He did give us fair warning. And we had offered an invitation. But he was, nonetheless, a stranger.

The phone had rung just after midnight. Joan and our two children were already asleep. I was multi-tasking: writing my sermon (due to be preached within 11 hours), and watching “Star Trek,” re-run in syndication on local TV. No, not the best way to go about the homiletical task, but I was serving my first so-called “supply” pastorate, and hadn’t developed any self-discipline at all. I was very part-time at that little church, while working full-time in radio ministry for the Presbyterians. The late-night phone call startled me, and I abandoned the Enterprise and the Apostle Paul to run to the phone before it woke the whole house.

With no little anxiety, I answered. “Hey, Jeff! How you doing?” A bit of relief. It didn’t sound like an emergency.

“I’m doing fine,” I replied to a voice I didn’t yet recognize. “How about you?” Did he tell me his name? Did I not hear it, more worried than attentive?

“I’m great. What are you doing?”

“I just working on my sermon for the morning.” No sense mentioning the “Star Trek” thing.

“Oh, yeah? Hey, listen. You once told me that if I was ever in your neighborhood I should come by. Maybe even crash at your place.”

“Yeah, sure.” (Really? I did? Who might I have said that to? And where?)

“Well, look; I’m on the road now, and thought I might take you up on the offer.” (Fine, but who are you?)

“Great,” I fibbed. “When were you thinking you might be here?” (I was thinking someday, or in a few days.)

“I’m in Petersburg right now, and heading up your way. I  stopped at a gas station and got some directions, and then found this phone booth.”

“Now? So, you’re coming tonight. About a half-hour then.”

“Yeah; you sure it’s OK? I really appreciate it. It’s been a long drive.” (This was my chance to get some kind of hint about who this voice belonged to, so I asked…)

“So, remind me where you’re coming from.”

“Athens, Georgia.”

No clue. “Well, let me give you some directions for when you get off 95.” I did so, probably not very clearly under the circumstances, but I didn’t want him calling back again and waking the family. When we had hung up, I went upstairs to see if Joan were awake. Of course she was. There was a phone by the bed, and the ringing had awakened her.

“Who was that?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, but he’s going to be spending the night!”

We still chuckle, remembering her next question. “Does he smoke?”

“Hon, I don’t know who he even is, much less his personal habits.”

“Well, if he does, tell him to smoke on the porch, not in the house.”

In the next few minutes, we devised our strategy. I was assuming the caller was a youth or young adult I had met at Montreat, or one of the many camp or conference centers where I had led retreats related to my radio shows. With no extra beds, he’d sleep on the sofa in the living room. The room had double doors that would give him privacy. I would indeed ask about his smoking needs, and after he closed his doors, I’d leave a twenty-dollar bill in plain sight on the kitchen table. Just so he didn’t go rummaging around looking for something to steal.

Joan went back to sleep (I guess), and I went back to my sermon, sending Kirk and his starship off on a journey where no man [sic] had gone before. I know at least an hour went by. And then I heard the distinctive sound of an original VW engine rattling at the end of the driveway. I went to meet the stranger, half-curious and half-concerned. Even in the dark, I could tell the car was packed with the guy’s belongings. There was even stuff on the roof.  I guess he spoke first. “It’s been a long time,” he said as he walked up the drive.

“Yeah.” Really, that’s all I could say.

“How’s school?” he asked as we shook hands.

“I’m not in school,” I explained. Oh-oh.

“Something’s not right here,” the stranger admitted. “Are you Jeff Kellam?”

“Yep.”

“Man, you’re not the Jeff Kellam I know.”

“No, I guess not. So, what Jeff Kellam were you expecting?”

“He goes to UVA. When I asked at the gas station where UVA was, they said Richmond. And you were right there in the Richmond phone book, so I figured…”

“No, UVA is in Charlottesville.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s probably another hour plus from here. You’d have to get on 64 West and follow the signs. And then find your friend somehow, locate his dorm or apartment… Plus, you’d be calling in the middle of the night! Listen, why don’t you just ‘crash’ here, and get a fresh start in the morning.” So generous of me. And foolish.

“I hate to put you out…you sure it’s OK?” I told him of the arrangements in the living room and asked whether he smoked. He got a sleeping bag from the VW, and I showed him the downstairs half bath, and told him of our schedule in the morning, that we’d have to be getting up to get ready for church…

“Oh, I’ll probably be gone by then,” he said. “I do appreciate the trouble.”

And then I asked, “Didn’t you get a clue that I wasn’t your guy when I said I was working on my sermon?”

“I just figured you were kidding around! The other Jeff Kellam has quite a sense of humor!” As he closed the living room doors, I found the twenty and left it on the kitchen table. In the time I had been waiting for his arrival, I had finished the sermon, sort of, and headed upstairs, way past my bedtime.

Joan was still awake. “So who did it turn out to be?”

“No idea,” I admitted. I explained the mix up,  and pondered whether his story made much sense. It occurred to me that with my radio program in syndication and on an Athens, Georgia radio station, maybe he heard my sign-off each week, the one where I invited listener mail to be sent to a Richmond post office box. And maybe he figured I’d be the kind of person who was a kind person, who would certainly supply a room to a stranger.

