Roomlessness

{I made up the word, I guess: roomlessness. But you get the idea. We’re at the last of my Lenten writings on “room(s).” And I have to note that not everyone has one.}

Most of us, and I’d imagine the vast majority of anyone reading this blog, have had a room. When we were kids, when we referred to our room it was a bedroom. We might have shared that room with siblings, or might have enjoyed the privacy and freedom of having our own room. It was not just a place to sleep, but to play in, or sulk in, or to be sent to. “Go to your room!”

I’ve written previously of my rooms in youth and adolescence. So no need to rehearse that again. I feel blessed to have had a space of my own. Not everyone does. Joan is on the Mission Committee at church and they’ve begun a relationship with a middle school a couple of blocks away. It never dawned on us that some of the families that send kids to that neighborhood school live in motels. The needs for them are varied: food, health kits, even haircuts. And how many family members are packed into that motel room?

Some probably feel quite ‘blessed’ to have any room at all. Behind a local McDonalds we saw a tent and inquired about it. “Oh, that guy’s been camped there for several days. Not sure who owns the property, but ‘they’ won’t let him stay much longer.” Winters get cold here, and for one reason or another, a tent is his home. And maybe he feels lucky to have some shelter, any shelter, against the wintry winds. Our daughter’s family has made a visit or two to an encampment in their nearby city to deliver blankets and coats to tent and box dwellers. Someone set fire to the place. What kind of person does that? Someone who’s never “been there.”

Then there are the families that line the sidewalks, having come (or having been forced) into our cities seeking refuge. The news stories follow an arc of sorts. It’s news this week, and next week we’ll forget there’s a problem, unless we happen to drive those streets and witness the desperation ourselves. A couple of weeks later, it’s all on the news again, and we wish someone would do something about it. Our wishes are different. Some want the roomless to just disappear, or “go back to where they came from.” Others visit with food. Some people of faith offer showers, meals, clothing. And you’ve probably heard that in some cities, civil authorities have odered churches to stop ministering to those in need. They create a nuisance. They pose a threat. They block the sidewalk. They scare our children. Too bad about your religious freedom to serve the poor. Oh, Jesus.

Years ago when I was working with our church youth group, our Director of Christian Education arranged for the senior highs to visit a homeless shelter. We took chocolate chip cookies to share as we listened to the stories of the many residents. (Was the place called “The Bunkhouse?”) While a couple of folks there said they’d lived on the streets for many years and had grown not only accustomed to it, but actually preferred it (“I love my freedom!”), many more shared lives difficult to grasp, situations that were tragic. They lived with mistrust, despair, loneliness. But thank you for the cookies!

Within a couple of years, that church joined with several others in an ecumenical ministry to provide warm shelter and a hot meal each night during the winter months. Each church took a week and had volunteer hosts to welcome the bus from downtown at the end of the day, offering cots, restrooms, some light recreation (board games, movies), and supper. (Probably breakfast too.) I was on staff there during one of our weeks, and spent a night in my study, occasionally moving through the building helping other church folk “keep watch over the flock by night.”

Just a few weeks ago, a city near our present home announced a grant that would provide some “tiny houses” for veterans, as well as other apartment units, with the hope that the money might make a dent in the problem of homelessness in the community. We also read of old buildings being converted into “affordable” living units, again hoping to address the lack of housing in city neighborhoods. Good steps.

I have no solutions to offer. Not even advice. Except for those of us so comfortably and safely at home under a roof and with room to spare: we cannot avert our eyes, nor ignore the voices, or assume this roomlessness of which I write will evaporate. People of faith have a mandate from the one who, scriptures say, had nowhere to lay his head. It is certainly implied in the list from Matthew 25: I was hungry…thirsty…a stranger…naked…sick…in prison…[and you cared for me].

In fact, Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase of Matthew 25 in The Message put it this way.

I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me aroom, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me. … Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me–you did it to me.

Jesus

As this series comes to an end, I offer my thanks to those who have made comments on this site, or who have reached out through email or Facebook, sharing their own thoughts about this year’s Lenten theme. I’ve always thought of this blog as my personal reflection space, and except for a handful of “subscribers,” most of what I type here remains somethnig like a private journal. That is, until one of those “tags” winds up in a search bar, maybe years later, and a visitor to the blog finds my thoughts at least “interesting” if not helpful.

