an adjective used for the name Deck.

More common is the following interaction. “Hi, I’m Deck Cheatham.” “Nice to meet you, Jack.” There are more examples in my quiver, but the newspaper doesn’t allow the space. Ensuing years enabled me to see there are more problematic names, and once someone did learn my name, they did not forget it. This is sometimes an asset. Sometimes not.

Once, during my youth, I thought changing my name to Cary (short for Carrington, my middle name) suited me better. But phases pass and I never mustered the courage to suggest it to my parents. Every burden meets its moment and mine came when one day a friend nicknamed me Deacon. I seized on its acceptability. Besides, Deacon fit my personality and had a nice ring to it. Life began to look up and the outline took on a bit more color.

Everyone dances with life’s ups and downs. In a sense, we begin without form and void. And then, we are given a name, the outline of the life to come. Every following experience, every thought, perception, reaction and response colors the picture. Not unlike a box of Crayola crayons, the outline gets filled in by those ubiquitous crayon names — tumbleweed, unmellow yellow, raw sienna, electric lime, fuzzy wuzzy brown and wild blue wonder. I could go on. I’ll keep the box count at six and skip the labyrinth of present and retired Crayolas. Names and colors make fine mementos.

Now, 61 years later, the outline reveals form without void. A few times, I went outside the lines. Those times the “darkness on the face of the deep” touched me. Other times, the right color brightened just the right spot. An onlooker might ask why I chose a particular color. “Just because” is my response. And doesn’t everyone repair to their own default “just because?”

But I have also lived in the light of God’s spirit hovering. I asked myself at certain points, “How did that work out?” No explanation surfaced except the sense a path had been paved beneath and its surface caught my stumbling from those random “just because” choices. I learned God was underfoot as much as above.

My granddaughter, A.A., has begun coloring. Random now, as she marches forth and will surely stumble and color outside the lines, maybe life will move her from “just because” to intention as it has me.

“Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15, NKJV).

Deck Cheatham has been a golf professional for more than 40 years. He lives with his family in Dalton. Write to him at pgadeacon@gmail.com.