In the morning, I went downstairs first, just to be sure everything was all right. I saw that the living room was empty, and that he and his things were gone. I wondered what else was gone. Nothing, it turned out. Even the twenty-dollar bill was where I left it. And right next to that was a note. It read, “Thank you so much for your hospitality. Few would have done as much. If you are ever in Stowe, Vermont, please look me up.” And he signed his name.

Well, that wasn’t likely, the Vermont thing. But what a good feeling we had, that we had welcomed a stranger, and that all had turned out fine, and that we would enjoy telling this story for decades.

The funny thing is, of course, that in 1993, we moved to Vermont and we were in Stowe a lot. I had saved the stranger’s note all those years, but it was packed away, lost somewhere in the attic, and we were never able to look him up. Just as well; angels are best left to mystery. “Unawares,” as they say.

This would be our second three-mile walk along that path. The plan was similar to the one the  day before: walk down from our neighborhood, go to the water’s edge on the road that led to the village, then back up the longer, higher hill past the Lockheed-Martin plant, eventually down the gravel road that would bring us back to our street. This was our way of getting some exercise, since the gym we use was under water.)

As we approached the flooded portion of the road, it was evident that the water level was indeed down, though the white house just beyond the old car lot was still surrounded. Traffic was still coming down the hill to the water’s edge, turning around in the car lot, and heading back. Still no barricade.

[An aside: I realize I used the word "still" in that last paragraph three times. Frankly, I'm in no mood to re-write. I think we are all going to have to get used to the still-ness. Still flooded. Still closed. Still feeling guilty.]

We noticed that a car we had seen previously abandoned on the road was still there. The license plate was “WEBO” — the call letters of the local radio station. I surmised that Dave Radigan, the station’s owner/manager, had wisely left the car there on his way into the village, grabbing alternate transportation to get to the transmitter site. But we saw another car now. It was half-submerged a couple hundred feet down the flooded road. We wondered aloud, “What kind of person doesn’t heed the multiple warnings about trying to drive through flooded streets?”

We wondered how the driver and any passengers got out of the car, and how deep the water was on the way back to dry land. As we turned around to head toward home, we saw two cars with motors running in the dealership lot. We approached two men nearby and commented on the submerged vehicle. “It wasn’t there yesterday,” I told them.

“Yes, it was,” one responded. But it was totally submerged in yesterday’s higher waters. One of the men explained that without a barricade, anyone might drive that road at night at 50 mph and plow right into the flood without warning. Apparently that’s what happened, and the driver had to open a window to crawl out and swim away. The men, a father and twenty-something son, Rick and Keith, explained that the white house was their home, and that they were charging their cell phones while their cars idled.

Rick told us that he and his son were still living on the second floor of the house, with the cat. His wife had taken the two dogs and evacuated to her mother’s home. The cat was managing nicely with the litter box upstairs, but the dogs couldn’t possibly stay in a house surrounded by flood water. Ironically, the father and son did have running water in the house, but his wife and her mother had neither water nor electricity where they were. Rick managed a sense of humor, smiling throughout much of our short conversation. “It helps,” he said. And this wasn’t their first flood.

As we moved up the hill, we saw that the Washington Gladden School shelter parking lot was full. A pick up truck went up the long drive, its bed full of gas grills. We learned later that one of them belonged to a neighbor of ours who had heard of the need.

[Pardon this colorful digression, but I couldn't help but notice again an object we had seen along the shoulder of the road the day before. A pink condom, thankfully still rolled, as if straight from its package. Pink. There must be a story there somewhere.]

After a long, labored hike up the hill near the Lockheed plant, we made the turn onto the gravel road. As we did so, a man approached from the driveway of the house on the corner. He introduced himself as Patrick, and he told us that his elderly parents lived in that home. “But they aren’t there,” he told us. He’d driven in from Binghamton, no small feat, since the whole area was flooded and road closures meant many detours. He had brought a generator, some food, cases of water, and other supplies he thought his parents might need. “Their garage door is open, one car is gone, but the dogs are still inside, and he could find no note about where his parents might be. “Do you have any idea where they could have gone?”

“Afraid not. But you might try the shelter at Washington Gladden.” Patrick told us he had even called the hospital they usually go to, but they weren’t there. As we talked, he told us that he was a Lockheed employee, and has worked there about twenty years.

“They’ve never closed the plant since I’ve worked there,” he said. “But it’s closed now and for the next several days,” he guessed. “This is bad.”

We told him we’d keep an eye out for their car as we walked back into our neighborhood.

A few hundred feet more and we bumped into the “Buffaloes.” They are neighbors who walk by our house almost every day, just after lunch usually. In the winter time, they wear matching Buffalo Bills coats. We stopped briefly to share what we’d seen on our mid-day journey. I mentioned the submerged car, and before I added a comment about the driver’s lack of judgment, Mr. Buffalo told me it was his car! (Often, zipped lips are a good thing.) He said his son had borrowed the car to help someone else, and had driven into the water, climbed out, and gotten home. “We haven’t seen the car yet,” Mrs. Buffalo said.

After one more conversation with folks who live in an old farmhouse at the corner of that gravel road and our street, we got home, thankful once again for a home that was dry and secure. I took a pre-flood newspaper to the back porch. As I was about to fall asleep, our neighbor Len knocked at the front door, and asked us if we could help him move some relief supplies down to the church. [Next: what we found as we finally ventured out by car.]