So, yes, thank you for reading. Lent 2024 is ending. Tomorrow marks a new beginning, Easter. All things new! Except here. No words tomorrow or for coming days or weeks. Spring is arriving and my mornings will require my complete attention, away from the keyboard.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

 

Room on the Hill

{Good Friday…and this series of casual, unplanned, personal yet “blogly” public writings about “room(s)” is coming to an end. One more, tomorrow. But there is today, and I am wondering how to write about my chosen 2024 topic on Crucifixion Day. Let’s see what happens, shall we?”}

The soldiers brought Jesus to Golgotha, meaning “Skull Hill.” …They nailed him up at nine o’clock in the morning…Along with him, they crucified two criminals, one to his right, the other to his left. People passing along the road jeered…

Gospel According to Mark 15:22 25, 27, 29; from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, “The Message”

In 1982 I was the keynote speaker at the Montreat Youth Conference, a denomination-wide youth event held in the Presbyterian “Mecca,” Montreat, NC. The theme of the conference that year was “Cross Connections,” and I was to speak each day before about 1000 teens and their adult leaders. (The annual conference was so popular, we held an identical gatherings the following week.) I had worked with the conference planning committee to come up with a topic each day related to the broad theme. Then, I took a few days in a retreat of sorts to write at my friend Jim’s place in a D. C. suburb. As I recall, the conference went very well. I even had a minister in the crowd who said (and this was a very high compliment), “Your presentations remind me of Frederick Buechner.” But there was also criticism following one morning’s keynote.

I had taken Malcolm Boyd’s book The Alleluia Affair and turned it into a dramatic reading, with parts assigned to a team of youth and a couple of adults. (I may have asked the publisher for permission, but that detail is lost in foggy memory banks. Let’s say I did.) The book begins with Jesus pulling himself off a large crucifix cross in an Indianapolis church, then from a Manhattan church, and sixty churches in Paris. From San Francisco to Sydney, Prague to Peking, Jesus pulled free from church crosses and walked into the streets. The world’s religious leaders reacted with consternation, issuing all kinds of verbose counsel and warnings. Boyd says, “People ignored the religious leaders, preferring to confront Jesus in the streets and talk to him face-to-face.” He’d be in a diner, for example, breaking bread in the form of a hamburger roll and sharing coffee.

Then the Jesus figures portrayed in stained glass windows throughout Christendom came alive and shattered the glass and leaped out and dove into humanity, wearing prison stripes, joining migrant workers, selling tickets in bus stations, staying at YMCAs, and getting temporary work permits. The world reeled, and faith became alive for millions.

Under the empty crosses and the broken windows, scrolls were found, all with words from the teachings of Jesus. “When you give a feast, invite the poor…” “Judge not that you be not judged.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.”

Boyd’s writing then takes a turn when suddenly people find on those empty crosses people whose stories we’d rather not hear. The crucified of our culture. A starving child. An unmarried teen mother scorned by her family. A black man in prison stripes, a woman clad in jeweled high fashion, but drunk. An untouchable from Bombay. An abused youth.

Interestingly, the critical response I received from one adult in the youth conference masses wasn’t about the empty crosses or the newly crucified of our times, but Boyd’s targeting of larger, more affluent churches. The critic had come from one of those churches. He was probably right: the book aimed its complaint toward the more prominant churches and church leaders like bishops and denominational execs. But the book’s imaginative premise was nonetheless a powerful reminder that we as a society do condemn Jesus’ sisters and brothers to crosses we have fashioned from our bigotry, racism, and all manner of injustices.

When I had first moved to our retirement home, I had to find a new barber. I chose the one in the heart of the shopping district. One morning, his TV was reporting on Barack Obama’s initial run for the White House. With my haircut finished, I headed for the door and the barber said to me, “I know what we can do with that guy! Get some wood and matches, right?” I was so stunned, I couldn’t speak. (Damn it.) But I never went back.

You see, there is still room on Skull Hill for those with whom we disagree politically, those we’d rather not have living next door, and those whose complexion or gender identity or mental confusion breeds fear in our hearts. I could use this crucifixion day to name my enemies, the ones Jesus said it’d be best to love. I could name names. “Lock ’em up!” “String ’em up!” I confess I have a collection of nails. But instead of hearing my confession, why not listen to your own heart.

