Confession: Our Pleasure Room

{If you are just now finding your way here, what took you so long? Since Lent 2024 began, I’ve been writing each day about “room(s).”}

Many people, occasions, and places in my life have given me — and are still giving me— pleasure. Mostly, pure pleasure. Sometimes though, as is the case I cite today, guilty pleasure.

I’ve been thinking about rooms for this Lenten series. Or, just the idea of room itself. As in room for roaming, or room for growth, or…more on that later this week. For now, a room in which Joan and I find great pleasure. It’s not cheap to be there. It is not at all good stewardship of the earth, and that’s why this is a confession. A confession with no intent to repent. But that room is an escape room…at sea.

We took our first cruise to Alaska when I was still a pastor. We’d never had the time nor money before that trip, but somehow we managed to board the Royal Caribbean “Vision of the Seas” and travel far away from of our Ithaca neighborhood. Just as I was thinking that some members of our former Vermont congregation might think this was an inappropriate and unnecessary journey, excessively beyond what a pastor should be able to afford — well, we discovered that quite by coincidence one of our church farm families would be on the very same ship at the very same time. Maybe some would think the daily presence of church folk from a previous church on the cruise would cramp our style (style? what style?), but we truly enjoyed bumping into the Rowells on that ship, and sharing our adventures.

This is larger than our usual cabin;
it must have been on sale

After our initial cruise, and after retirement, we discovered other ships and faraway places, and we found that many of those opportunities were quite within our budget. I know: cruises sound so luxurious, so expensive, so, um, “upper crust.” [Your lesson of the day: the upper crust was that part of the loaf that was placed before the most honored guest, thus the aristocracy.] But if one were to spend a week in a nicer hotel in a large city, eat all three meals “out,” and look for some entertainment or enlightenment each day, the cruise is a far better value. Sometimes we find one that is around $200 a day, including great meals (even snacks), a show each night, lectures during the day, and that room referred to above, the one that gives us pleasure. The stateroom. Or, cabin. (So odd to use that word. Usually I think of a cabin as some primitive abode in the woods.)

Travel was rare when I was a kid. Dad had a good job, but with six kids and his own reluctance to go very far from home, our vacation time was spent at Cape Cod (Mom’s childhood vacations were on the Cape), or just at home. Joan and I, with resources limited by modest church salaries, didn’t exactly see the USA in our Chevrolet (or the Pontiac or Toyota). We were able to travel by car, though, so our two children could get some idea that life existed beyond our Richmond suburbs. But still…I never imagined that I would see England, Russia, Hawaii, or the Azores. Or, cruise the Caribbean with both kids’ families to celebrate our combined anniversaries.

Veranda view crossing the Atlantic

That room. The cabin. Small, basic, and with a shower that would keep me from gaining 10 more pounds (in other words, not much room to move around in there!). We almost always get a room with a veranda or balcony, and spend hours out there reading and watching the sea roll by. The idea of just stopping, staying put…listening to the waves and the wind… looking out at the horizon and watching the sun set. Yes, it is a luxury; I admit it. I also admit that it gives me great pleasure.

We don’t do the chocolate or champagne fountain midnight thing. We don’t eat between meals. We don’t do room service. We eschew the art auctions. We do like eating by ourselves at some meals, and we like meeting interesting people from around the world at shared tables. We enjoy the port lectures and take a few affordable excursions. (On the Jazz Cruise, we ignored the ports. People would ask where that cruise was stopping and we’d admit we didn’t really care; it was the music we were after.)

So, yes. Great pleasure. And no little guilt. First there’s the whole idea of splurging on oneself. Is there a justification for that? Perhaps. I know there’s a rationale. (See above about vacationing for a week in a large US city.) We do have a respect for our religious stewardship commitments, tithing for example to serve others. Yet, in our retirement years, we are indeed treating, serving ourselves too.

But the other confession we make is that we know these huge ships are an environmental threat. The fuel, the trash, the ecological footprint. The cruise companies boast about their environmental stewardship, but like any other corporation, they are good at PR and not-so-good at transparency. This isn’t the place for me to write an essay comparing modes of vacation travel, researching jumbo jets vs. cruise ships of various sizes vs. a coast-to-coast AMTRAK trek. I’m merely writing about rooms here. But it’s Lent, so yeah, there’s that confession that we could do better. Like stay home and watch videos of scenic places. But the videos we enjoy most are the ones I’ve edited from our many journeys to see the world’s wonders.