The river was still rising, and all forecasts of a catastrophic flood were becoming fact. “Much worse than the 2006 flood,” voices were saying on the battery operated radio, our only link to the community in which we live, and move, and have our being. The river would crest way beyond what had become the area’s previous high water mark.  I’ve mentioned that we were merely inconvenienced by the raging waters that took peoples’ homes and livelihoods in the neighborhoods and roads below our own higher elevations. No phone, mail, newspaper, power, etc. for us. But our home was untouched. Not so with our hearts.

When a powerful storm had knocked out power in May, our son-in-law had arrived with a generator that fed the refrigerator and saved some food. But this time, no one could get into or out of the town. Our own neighborhood, a kind of subdivision bordering rural fields and wetlands, was cut off from the rest of Owego due to flooding, debris, and washouts. We have three roads that serve our area, and all were blocked.

That didn’t keep us from taking a walk though, a slightly longer walk than usual. We wore some rain gear, just in case, and walked from our neighborhood down a road that ordinarily led to the village. We’d gone only a mile and there was our first glimpse of the high water that stopped traffic. The river had merged with what people here call “Brick Pond” and the road was impassable. The parking lot of a long-abandoned auto dealership provided turn-around space for car after car that passed us coming down the hill only to find the road closed.

On the left-hand side of the road, there was a house surrounded by muddy water. We speculated at the damage to the basement and first floor, and our thoughts turned to the hundreds of homes, the thousands of people similarly affected by flood waters. I took two pictures, but felt guilty about it, considering ourselves little more than sightseers, recording someone else’s tragedy. As more cars came down the hill, we realized that no one had barricaded the road, something that might have been helpful at least, and maybe even life-saving at most. But the town had probably run out of barricades.

We decided to return home, but only after moving up to the old Washington Gladden School, now housing a religious day care facility and various community services. It was on a hill from which we might see more of the flood waters in the village. We saw a number of people up in the parking lot there and thought they had the same idea, seeking that higher vantage point. When we had climbed the hill, we realized that these were not sightseers. They were evacuees.

The old school was being converted into a Red Cross shelter.

As we walked back home, we thought about how our lives would change now. Flood waters recede, but the damage remains, sometimes forever. The village of Owego has an old downtown that visitors like to call quaint. Once a railroad town (the Erie RR was chartered here, I think), Owego enjoyed a “boom” of sorts when IBM built a large plant within the town limits in the early 1960s. IBM eventually left, but the plant is now a Lockheed-Martin facility. So there was some sense of vibrancy in what a national magazine’s poll had named “The Coolest Small Town in America.” The downtown has two main streets filled with small shops, restaurants, a three-story independent book store, churches, and even an aging but still alive neighborhood movie house. Well, maybe not “still alive” now. Floods ravage smaller merchants whose financial viability was marginal at best.

Our bank would be closed, we thought as we walked home. So would the super markets, Tony’s (our favorite restaurant, right on the river’s edge), and the gym we went to three days a week. What about the churches, we wondered aloud. My barber shop and Joan’s hairdresser? Even the medical facilities were on the river bank. All gone. At least for a few weeks. And, given the fragile economy, maybe forever. Who knows?

Personally, I don’t deal with change well. I like my life as it is. But we realized as we walked home that change is something we will have to cope with. Then, thinking about the people who were beginning to fill up the shelter, we realized, yet again, that we were among the fortunate folk who still had homes intact, high and dry. We still had our “stuff,” security, comfort, safety. “Change” is no big deal compared to the terrible suffering that people in Owego’s so-called (and aptly named) “flats” had to deal with. And the people of Binghamton, Endicott, Johnson City, Vestal, Endwell… all under, surrounded by, or cut off by raging rivers and creeks.

The next day, we would take another walk to see if, or how much, the waters on that road had receded. And we would meet up with people whose stories I want to tell, and remember. [More to come...]

Yesterday, we saw it firsthand.

Our communities had little time to prepare. The recent hurricane had already passed us by, dropping some heavy rains, but not much wind, and little to worry about. But a few days later, rains returned. And like they say, with a vengeance.

At first, the forecast warned only of “flash flooding.” Not that that is anything to take lightly, but we don’t live near areas where that normally happens. But the rains were locked in place by some meteorological malfunction, and the predictions turned more dire. One guy on the radio used the word “catastrophic.”  That got our attention, as he had intended, even given the media’s love of hyperbole.

The rains came, and stayed. The river rose. And kept rising. Yesterday we heard that our Susquehanna was now carrying more water within and well beyond its banks than the mighty Mississippi. In nearby Binghamton, a city like many others built at the confluence of two rivers, flooding took over the city, turning streets into raging streams. In our little Owego, there was one less river but also landscape to overwhelm, and the river had its way with us. Between Owego and Binghamton lay my hometowns of Endicott and Vestal, and the village where I was born, Johnson City. All made one underwater neighborhood in misery.

Our home is on high ground. When the power went out in our “above it all” neighborhood, we lost touch with the tragedy. With the economic wisdom of linking our cable TV, Internet, and telephone service into one package, when one plug is pulled, everything goes. Add the suspension of newspaper and mail deliveries, and we were both literally and figuratively in the dark. (Joan’s cell phone had limited battery life. I had all the battery power in the world on my phone, but apparently my provider’s tower was powerless. So, even that link to the outside was limited.)