God so loved the world, the cosmos, every creature, so much that God gave the Son…who walks among us now, as the beloved, the unknown, the condemned, the ignored, the hungry, the job-less, the victim and the perp, and the room-less. Lord, when did we see thee…? Or, maybe we’d think, “Lord, if you’d just go back to your place in the stained glass…wouldn’t that be a more holy dwelling place for you? And less threatening for us?” We could then blend our voices in singing, “Beneath the cross of Jesus…”

But now. I must examine my own heart. How much more room is there on that hill?

 

The Upper Room

{Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday, the night before…Since Lent began, I have been writing about “room(s).” Today, that one upstairs, where Jesus broke bread with his true family for the last time.}

Tonight I will lead a service of Holy Communion at a local Presbyterian Church. We will gather in small groups around a table in the front of the sanctuary, and I will say what we call “The Words of Institution,” words from scripture in which the Apostle Paul “instituted” or initiated the way we remember that night when Jesus headed from table to betrayal.

Though we think of this night as a kind of reenactment of the Last Supper, it is nowhere near that. We cannot pretend we know the hearts of Jesus and disciples as they reclined at table for the meal. Some churches do try to make this night into quite the production number, perhaps serving a copy of the Passover Meal to worshippers gathered at tables, with explanations of the various traditional elements of the meal, and then engaging in the ritual of footwashing, followed by the sharing of the Sacrament. Maybe they will then sing a hymn as the disciples did as the meal ends and people go home to TV. But liturgy is not “play acting.” Please, I intend no judgment here. My point is that there is no way to capture the true drama of that evening in the upper room, then in the garden, and then into the darkest of nights.

The church we where we usually worship has gathered folk in the fellowship hall on Maundy Thursday evening, around the tables normally used for church luncheons and dinners. In the context of a worship service there, the people serve one another bread and cups of “the fruit of the vine” (our nomenclature for the grape juice we use in place of wine), and with the reading of scripture passages, candles are eventually extinguished until the room is darkened. And the direction is that we leave the hall in silence. Of course, some folks can’t help themselves, and chat on the way home…to TV.

I do like that model. Even more meaningful, though not practical for such a large group, would be to have the meal in the church’s “upper room.” A couple of weeks ago in this series, I wrote of “tower rooms” and our church has one. It would be cramped, but certainly a special place, set apart, and carefully prepared for this special night. I can only imagine it, however: candle light, a table set with dinnerware, hunks of bread (no, not unleavened…no need to be that fundamental), and vessels of wine, real rich, red wine…with Welches for those for whom wine would be a serious problem. But here I am, making it into a period drama. No, it’s to be a simple act of remembrance.

And what is it that we are remembering? An upper room? Last meal? Disciples wholly and holy converted into family? The special and very careful arrangements Jesus made for the use of this upstairs room? Feet being washed and servant love being taught by example? Judas’ early exit? No. Indeed the question is put wrong. It should be “Who is it we are remembering? Jesus. “Whenever you do this, remember me.” Or, as Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase has it: “This bread…eat it in my memory.”

So, this Sacrament, whether called “Holy Communion” or “Eucharist” or “The Lord’s Supper,” is a meal (simple as it is with mere bits and sips!) of remembrance, and yes, like the Jewish Passover. (By the way, John’s Gospel has this farewell meal on the eve of Passover, not on Passover night itself. But that Jesus was betrayed and arrested and killed during the Jewish feast of liberation is of great significance theologically. So significant that I never should have placed that sentence within parentheses. Sorry.)

I quote my dear friend and colleague the late Lamar Williamson here, a summary paragraph from his Interpretation commentary on Mark’s Gospel.

Nothing is haphazard about Jesus’ death nor about the meal he shares with his disciples in preparation for it. All occurs by divine appointment, coupled with careful and conscious preparation by the participants. The principle still holds true: Time and place must be prepared if this established ritual is to serve effectively as a point of intersection with ultimate reality.

