Just As I Am: The Autobiography of Billy Graham by Billy Graham

Author:Billy Graham [Graham, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780061171062
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.

22

Tall Timber from Texas

President Lyndon B. Johnson

“You and Ruth must be here for our library dedication May 22.” That was retired President Lyndon Johnson’s handwritten post-script at the bottom of a typewritten note to me dated February 23, 1971—slightly more than two years after leaving office.

For that occasion in Austin, we were invited by President Nixon to accompany him on Air Force One. I gave the invocation. After the ceremony, LBJ took Ruth and me out to his ranch in the hill country. Over the years, we had enjoyed many good visits with him and Lady Bird on that sprawling land under the vast Texas sky, and we were glad to be back.

He and I walked down to the oak trees edging the Pedernales River, which flanked the family cemetery. Usually effervescent, he struck me as subdued that day. We stood in the shade and watched the water flow by.

“Billy,” he said at last, “one day you’re going to preach at my funeral. You’ll stand right here under this tree. I’ll be buried right there.” He pointed to the spot in the family cemetery. “You’ll read the Bible, of course, and preach the Gospel. I want you to.” He paused for a moment. “But I hope you’ll also tell folks some of the things I tried to do.”

When the time came, I did not find it a hard assignment. Ours was that kind of friendship. At the graveside service on January 25, 1973—less than two years after that conversation—I described him as “history in motion” and “a mountain of a man with a whirlwind for a heart . . . [whose] thirty-eight years of public service kept him at the center of the events that have shaped our destiny.” If anything, those words, as I look at them now, were an understatement.

LBJ was a powerful, gigantic personality whose charisma dominated a room the minute he entered it. The focus of attention and even the balance of power automatically shifted to him. He could be coarse and charming at the same time, and even profanely poignant. Almost every time he swore in my presence, he would quickly turn and say, “Excuse me, Preacher.”

Although many have commented on his complex character, perhaps I saw a side of that complexity that others did not see, for LBJ had a sincere and deeply felt, if simple, spiritual dimension. But while he was serious about it, I could hardly call him pious.

Yet I was beside him many times as he knelt by his bedside, in his pajamas, praying to One mightier than he. I saw strength in that, not weakness. Great men know when to bow.

On Sunday, December 15, less than three weeks after Pres-ident Kennedy’s funeral, the telephone rang just as I was preparing to leave for Annapolis, where I was to speak in the chapel of the United States Naval Academy. “This is Lyndon,” the President’s familiar voice boomed, adding that he wanted me to come by the White House. The next day, we spent several hours together, talking and swimming in the White House pool.

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