The neighborhood grapevine brought news of friends who lived near the river evacuating to the church. I hooked up the once-obsolete TV antenna and caught some stories off the air, the way we used to get all broadcasts. But mentions of Owego were few. As night fell that first night of the flood, we gathered some candles, collected our flashlights, and realized that it was getting too dark to do any reading. While I still had some lingering light, I used binoculars to scan the wetlands behind our home, looking for some sign that perhaps that flash flooding we had never before had to worry about might occur right there in our backyard. No, we weren’t at risk, not directly at least.

We went to bed early. And the next morning, we realized how terrible water can be. [More to come...]

Joan was particularly interested in seeing this church because of its exterior architecture. The church and surrounding neighborhood, all designed by the same person, look like organ cases and pipes. The interior of the church is modern and airy, with seating for up to 1200, a model schooner suspended from a side aisle ceiling, and a wood sculpture of a strangely contemporary-looking Jesus hanging from a cross in what we would call the vestibule or narthex.

We took the bus that morning from our bed and breakfast and walked the courtyard to the church. At one of the front entrances, we noticed several families with babies gathered at the door and correctly surmised that the worship service would include the sacrament of Baptism. We entered and took a quick look around the church, but soon found our seats for the service. We were pleased that the magnificent pipe organ was being played for this service, and while no one welcomed us verbally (in Danish or English), we were able to communicate the need for some kind of worship guide so we’d be able to follow what was going on.

Unlike many tourists in such worship spaces, we are there primarily for worship, not sight-seeing. So we were happy that a church member found us a hymnal-worship book, and with some ingenuity we could guess our way through the liturgy. We noted right away that the hymn tunes would be as unfamiliar as the language, but Joan and I are both good at humming along! A pleasant surprise was the sound of ten or twelve singers, young adults, who sang liturgical responses beautifully. (Since there were few, if any, other worshippers their age at the service, I’m guessing they are paid singers, not a volunteer choir. I’ll be happy to post a correction if someone from Copenhagen happens upon this blog and tells me I’m wrong about that.)

As was the case at the Catholic church the week before, there was lay leadership for some liturgical elements, and then the pastor read the Gospel lesson and preached the sermon, in Danish, of course. Since I couldn’t understand anything he was saying, I glanced through the hymnal, looking through the list of composers and tunes to see what might be familiar. Then, in the midst of the Danish homily, Joan and I clearly heard the pastor say, “C. S. Lewis, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia.’” Good for him, I thought to myself: a contemporary reference to popular literature. That was the only thing we understood, language-wise, through the rest of the service.

Apart from language issues, though, we understood much of what made for a worship experience in that church. The flow of worship was akin to our own Reformed understanding of liturgy. When it was time for the sacrament of Baptism, we could follow the rite as we understood it from our “home” church(es). Families came forward and gathered around the font. The pastor spoke words of welcome and asked the traditional questions of the adults who presented their infants and children for baptism. I noticed that as the pastor moved from one child’s baptism to another, some parents nodded or spoke their assent to the questions, but a few were silent and motionless, as if 1) they had no idea what was being asked of them, or 2) by their silence they were saying “no way” to the vows they were requested to make.

The children, however, by the grace of God, were baptized, and none complained.

Unlike the week before in Le Havre, this time we were able to remain for the sacrament of Holy Communion. When it was evident to us that the congregation was being invited forward to kneel at the rail for the Meal, several worshippers came down the center aisle from the back rows. While no one was “ushering” people forward row-by-row, it looked as if there were room in that group for two more, so Joan and I joined the procession. When we got to the rail cushions though, there was room for only one of us, so I encouraged Joan to kneel while I stood off to the side to await the next wave of worshippers.

Problem was, there was no “next wave.” When that first (and only) group returned to their seats, no one else came forward.  I awkwardly followed Joan back down the aisle, and we both wondered if maybe this Communion thing was not for the whole congregation, but maybe only for church officers or…or what? The rest of the worshipping community there (and certainly the vast majority of folk) remained in their places, and the minister carried on to the end of the service.

We kept waiting for the offering to be received, having worried a little about whether we had enough Danish cash to put in the plate. (By this time in our trip, we might have donated a few Euros, a couple of US dollars, a Kroner or two, and/or a few British pounds. We needn’t have worried; there was no offering. In fact, there were no plates at the back of the church for a “free-will” offering either. Turns out, it is a state-supported church. The Danish church is Lutheran, and citizens of Denmark are assessed (taxed) to support the Church. (Those who do not wish to participate in that assessment must claim atheism as the alternative. At least that is what we were told by U.S. parents of an adult son who lives in Denmark.)

That explained how such a magnificent structure designed to hold 1200 people could be supported by the meager gathering of souls who attend there each week. That also explained why so few people went forward for Communion. It turned out that after the service, as I was taking pictures of the sanctuary, the pastor came out of his office in his “civvies,” sport shirt and jeans. I asked him if he spoke any English and he smiled and said, “Yes, some.” I asked about Communion, and he replied that this was his first Sunday as the interim pastor of the church, but he guessed that most of the people there that morning had come for the baptisms, and that for them, the sacrament was more or less merely a rite of passage. For the most part, they are not committed Christians who would participate in the life or worship of the church. They were content to simply get the kids baptized, bear with the rest of the service, and go home.