Lamar Williamson, “Interpretation,” John Knox Press

Tonight then, the sanctuary where I am guest worship leader is arranged for tables up front (Presbyterians do not have altars), liturgy carefully chosen, choir and organ music rehearsed, bread and grape juice ready for serving– and we shall remember Jesus. We will not think casually about that night so long ago. We will retell the story of that supper, partake of the “elements” (such a strange word for bread and cup), and pause ever so briefly in silence to meditate on our own place at his Table. Our own place in his story, and his life in us.

And for the rest of our stories in this life, we shall commit ourselves to follow his commandment to love one another, so that people will know we are his disciples, his family still. Dirty feet and all.

 

Toys in the Attic

{Lent is fast coming to a close, and I have just a few rooms yet to explore. Thank you for reading these reflections. I write mostly for myself, an exercise to do something different as a Lenten discipline; I guess I could have done this in a private journal. Hmmm. Maybe next time.}

Joan and I have never had much of an attic, but the one we have now could practically be a rec room. It’s huge. And seasonal. Frigid up there right now. And in July, it’ll be too hot to do anything but quickly retrieve LPs for my radio show. (How those records weather the weather (pun intended) , I do not know. Maybe it’s because they are packed tightly side by side. The point is, we aren’t supposed to count that attic room as living space anyway; house rules.

We live in a small retirement community of nine homes. Until our house was built, the homes included basements for utilities and storage. But there’s a wetland beyond our backyards, and the two newest homes were built on slabs to avoid the occasional wet cellar. Thus, no basement space here. The other thing is, to keep things equal among us retired Presby-pastor types, we are all required to live only on one floor. Saves the landlords (a committee) from rescuing folks who tripped up or down stairs. Still, most of our neighbors in the older homes have put that basement space to good use. Turns out, it’s cool in the summer and warmish in the winter thanks to the furnaces. So, we residents of the newer homes have a whole second floor attic instead…to be used for storage.

I’ll return to that situation momentarily. But first, back to the Kellams having had little attic experience. The townhouse apartment we called our first home had one of those pull-down stairways leading to some attic space. In early marriage years, we had little to store besides suitcases and some Christmas decorations. The first real house we bought had a similar creaky pull-down contraption. It wasn’t fun to climb up there, but the builder had placed some plywood above the living room area, so we had some space for attic “stuff.” We laugh about this now, but the day I slipped up there and put my leg through the living room ceiling wasn’t that fun at the time. On second thought, after my embarrassment passed and we determined that my leg wasn’t injured, I think we did see the humor in the situation, and Joan may have grabbed a camera. Don’t look for the photo here.

Next new home…just like the first, but without the hole in the ceiling. Then came the Vermont manse, our first, and only, church-owned home. That was an interesting story. It was an old Vermont farmhouse design with the barn attached to the house so the occupants needn’t go too far to check on things in -20 degree cold. But a previous occupant of the manse, a pastor with not enough experience in raking and burning the lovely fall leaves of New England, had let a fire get too close to the barn and he set it on fire. Thankfully, the home itself was saved, and the barn area was rebuilt as a garage. Over the garage and over part of the living area, there was large attic space with a nice window lookng out on the front lawn. The overhead timbers, however, were charred, and flakes of the fire’s damage from forty-plus years earier fell into the attic, covering everything we stored there. No big deal, just ashy, and messy to clean up.

The Presbyterian manse and church, East Craftsbury, Vermont

I once wondered aloud if that space might be renovated into, oh maybe a radio studio, or a study. But as soon as church elder Albert Urie heard me hint at that idea, he brusquely brushed it aside. “There’s more than enough space in this old house for anyone!!” (Yes, two exclamation points.) He was right, of course. We came to appreciate the old Vermont saying, “Enough,” meaning there’s no use coveting; there’s enough. I believe it now.

Funny though. Years after Joan and I had left and a couple of other pastors too, the church remodeled part of that charred attic into a lovely bedroom. Turned out, they had to. The fire-damaged beams had become dangerously weak, so some renovation was necessary. (Another word we came to respect in rural Vermont: necessary. Is it, or isn’t it? Live accordingly.)

We moved to another old house when we took up residence at a church near Ithaca. Attic? Sure, but it was not accessible except for the very clever and foolhardy. There was no pull-down stair in that old house. Only a push-up panel. And that was located above the two-story entry way. Unless one placed scaffolding across the open staircase, there was no way to use the attic. Now, we had a lot of space under the house…a very, very primitive cellar, very damp. (No wonder my LPs have a bit of moldy-oldie aroma.) But I sure wish I could have gone up in that old house to discover what treasures might have been left behind generations ago. I’d have had to fight off the wasps and hornets though. We let them be. It wasn’t necessary.

