Making Room

{During this Lenten period of forty days, I am reflecting on the meaning of room(s). Today, something a little different.}

A few days ago, I wrote about the spacious (to us) backyard of our former Ithaca home. Spacious: another word for roomy. The Old English 14th C. word rum (long u, not the drink) meant a chamber within a building. So, I’ve been writing primarily with that original meaning in mind, but today, I’m reflecting on the idea of roominess again.

When I was very young and we took those Sunday drives in the Ford Country Squire nine-passenger wagon, as we drove through the rural hills above the Susquehanna, I’d see acres and acres of land, and think, “Wow, there’s so much space for people to live here.”

I know some land developers look at certain areas in a similar way, but I was more innocent, more naive. I didn’t see dollar signs, but roominess.

In playing with this series since Lent began, I’ve been reflecting on how to approach the idea of “making room.” As if my writing weren’t random enough already, here are some more haphazard considerations.

Making room for someone to sit beside you on a bus or in a restaurant booth, or a church pew. The Rev. Bill Summers, with whom I worked at a large Richmond church, once remarked about the sparse summer congregation, “I see the church is comfortably filled today; by that I mean there’s room for everyone to lie down and be comfortable.” When there’s space between us, there’s always room to “move over.”

There’s also the idea of my making room in retirement life to write every Lenten day; I’m already pretty busy, you know, but this was my choice. I must make room for it each morning for forty days.

What about making room in your life for someone or something? I think of my daughter-in-law who makes room in her daily schedule and in the home to rescue kittens. Now and then, our ornithologist son makes room for an injured bird someone has brought to the college for possible rehab. My daughter and her family were into fostering abandoned dogs…until they so fell in love with Scooby that they adopted him and further fostering wasn’t allowed. Making room to rescue.

More profoundly, there’s a family in our church that has made room for fostering and adopting children. My impression is that they have fairly modest jobs and subsequent incomes, but their hearts have dictated more room for love to live in their home. Their children are a gift to our church family, and there’s plenty of room for them in our midst.

Making room for volunteer work. I’m currently working on three videos that will tell the stories of three recipients of the local council of churches’ Lives of Commitment awards. I’ve done this for several years and am always inspired by the time and energy people in our community donate in service to those in need. These volunteers were already busy living very full lives, but when the call came, they made room.

And making room for Sabbath. Speaking of busy-ness, the world around us seems in so much of a rush. It’s not just the work ethic; it’s also a play ethic. We create and we recreate. But everyone from clergy to self-help gurus, from the medical pros on “Doctor Radio” to the local masseuse — they urge us to take a breath, or lots of deep ones, to stop and smell the spring flowers that are coming up. One Sabbath is a day of rest. A whole day. Another might be one hour a day to make room for reading, listening to music, meditation, a quiet phone conversation (with no agenda), or listening for the sounds of nature, or the sounds of love. That sabbath rest might well be like making room for rescue again…saving time for our very selves.

Making room for strangers. I mean, of course, immigrants. People seeking asylum. People joining the centuries of immigrants who cried real tears upon seeing Lady Liberty in New York Harbor. We have physical room for them. We have room to employ them. We have room to welcome them. And we must make room in our hearts. It is our biblical mandate. Need I rehearse the verses?

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus 19:34

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2

You know that I could go on; there are at least 25 citations from the Judeo-Christian tradition that urge us to be compassionately welcoming. But there’s a problem isn’t there? Not everyone thinks we have room for so many people of color, so many risky refugees from troubled lands, or so many people bearing labels politicians have created in order to keep our country to ourselves. We as a nation have put politics before the clear mandates of holy writ. Our leaders, no matter the party, haven’t a clue how to solve this situation, this “crisis” as they call it.

It is a crisis, but not for those of us with plenty of security and lots of room and little motivation to move aside to make room for those for whom it is indeed a crisis. They have fled persecution, crime, gangs and drug cartels, hunger…they have abandoned all that was “home” and risked a treacherous journey, with nothing but hope burning inside.

All our politicians can think about is walls. Surely there are brighter minds. Stronger wills to act instead of cower. Determination to make room in their busy days, to work into every night, to create a process for change. As one of the Presidents Bush whined over and over about many things, “It’s hard!” Yes. Complicated. But so is rocket science and we seem to do pretty well with that. (Hmmm…maybe best not assign any NASA research to members of Congress.)

There are infrastructure problems, personnel issues, green card debates, security concerns, and on and on, but it seems are that’s happening on the border “crisis” is the beating of breasts, wringing of hands, and wailing of TV pundits. Do our legislators not have the intelligence or the will to work this out, this making of room for those whose only room now is a shelter, or worse, the street?

Lord, have mercy. Homeless Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Rescue us.