Such is the state of the church of that State. One more note about something we found a bit odd. As the church was being closed up, someone had placed a sign over the large brass bowl of the baptism font. It read (in both Danish and English) “Do Not Touch…Alarm Will Sound.” The pastor explained that the sign was there to discourage visitors from either stealing or staining (by touching) the brass bowl. Then, he confided, “I’m not sure there actually is an alarm.”

I guess that better be our secret.

We do not know much French. Our proficiency is limited to “please” and “thank you.” So we knew that we would be worshipping with little understanding of the words of liturgy, homily, or hymns. Yet, because of the gift of growing ecumenicity among global Christians, the service would follow a general flow familiar to us as liturgical Presbyterians. As we entered the church, walking in among several tourists who were  there only for gaping and picture-taking, we glimpsed a couple of hymn sheets for that morning’s service and saw that some of the music came from Taize. We might know the tunes, if not the French words, and that seemed welcoming.

We did look around at the beauty of that sacred space, and then found our seats prior to the beginning of Mass. There was the usual bustle of activity as folks readied themselves for the service, with tourists still (and always) oblivious to the fact that worship was about to begin. I decided to look for the “men’s room” before the service started, and saw a stairway leading in what I assumed was the right direction. (Not knowing the language, I couldn’t ask anyone. Note to self: next time…)

Downstairs, I looked for some sign of a “rest room,” or some universal graphic that would show the way. I started down the hall, glancing toward two or three women who were busy in a room to my left. I pretended to know where I was going. But one of the women quickly came into the hallway and met me with a question in “broken” English. (That adjective applied to her English language skills puts her way beyond my French language skills, which, as I’ve already noted, deserve the adjective ”non-existent.”) “May I help you, sir?”

I had no idea how to explain what I was looking for. Rest room? Men’s room? Bath room? (That one is odd, since I knew there was nowhere to take a bath.) So, for some reason, having come from visiting a British city, I said, “Toilet?” As in toi – LET? She frowned and shook her finger at me, saying in clear English, “No, no, no.  English?” I took that to mean, “Do you speak English?” But she meant, “Are you English?”

“Yes,” I admitted…wrongly. And somewhat sheepishly.  So, she pointed me down the hall to a door marked clearly “W.C.”

A few minutes later I was heading back into the sanctuary and she greeted me more cheerfully, and said, “Hello, again. May I ask, sir…Are you a Christian?” Wondering why she was asking, I said, “Yes!” And I began to pull on the chain of my cross, a Celtic cross that hangs inside my shirt, as if to prove my faith. Silly, I know. And she thought so too, and said (again), “No, no, no.” Or, maybe there were only two no’s this time.

“Would you like to make an act of devotion?” It was a wonderful gesture of inclusion on her part. Not knowing exactly what I was about to agree to, I told her that I would, and she handed me a candle (though she didn’t recall the English word for it). “You take this… this… ['candle' I told her]…yes, and after the priest’s homily…you know, homily?” [Yes.] You light this from the peace, uh, candle, and put it on the stand,” she said, pointing to a black metal stand with spikes on which several candles could be placed.

When I returned to my chair for worship, Joan asked what the candle was for, and I admitted that I hadn’t a clue, except it was to be “an act of devotion.” Now I was worried about my “cue” in the service, whether someone might catch on that I wore a Celtic cross and not a crucifix, and that I had no earthly idea what was being said in French as the time came for my “act.”

Joan helpfully pointed out that several other worshippers also had long white candles, and I relaxed a bit, knowing that I could just follow the flock, the ones who would know a) when the homily was over, b) where to stand, and c) what to do.

Again, we knew enough of the flow of the service that though it was all in French, we knew what was happening and could hum and mumble the unfamiliar hymns and responses. “Alleluia” and “amen” are universally pronounced in any language, so we could at least make an affirmative response when the liturgy called for it. We had thought that the use of hymns from Taize that morning might provide a familiar tune or two, but even the music was “foreign” to us. It was evident, however, when the priest had finished his homily, so I was on alert for the candle lighting part of the service.

When I saw some folks rise from their chairs with candles in hand, I followed them to the altar area, and we stood as the priest read something and asked us questions. “Oui,” I responded in unison with the others. (Even if I had meant to answer in the negative, I wouldn’t have had the French word for it!) We lighted our candles, placed them in the holder, and waited for a brief prayer. Then we returned to our seats for the Mass.

It is unfortunate that our allotted time for this visit was running out. We needed to catch a bus to move on to a pre-arranged tour of Rouen. We waited until an almost appropriate break in the liturgy before packing up jackets and cameras and leaving the church. I had hoped that my guide to the W.C. hadn’t witnessed our early leave-taking. What kind of a candle-lighting, devoted Christian leaves before the Meal? We sneaked out the best we could and caught the bus.

Holy Communion would have to wait until the next Sunday, when we were in Copenhagen. And there’s a story there, too.  Another service in a tongue we didn’t understand. And another Meal I missed.  [That will be my next entry...]