Now, finally…have you enjoyed the tour so far?…back to our retirement home, the last one we’ll ever occupy. That big attic. Yes, there’s storage up there and my spring project will be to sort and toss. I guess I don’t really need my systematic theology notes from seminary any more. Or that photo of our 1970 Ford Torino. I know there must be someone out there who wants my retired 35mm cameras. But aside from the debris, we have toys in the attic.

A young Tyler in the attic competition

When we saw the space, and knew we weren’t supposed to live up there, we decided we could probably play up there. So, we bought a ping pong table. Joan and I had won the ping pong tournament at the Pocono honeymoon resort just days after we said our vows. So, that table seemed a good investment to polish our competitive skills. Plus, my old recording equipment is up there, and some of it still works. Some. But mostly, it’s the N-scale railroad layout that sits on two side-by-side former ping pong tables (not to be confused with the newer one we had bought).

When I retired, I took the little train setup I had carried along for a few years and took it more seriously. I bought more rolling stock, added additonal locomotives, built a village, a farm, an industrial area, piece by piece. Some plastic or wood kits, a couple of brass structures, tiny people to populate the town, cars and tracks, trees, etc., etc. I took years to build it, and enjoyed watching my grandsons run the trains. So, yeah…toys in the attic. It’s been too long since I played with the trains. Frankly, my passion was building and landscaping, rather than worrying which freight car was headed where and carrying what. The trains just go round the periphery of the tables, uncouple, crash, and cause trouble. Did I mention I have a broadcast tower and a drive-in movie? And a school baseball field? That for me was the fun part.

It was enough. And totally unnecessary.

 

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.

 

Lots of Room: Our Two Little Acres

{For Lent this year, I am writing each day some reflections on the word or the very idea of “room.”}

Joan and I lived the first couple of years of marriage in a townhouse apartment. With the birth of our first child, we took the leap and bought a new house, a three bedroom ranch, so new that we got to choose colors, wallpaper, and some other details. It sat on a small 1/3 acre lot in a lovely new suburban development. When our second child was born, we looked for a slightly larger home. We chose the house plan interior details, and how the home would be situated on the 1/4 acre lot and, and eagerly watched the builder construct it according to our plans.

From there, we moved to my pastorate in Vermont, living in the church’s lovely manse. Finally, we come to the acreage described in the title of this piece. My last church before retirement was near Ithaca, NY and we again had to buy a home. Compared to our previous homes, the one we chose was small, a New York State Cape, but circa 1840 it had been built on a parcel with many acres. Subdivided through the decades, when we moved in the land was down to two acres. But to us, two acres was a lot of room.

On the path through our woods: room to roam

And within that two acres was a very small front yard that was right up against a busy two-lane “scenic byway” road that carried traffic to a state park on Cayuga Lake. But the rest of the property was a spacious (to us) park of our own. We had a narrow stream running through the backyard, with a wooden bridge leading to the grassy field and then the woods. The couple who sold us the house had a large vegetable garden, several smaller flower gardens (she was a ‘master gardener’), and even a chicken house, one that hadn’t had a resident hen for years. It had become her garden shed and it was dangerous to enter because of the hornets’ nests inside. We soon had it carted away. (Watching the truck negotiate the stream was fun.)

A visitor in the grassy field

There were blackberry bushes and tall black walnut trees, and some large maples too. If you could look down on the yard from the air, you’d see paths mowed through the tall grass, a pattern that might have looked like a visual code. Not only did that make for a nice walk way through the grasses, it saved mowing time. The paths also moved through the heavily wooded area at the very back of the lot. There we found what looked like an old headstone, maybe marking the burial place of a family pet? And there were grape vines, long overlooked, but bearing dark sour grapes that never quite matured into anything edible.

In the newer metal shed on the lot were some items the previous folks had left behind, including two major things we had asked be conveyed. Our first snow-blower, and a riding mower. The former never worked right, so we shovelled. The latter was a joy. No, really. I never dreaded mowing the lawn. I put on the protective headphones, cranked up the Simplicity tractor, and mowed and mowed. The thing about mowing (and I’ve heard other pastors say this too) is that you can look back and see what you’ve accomplished. The times you can do that in church work are rare.