 

Bright Intimidation

{Lent 2024 brings the opportunity to write. I could write every day I suppose. I have lots to say and if you read these entries, you know I can be verbose, use too many parenthetical interruptions, and love commas. Nonetheless (or all the more), [told ya] I am writing on the broad topic of “room.”}

In the weeks before leaving college and driving 399 miles to Union Seminary in Richmond, I found in the school bookstore a volume entitled The Kingdom of God. I noticed that the author John Bright was a professor at Union and I’d be sitting in his classroom before long. When I enrolled in my three-year course of study at seminary, I found that Bright had also authored THE resource for Old Testament studies anywhere: A History of Israel.

Watts Hall, Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond

Sure enough, I was his student. OK, it was more like, I was a student among others in his classroom for two courses. (“His student” implies a special relationship. Far from it.) John Bright was a sturdy man, a challenging lecturer with a deep, gravel-pit voice. When I took his course in the Prophet Jeremiah, using another of his remarkable books The Anchor Bible Commentary on Jeremiah as the text, Bright became the voice of the prophet. When Bright’s throaty vocal chords intoned Jeremiah’s words, we sat up and listened…and took some notes. If I were to hear the literal voice of God someday, I’d mistake it for Bright’s.

If you think the room I write of today is that second floor lecture room in the seminary’s Watts Hall, you’d be mistaken. I write of a room more mysterious, just down the corridor. Before we enter it, I have to confess that I was a terrible student of the Old Testament, or as it is referred to these days, “the Hebrew Scriptures.” I was weak in that Biblical material in college studies, and downright anemic in seminary course work. Maybe there were just too many books in the OT. Too many details. Too many kings, prophets, and years. I took the minimum required courses in that field. The introductory survey course was inescapable, and every student had to take Hebrew in a short January term. As a third year student, having to have one more course in OT, I signed up for Bright’s “Jeremiah.” I loved Dr. Bright’s lectures, tolerated the readings, and flunked more tests than I passed.

Given the struggles I faced in Bright’s classes, in the hallway one day I asked to speak with the professor about my awful grades. He gave me an appointment, and I knocked on his office door. And I was invited into that room. I felt I was entering something akin to the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain through which mortals do not enter. The door opened, and there stood Dr. John Bright in the doorway of a darkened, cigarette smoke-filled study. That unsettling classroom lecture voice spoke surpringly gently. More startling was what the man said. “Come on in, Jeff.”

“Jeff!” Until that very moment, I had been “Mr. Kellam.” Almost all our seminary relationships were quite formal. We were all “Mr.” or “Miss” or, in a rare instance back then, “Mrs.” And calling a professor by his or her first name would be like calling your Nana “Helen,” or your mother “Bev.” It just wasn’t done! But Bright had invited me into that Watts Hall room of his calling me by my first name. And more quietly than I had heard him speak in two years of seminary life. “Jeff.”

I don’t recall much of the detail of what the room looked like, what the furniture was, or how the light beamed from window to floor. It was dark in there. That I remember. And the book shelves, and the various papers and files askew on desk and floor. I think we must have settled into heavy, comfortable chairs. I explained my difficulties in grasping the content of readings and lectures. Bright was very pastoral in his attitude toward one of his worst students. He was grateful I had sought his help, and would be happy to work with me on any further assignments. If I had had shaky knees upon entering his sacred space, I left…comforted. Relieved. Jeremiah 26:48 says, “As for you, have no fear, my servant Jacob. [or, Jeff!], says the Lord, for I am with you.” The previous verse had said, “Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease…” Jeff, too.

Well, not quite ease, but some less fear as that semester rolled on. My visit to Bright’s office did soothe my soul more than a little. And I passed, barely.

I hasten to add a note of victory here, and that I owe to John Bright as well. As seminary came to a close after three years, those of us who were headed toward ordination as ministers in the Presbyterian Church were required to take (and pass) standard exams in various fields of study, including an exegetical exam of a Biblical passage in either Greek or Hebrew. Now, my Greek was OK, but my Hebrew was, as you might expect, really weak. However, one of the passages we were to choose from in this “open book” written exam (either one in Greek or one in Hebrew) was a passage that John Bright had previously dealt with in class! And I still had my notes. So, I used that classwork to write the exam. (Yes, totally legally and ethically!)

Unlike some of my classmates, even ones with far better academic records than mine, I passed all my ordination exams on the first try. And received a letter of surprise from my home presbytery which was to ordain me. [A paraphrase: needless to say, Jeffrey, you have given us some concern throughout your academic career…but we are so pleased you have passed these exams!]

Though I long ago sold my Hebrew Bible, John Bright’s textbooks still sit on my shelf within reach. But the main thing is, I can still imagine that darkened room and a voice that called me “Jeff.”

Being gentle works!