Mercy Creek
by Matt Matthews
Hub City Press, 2011, Cloth, 218 pages. $24.95
Reviewed by Jeff Kellam

Matt Matthews’ first novel Mercy Creek is an extraordinary story about a refreshingly ordinary kid. Sixteen year-old Isaac has no magical powers, but is resourcefully imaginative. He’s no super athlete, but does play some high school baseball. Isaac is no chiseled Romeo, but he has his eyes on two girls, one fading from the scene, and the other coming more and more into focus.

Isaac Lawson is the son of the Presbyterian pastor in Rooksville, a fictitious village on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They are both dealing with the recent death of the beloved anchor of their household, the pastor’s wife, Isaac’s Mom. It is summertime, Isaac has a job at Chum’s Hardware, and the town is talking about some troubling vandalism that has seriously damaged three local homes…so far. A citizens’ group is offering a $5,000 reward for information that would lead to the arrest of those responsible for the crimes.

That reward is appealing to this teenager, a kid already bored this early in the summer. While the cozy clique of town elders gather around the store’s old stove sharing their suspicions about the vandals, Isaac sweeps around them, and silently trumps their ramblings with his own theories. Out back in the warehouse, is 77 year-old Eddie Patrick, called “Crazy Eddie” by the locals, mostly because this life-long employee of Chum’s is a loner, content to make deliveries, do some carpentry, and manage the lumber yard, all while minding his own business, and preferring that others, including Isaac, mind theirs.

Matthews’ narrative style is filled with just enough detail that we can breathe and see through the dust of the warehouse, suffer the heat of the Virginia summer, meet the colorful (but authentic) townspeople of Rooksville. We readily identify with both Isaac’s adolescent ennui and his adventurous quest to solve the mystery of homes flooded from deliberately stopped up drains, and painted with graffiti images of flames up interior walls. The characters who live near Mercy Creek are well-drawn, never so quirky as small town stereotypes, but the same folks most of us who have lived in such villages would easily recognize.

Matthews’ book is one of those rare reads with intergenerational appeal. Younger readers will identify with Isaac, his playful and then dead serious curiosity, his sense of justice and then mercy, and his losing lovely classmate Jennifer to a summer rival and then his heart set on smiling, shining Kate Bradshaw. Yes, younger readers will “get” Isaac, but so will adults who have any recollection at all of their own teen years.

Readers young and older alike will learn that Rooksville’s neighbors, from the cronies around the store stove to the firefighters and church folk and garden-tenders of a certain generation, share a common history of racial injustice and family tragedy. And it is Isaac who leads the reader into a satisfyingly just resolution.

This is a first novel well-crafted, thoroughly engaging, with touches of gentle humor, and helpful insight into a troubling past every reader must bear.

One thing I’ll be putting away is the discipline of writing almost daily about someone whose life journey touched mine (or brushed by, or lighted my path) and made me more who God called me to be. Forty days to write of forty people. And none of them was a “stretch,” that is, when I got to Easter’s Eve, I didn’t have to make anyone up! Nor exaggerate. In fact, I could go on…

There were other teachers, and other pastors, and many more friends, and relatives. And I could have named some authors, too, people I’d met only through their words, but people who did feed my spirit along a shared journey. I might have written of Edmund Steimle, a Lutheran pastor I heard many times on the old “Protestant Hour” radio program. His theology was progressive and his delivery was conversational. The man communicated and did it prophetically. Yes, he was an influence on my radio personna.

I could have written about some of the children and youth of my churches, for they too taught me, and nurtured my understanding of the unconditional love of Christ.

I could have written about my own two children, such impressive adults now, so beloved by my wife and me that I swear that a private prayer never passes my lips without its giving thanks for the gift of Wendy and Jim. But, goodness, it was hard enough to write just a few paragraphs about Joan, failing to do justice to her heart, soul, and voice. Sometimes we are just too close to those whom we love so deeply that without the words of a poet and the music of a great composer, we can’t adequately express what is in the heart. Trust me; it is a glorious and life-giving too-close-ness that is so right that if you gave me ten seconds I could produce tears of joy.

So, yes, I could have written more. But the forty days are up. And I will take a sabbatical of sorts. Spring is coming, at last, to Upstate New York. And the hour or two (usually two) I spent each day through Lent at this keyboard I now need to devote to something beyond sitting in the nook where I write.  Besides, there’s something wrong with my chair. It keeps sinking lower. There are bike rides and hikes to take, some baseballs that need throwing, and some pounds to lose.

And there is a trip to take. They say Denmark has some good jazz.

And then, eventually, in the fullness of time, I will have to write about the next forty who will change my life, or let it be.

In the meantime, I pray for you, for us all really, peace, grace, and jazz. And if jazz isn’t your thing, then let peace and grace suffice!

It is Easter! “He is risen!”

And then you say….

Joan and I have both retired, and for almost the first time in some 42 years can worship together side by side, same church, same pew. When we met at college, Joan was preparing for a vocation in church music at the school’s Conservatory of Music, and I was a pre-ministerial student in the Religion Department. When we took the chaplain’s Pre-marriage Seminar together, I’m sure it must have occurred to us that one day we might work together in the same church. I don’t recall that ever being the plan, however. Good thing. Would have been a waste of a plan, because we never did work for the same church.