The snow scene there reminds me that winter would bring some cross-country skiing in the back yard. We’d make a trail with snowshoes, and then we could follow that gentle path on skis around our roomy yard to work off some calories. We missed the groomed and tracked trails of Vermont, but we made do with what we had.

Our two little acres were just right for us. Room to roam, but not too much for busy folks to care for. And the acreage next to our property was the Lauman Preserve, a relatively small wooded area with a hilly path that led down to Cayuga Lake. We took over the stewardship of that preserve while we owned the Ithaca home, walking the property now and then to be sure the trails were clear and there were no “widow-makers” hanging from trees overhead.

We loved that “yard,” and it’s all-season beauty. Our little piece of God’s creation.

 

The Tower Room

{Another in my Lenten writing (or reading?) exercise, words about the word “room.”}

Cal Steck plays the tower room carillon

Tower rooms are fascinating places. The one at college housed the school’s carillon along with a panoramic view of the campus and surrounding Western Pennsylvania hills. The trip up there seemed both harrowing and maybe against the campus rules, except that I “legally” accompanied Cal Steck as he headed for the bells.

Another tower, another room: the tower of the church we attend now has the heavy rope that rings the church bell. More notably, that room was home to my Sunday School class when I was in 7th or 8th grade. It was a terrible space for learning; we were cramped and encircled by church debris…props from pageants, old books, and the ladder to that huge bell hidden from us by the water-stained ceiling. I’ve climbed up close to the tower’s bell, but not quite to the very top; it wasn’t safe.

Today, though, I write of a tower room that was at one time a pastor’s office. By the time I was called to the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church in Vermont, the room had been long-abandoned. I never worked a minute in that room, choosing my study at the manse instead. (Yes, I wrote about that early in this series.) The ECPC tower room was a relic from days of yore, but also a reminder of the church’s faithful past. Anyone who is or has been connected with a church with an aging building can identify with this room, especially pastors, church officers, and educators. That’s because they’ve seen their own version of this space beneath the church bell. Some clutter.

The tower room is right where you’d expect it to be. This is the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church.

First, the old books, including Bibles. Every old church building (and maybe newer ones too) have cupboards and closets bursting with volumes people are reluctant to toss. Bibles are especially hard to part with, even those of torn bindings, missing pages, and translations no longer helpful to modern readers. Then there are collections of out-of-date Sunday School curriculum. Better save it; might come in handy in the future, if we can’t find something new we can afford. We can skip over the references to dial telephones and AM radio. Piles of that literature, dusty and askew, remain on shelves for decades.

The old schoolhouse where Margaret Mead once lived

And I found that all that stuff in our Vermont tower room. Along with old posters, an ancient table around which students once learned Bible verses, and, the most interesting artifact: a 16mm Kodak Pageant projector that once belonged to anthropologist Margaret Mead. Turns out, she lived just down the road from the church in an old one-room school house. When the house was closed up and put on the market, that projector found its way to the church, whose doors I am told she had entered long ago. (I assume those visits were for speaking engagements, not for worship.) When I left that church for my next and last call, I was so tempted to carry that projector with me, the church having no use for it. But I left it there in the tower room, since that’s what most folks do: leave old things in old churches.

One more thing about the church bell overhead. I think that’s the church where folks said it was best to not ring it. The supports holding the bell in place were not to be trusted and any tugging on the rope or swinging of the bell might bring the bell crashing down. That situation was later remedied and the bell sang again. (I recall ringing it when the 9/11 terrorist attacks prompted all the churches to ring their bells at the same time to mark the occasion.)

Back to the room itself. Why was the room not used? Because of Vermont winters. Church services were on Sundays, except for times like Lent, Christmas, memorial services, and so on. There was no reason to fight the frigid temperatures by burning fuel oil during the week when meetings and other gatherings could be held in the warm manse. So, when I was pastor there, I only used the room for two things: to store my vestments (so I could change into them shortly before Sunday worship), and to signal to passersby that the church was alive and well (and not shuttered and abandoned as some rural churches were along the New England landscape). To accomplish that “signal” I maintained a light in the stained glass window that fronted the road.