First of all, and well-documented here previously, I wasn’t called to be a pastor of churches, at least not for the first 19 years of my ministry. I did radio. And Joan answered the call to be a church musician (usually both organist and choir director) wherever the way was clear; that wasn’t always a Presbyterian congregation. In fact, it rarely was. She played in three Presbyterian churches during her career, but also played the organ and led choirs in Baptist, Episcopal, Lutheran, and UCC congregations. So the likelihood of our finding a position where I was pastor and she was the musician were close to nil.

What we did best together was enjoy one another’s friendship and love together, create a warm and welcoming home, and raise two wonderful (or insert another very special positive adjective  or six here________________) children, Wendy and Jim. This is not the place to write about what a good marriage we celebrate or to express my gratitude to her for all she means to me. This is the last of my forty entries about the people in my life who have contributed in profound and lasting ways to my Christian faith and vocation. While I didn’t make a list of those forty at the outset of this Lenten journey, and would never in a million and one years try to rank the forty, I did know from the very start that Joan Maisch Kellam would be on my list, and near the top. (Yes, near… I did write of Jesus, after all!)

So, while we did not work together professionally in the same church building, we did share a ministry in the same Church, capital C: the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, and often in the same building, that is, our home. As we raised our children, we did our best to live up to the sacred promises we made at their baptisms. Together, pastor-father, musician-mother, created a church within our home, where prayers were prayed and songs sung, where Christian holidays were treated as the holy days they were, and where we nurtured the faith of our own family always within the wider family of faith in local congregations.

Maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t serve as a pastor until later in my vocation. Because my kids never had to be PKs — Preacher’s Kids. I wasn’t the preacher of the churches they were raised in. So they weren’t under the stereotypical scrutiny of church parishioners whose steady gaze apparently turns normal children into monsters. (Since I am one of those ministers who was not raised in a manse or parsonage, I wasn’t a PK either, but I understand that there have been such things in some churches.)

As I look back on the days when our children were growing up, I realize that it was a good thing for them to be exposed to our common Presbyterian heritage, the denomination in which both Joan and I were raised, as well as those other traditions where Joan provided music leadership. When Christmas and Easter and other special liturgical occasions came around in the Episcopal Church where Joan played, or in the Lutheran or UCC churches, Wendy, Jim, and I would go to share in the services Joan helped lead. Yes, it supported Joan’s ministry of music, but it also communicated to our children that the beliefs of other Christians were as valid and meaningful as our own.

Yes, that is one way that Joan and I shared in ministry, albeit informally. But eventually, we began to grow together vocationally. While I had always appreciated Joan’s musical talents and creativity, it took two events to draw us into a kind of vocational nexus. God called me into pastoral ministry, gently and part-time at first, but eventually into full-time solo pastorates. And summer Worship and Music Conferences at Montreat,NC provided for us a shared experience of learning, spiritual renewal, and fresh approaches to worship design and leadership.

At Montreat, Joan would find master classes in organ performance and conducting. I would attend courses and seminars related to worship planning and preaching. We would go to some classes together, such as Bible studies or Psalm singing. We would both sing in the choir, sometimes 600 voices strong. We would share our ideas and dreams while we grabbed lunch between our busy schedules. And when we got home, we were eager to make liturgy more lively in our respective churches.

Then we started to think, wouldn’t it be fun to do some of this new stuff together? What if we looked for a church that wanted both a pastor and a church musician at the same time? One trusted friend warned us that that wasn’t necessarily a good step for a church to take. Yet we knew of clergy couples sharing a call in one congregation. It must work somewhere, we reasoned. Yet, for one reason or another, or many, we didn’t pursue that vision. There may still be time to try something together though. (More about that in a couple of paragraphs.)

Joan has been a steady and faithful guide for me in my pastoral role. At Montreat, we often heard of rifts between musician and pastors. Maybe it was a matter of musical tastes clashing. Or, the pastor was making unreasonable demands on the hired musical hands. Or, the organist just wanted to be left alone: you preach your sermons and don’t tell me what to play or how fast or slow to play it! But thanks to common experiences at Montreat, and because we have grown together in our faith and in our understanding of church ministry and mission, and because we share similar theological dialects — we do good work together!

Joan has such a good sense of the flow of worship, and she has such theological and musical integrity, that I often asked her help in working out my own services. I would call downstairs from my study at home, “Oh, ‘hymn-lady’ … is #242 singable?” Or, “I need a closing hymn that fits with the theme of ‘taking steps.’”  Or, “Remind me what this tune sounds like.”

But more than those minor mechanics, Joan has a creative streak that finds new ways to sing, pray, and act the faith we profess. I loved watching her move from the organ bench at her last church, and walk up the center aisle teaching and leading an unfamiliar but utterly singable African or Latin American song. At first the parishioners are startled, then calmed, then joining in, smiling and singing at the same time.

I love the fact that Joan values integrity in worship and music, knowing that our worship is centered only on God, not on the personalities of worship leaders or on whether pew sitters are having a good time. Is God having a good time? That is the question. Or, is God embarrassed at the silly jingles or TV co-anchor chat that contemporary culture injects as a drug into sanctuaries, film at 11 (or video at 10?).

Though I’ve gotten carried away with my own words again (it took 10 to say that), I must note Joan’s pastoral skills, too. As a church choir director, Joan served as a pastor to her musical flock, noting their joys and concerns, always letting them know she cared about them. And when a church posse came after me in one congregation, a small but vocal group of complainers, Joan knew how hurt I was, and though she too felt the sting, she was incredibly, pastorally supportive during that rough stretch.