It was just an electric candle, a 7 watt bulb left on at all times, but visible to those driving by at night, glowing behind that colorful glass. Maybe no one else paid attention to it, but it was important to me. On a dark winter’s night, sometimes with snow squalls circling the building, there was one small sign of life in the tower room window.

[The “one little candle” tradition is a custom for me and Joan. We consider a candle in each window at home a sign of welcome and peace. We carried that tradition from our Richmond home to the Vermont manse — and the tower room — and as I type this, I can see candles in the living room windows where we live, move, and have our being.]

I must add here that what I’ve written is not to be taken as a criticism of our Vermont church or any other congregation. Churches have messes, and if that is the only mess I recall from a decade there in that beloved congregation of ours (and it is) we are truly blessed!

Speaking of messes, I’ll be writing about our attic at some point. Judge not.

 

The Radio Room

{Another in a series…Lent 2024…”room.” ‘Nuff said.}

My first blog, and one that is still available (though rarely written these days), is at http://www.celebrationrock.wordpress.com. I started it when I retired, and the primary focus was my long-running syndicated rock radio program “Celebration Rock.” Within those many, many entries is a description of nearly all the audio production studios where I recorded the hour-long program. In this Lenten series (which admittedly has little to do with Lent), I’m writing about room(s) and today I describe the “radio room” at one Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond, VA.

“The radio room.” That’s how those two elderly gentlemen had described the WBBL studio space in the basement of the church. I thought it rather quaint nomenclature for a space that served as a broadcast facility complete with FCC call letters. It was actually two rooms, one with the turntables, Ampex tape recorders, control board, and phone lines, and the other an adjunct studio for doing interviews. But I’m sure that when the church went into radio in 1924 as Richmond’s first radio station (and only the second in the Commonwealth of Virginia), that space was referred to as “the radio room.”

In 1968, I was asked to create a radically new program for the church’s Sunday night hour. By that time, the church had long since agreed to share its frequency with a commercial station. (I’ll spare you the details; if you find this fascinating, check out the blog referenced above.) That station was programming Top 40 hits, and the church’s Sunday night program was trypical religious fare, with thousands of teens turning their radios off. I was to create a program that featured their rock music, but added some “spiritual” content along the way. It was a good move, wise stewardship of the airwaves to keep those young listeneners tuned in.

Phil Coltrain’s photo of the old radio room

WBBL’s radio room had been run for many years by two church members I’ll identify only as Ernest and Donald. They were not happy with my rock show. No matter the rationale, no matter the very positive audience response, during the first two years my program ran, their question to me was, “So, how long do you think you’ll be doing this program of yours?” In other words, when can we have our radio room back and do “church” programs?

At that time, the radio room was filled with out-dated equipment. The turntable was built before 45 rpm records became popular, and though the Ampex recorders would have been adequate, I couldn’t record there. So, I taped the show elsewhere and sent the tapes over to the church to be broadcast.

At work in the “new” WBBL studio

In a few years, the Associate Pastor of the church worked a miracle of sorts. He persuaded the Session (the governing board of Presbyterian churches) to completely renovate the “radio room” into a state-of-the-art stereo production facility. I was invited to make the space my own, to plant my office there, and to use the studio to produce the other programs I was then airing in the Richmond market. Ernest and Donald had made their exit by then, with fresh talent running the station’s other Sunday programming.

Yes, my WBBL and Celebration Rock stories are told in greater detail on my other blog*, but writing of rooms during this Lenten season couldn’t omit the “room” where my radio production skills, mic presence, and media ministry were nurtured for a long vocational journey. For over 20 years, I used radio to explore the meaning of Lent, Easter, Nativity, and even World Communion Sunday with a rock music format. The rest of the calendar I played the hits and the album cuts and, I hope and trust, helped listeners “celebrate new life,” and “be gentle with people…and with [yourself].” Thanks to my entry into that radio room.

[*For more than you need to know about “Celebration Rock” go to the blog cited above, and find your way back to the entires for February 2008.]