I have kidded my wife about how we really couldn’t ever have worked together successfully in a church. I am a day-at-a-time kind of planner, and she plans w-a-y ahead, as musicians must do. But we have both moderated our styles over the years. So, if the way be clear, and if grace abounds, as it always has, we hope to join our creative spirits in designing some special church services called “Hymn Festivals,” and sharing those occasions with churches that would enjoy (why not?) a special Sunday when, through liturgy, proclamation, and choral music, the service integrates those gifts to interpret a single theological theme. Forgiveness. Faith journey. Names for God. The parables of Jesus. Baptism.

That grand idea will certainly work… especially if I follow her lead.

[I have one more entry in this series, a kind of conclusion as Easter brings its new beginning. Watch this space:]

“Dr. E. T.” was Ernest Trice Thompson, the patriarch of what was once called the Southern Presbyterian Church. Once upon a time in the American Civil War, the Presbyterians split over cultural, social, and theological issues, and when I was growing up in the 1950s, there was the so-called “northern church” (the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, formed by a 1958 merger of two other once-divided churches) and the more aptly called “southern church” (the Presbyterian Church in the United States). When I was ordained in 1969, I was caught between them.

I grew up and was ordained in the UPCUSA, but I was asked (required?) to transfer my membership to the PCUS almost immediately, since I would be employed in ministry related to the southern church, working in Richmond. The UPCUSA folks didn’t want to be responsible for me at such a distance.

At the time, I didn’t think it was a big deal to change denominations. The Southern Church required just a rather awkward re-examination on my “views,” a pesky hoop to jump through. My leap through the hoop almost bent the thing out of shape. I messed up one answer so badly that the chair of the examining committee asked the premier Old Testament scholar of the time, John Bright, “What are you people teaching over at that school house?” — the school being Union Theological Seminary in Virginia where Dr. Bright taught. Taught me. I have conveniently forgotten Bright’s answer. I do recall the probing question put to me, though. What doctrine of the atonement did I find most attractive in my own theological thinking? I’m still not sure.

Now, by this time, Dr. E. T. Thompson had five years before retired as the school’s professor of church history. But Dr. E. T. still lived in Richmond, and was considered both the “grand old man” of the former Hanover Presbytery and the revered saint of the whole denomination. In an earlier day, however, Dr. E. T. had survived a church heresy trial, where, to make this story simple, it boiled down to the conservative, yea, verily, even fundamentalist wing of the church versus the progressive, yes, liberal champion of higher biblical criticism, E. T. Thompson. E. T. survived the fight, and went into his later years vindicated by history.

E. T. also had helped found an independent and progressive Presbyterian magazine called “The Presbyterian Outlook,” (to which I still subscribe). His name was on the mast-head until he died in 1985 at the age of 90. The obit in the New York Times mentioned not only his early advocacy for racial integration and civil rights, but also for the full recognition and ordination of women in the denomination. The obituary also noted his many published works, which included the definitive history of the Presbyterian Church in America. But at his death what he was most noted for was his successful campaign for the reunification of the two main branches of the American Presbyterian church, to heal the rift that had divided the church since the War Between the States.

That reunion took place in Atlanta in 1983. It was the only Presbyterian General Assembly to which I was elected a commissioner, and what a thrill it was to participate in the vote that reunited the church of my childhood and the church in which I was serving as a minister. There, physically feeble, wheelchair-bound, but mentally as sharp as ever, was Dr. E T.  I took a photograph of him just after the vote, and tied to his wheelchair were colorful helium balloons!

In my early days in Hanover Presbytery, that is, the decade from 1970 to 1980 or so, we could always count on Dr. E. T.’s wisdom as he stood before the microphones during various debates on the floor of Presbytery. Whatever he said, I believed. However he voted, I followed. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was a fan of mine, too, but  Dr. E. T. knew of my radio ministry, and of my then unorthodox format of secular rock music aimed at a young audience. And on more than one occasion, he told me that while he wasn’t a listener himself, he thought it was a wise and effective approach. That meant a lot to me.

When he was in his late 80s, I had an opportunity to take the school’s video equipment over to Dr. E. T.’s home to tape a conversation between him and one of his north side Richmond neighbors, another professor at Union Seminary, Wellford Hobbie. The topic was a denominational study paper entitled “Peacemaking: The Believers’ Calling.” I met E. T. Thompson in his kitchen where we talked about a book he’d been reading, a history of Western Civilization, some thousand pages in length. It was a warm summer morning, so we thought his back yard might be cooler than the house, and I set up the equipment there.

Hobbie arrived and took the lead on the conversation about the paper, but E. T.’s comments were sharp, direct, and, not surprisingly, quite supportive of what would be a controversial document. After all, it advocated peace. And peacemaking. And emphasized that it was the calling of every believer.

I treasure the copy of the video that I still have. It is a piece of Presbyterian history. A professor of church history who made history. I pray that if I live to be anywhere near 90, that is kind of 90 I want to be: not just still breathing, but still teaching, still advocating for peace and justice, and, maybe even a servant of the best the Church can be. At least, I’d like someone to tie some balloons to my chair!