 

The Dark Room that Led to My Flunking Out

{If you are late to the series I’m writing during Lent 2024; I’ll fill you in on the theme this year: “room.”}

Yesterday, I wrote about a seminary professor’s office, a room I found unusually dark for such space. Today, a different kind of dark room, the kind where photos come through chemicals and rinses and special papers…and darkness. This one was in the TUB. The Titan Union Building, Westminster College, Pa. I spent many hours in that room, alone, in the dark.

Of course it wasn’t totally dark; there was a red light that illuminated one’s work space without ruining the processing of black and white film. The college newspaper and yearbook photographers not only documented campus events with school cameras or their own, but deveoped the film and printed the photos on site. That was especially helpful for the weekly “Holcad” newspaper. Film processing by mail would have delayed publication for a week or more in our small campus town. But working in that small basement space, we could take pictures at a Wednesday afternoon event and the photos would appear in the Friday paper. I know this sounds so primitive to generations used to the instant digital photography that even phones can accomplish, but back then (the early 1960s) the smelly, dark, and often dank space filled with film cannisters, trays, chemicals, an enlarger, and strings holding drying prints was both a necessity and a creative outlet.

I got my first camera for Christmas one year. I might have been 11 or 12. I graduated from one simple camera to others more sophisticated, but always very affordable for a kid with an after school job. By college time, I had a 35mm rangefinder camera, a Taron Unique. See? Not exactly a Nikon or Hasselblad. When I was signing up for extracurricular activities, I volunteered to take pictures for the “Holcad” and also for the yearbook, the “Argo.”

The darkroom was just off the Holcad office space and an upperclassman (we used male terminology back then) showed me the ropes. Well, the darkroom equipment. I had had some limited experience developing film back home, but the school darkroom was a revelation! We could print on different papers, blow up photos for detail, creatively crop our images, and then, the best part…the work would be published for all to see. And to ignore, for the most part. Most readers took the illustrations for granted, though on rare occasions someone might tell us, “Hey! Great shot of the game last week!”

My pictures appeared in all four yearbooks of my college career, as well as in countless weekly campus papers. I had a title: “Photo Editor.” Now, decades later, those of us who survive (!) may look at those photos with fondness, finding memories unlocked and re-lived: our college years, the games, the social events, academics, classmates.

One of my photos, taken from the Argo office:
stunned students gathered to listen to car radio accounts of the Kennedy assassination

In my junior year, I was named co-editor of the Argo. Senior Peggy Baird and I were responsible for the annual record of campus life, with Peggy doing print content and me providing photo illustrations. It was a proud moment. And very short-lived. I was in the process of flunking out. And leaving Peggy holding the bag. I mean, the book.

Two students gaze at the campus lake, with two spies on the right (from the Argo)

My studies suffered due to my poor stewardship of time. I was doing radio on the college station in addition to the hours spent shooting photos and developing and printing film. I’ve said that my desk, books, and classnotes were all in “upstairs” rooms and the radio station and darkroom were in the basements of college buildings. The twain didn’t meet. My studies hit bottom. During my first two years of college, I went on academic probation twice. And in my junior year, strike three came.

I certainly questioned my call to ministry when I had to leave my studies. Without my academic deferment, I was nearly drafted into the Army during the Viet Nam conflict, but escaped that situation, barely. I flunked again, this time my physical. Joan and I had been dating, and that semester away from school put a hold on our developing romance. I had begun a Greek class in my junior year, in preparation for seminary, so the prof kindly sent me assignments to do at home. That didn’t work. What worked was a temporary job my Dad got me at IBM for the months away from school. I didn’t see my future there, and was determined to mend my ways if given another chance.

I always share this predicament with youth groups. Yes, kids, I flunked out of college. I’m way past being embarrassed by it. It happened. It was a turning point in my life, and after a semester out of school, I was re-admitted and stayed clear of the darkroom. I may have done some more radio, but limited my extracurriculars to that one activity. The Argo got published without me, and the Holcad had other camera-toting students. And I studied. I’d love to say that I became a successful scholar that last semester. No. Just my average self. Missing that semester meant not graduating with Joan and my class. But after two courses in summer school, the college mailed me a diploma. (I took the equivalent of two semesters of German in those twelve weeks, plus an audio-visual course. Guess which came in handy later?)

Next would come three years of seminary. There was a darkroom there too. Someplace. I never asked where it was. Didn’t want to know.

And here I am.

 

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!