I shudder to think what our cruise schedule might be like if we lived near a port city like Miami or Long Beach. Some of those last minute cruises are almost cheaper than staying home. Oh, and have you heard about people who sell their homes and move onto cruise ships permanently? A nice room, entertainment, fine meals, even healthcare, to say nothing of the views. Not for me, thanks.

The funny thing is…I can’t swim. You’d think sailing for days without seeing land would be spooky for me. But there’s something about the wild seas and far horizons that speaks to me of creation’s wondrous width and length and height and depths. Well…let’s not talk about depths.

 

My Cell

{Lent 2024…I write each day as a Lenten discipline, and have chosen the word “room” to consider for these forty days. Yesterday, I wrote of having my “own room” in our big Liberty Avenue house. But there was a lot of traffic through there. So I moved. There’s my bed in the old space. Note sisters 1 & 3, brother 2, dog 3, shortwave radio, and an alarm clock. And inexplicably, an accordian. See why I had to move?}

I guess it was about the time I hit adolescence that my Dad thought I should have a more private room. The one I had called mine before that was a major thoroughfare in the Kellam household. To get to the cellar, my brothers’ room, Mom’s various work rooms, and one of the three bathrooms in the house, one had to pass through my bedroom. So that I could have more privacy to deal with acne and geometry, Dad’s solution involved that aforementioned bathroom. He’d convert it into a small bedroom for the eldest Kellam kid. Me.

So the plumbing was sealed off, sink and toilet removed, along with the ancient claw-foot bathtub that sat (or did it stand?) near the window. The floor was repaired, walls papered (with a boy’s sports theme), and a small bed went on the tub’s claw-foot-print. Dad built a desk onto one wall, my study carrel. The desk was probably to encourage me to do homework someplace other than in the front of the TV in the living room.

Looking back, that small room was about the size of a jail cell. Not that I’ve ever been confined to one. But it was pretty confining in there. Still, I was glad to have a room with a door, and some space for school books and the all-important radios. The family faced some sacrifice though. One less bathroom in a 13 room house. By the time we moved to a new home, there were eight of us using two very small bathrooms. (I guess we were lucky to have that much; when the house was built some 120 years earlier, the Mersereaus had an outhouse. The number of seats in there is lost to history.)

I don’t recall whose grand idea this was, but maybe it was mine. Dad’s modest collection of LPs (records) found its way into many-sleeved albums, with the record jackets of no importance to the music-listeners in the family. So, my room was decorated with cast-off LP artworks. The photo here hardly does the room justice. My bathroom/bedroom/cell looked like Woody’s Record Shop, our favorite music store up on The Ave. I see Sinatra was prominent in overlooking my algebra homework.

If I’m to draw any significance from this “reflection,” I suppose it would be how lucky (blessed would be the better word) I was to have a space of my own. Of course, many or most do not. I picture immigrant teens the age I was when I slept in either bedroom I’ve mentioned here. They are on the street. Or, kids who have grown up in poverty in the U.S. — they may share space with their whole family. In our prayers each day, Joan and I often give thanks for not only the meal we are about to enjoy, but the for the “many blessings we have overlooked today.” And how often we overlook our own comfortable space.

 

Welcoming Rooms

{Day three of Lent 2024, and room 2 of my 40 day series.}

Joan and I have only lived in one manse through my years in ministry. For most of my vocation, we lived in homes we purchased. But on moving to a rural Vermont church, we lived in an 1840s-era manse or, as some might call it, a parsonage. It was lovely, a postcard setting really, and within sight of the church I served for almost a decade. The photo here is from the December page of a “Vermont Life” magazine calendar. Under the snow cover is my Accura Integra with the vanity plate that reads “Kingdom,” for Vermont’s “Northeast Kingdom” territory.

While in that house, Joan transformed room after room, painting and papering, adding personal touches to make it “ours.” Now sometimes, living in a church-owned house can be problematic. The incoming pastor discovers furniture that must stay in place (so generously donated from a church member of old who didn’t want it anymore), or finds restrictions on any change or renovation or personal living choices, thus making the house less of a “home.” That was not the case in our Vermont manse.

One thing that we recall with fondness all these years later is how the largest room in that house became a place of welcome for church fellowship and “business.” You see, during winter months when the Vermont temperatures could dip into the -20s (or worse), we saw no need to turn up the church thermostat just for a weeknight meeting. So we invited the Session (the local Presbyterian church’s governing board) to meet at the manse. Other committees came into that space as well. Joan also initiated a “soup group” for a monthly lunchtime gathering in that room. Sometimes a dining room, other times my study, but always a room open to church members and friends.

The ‘open house’ tradition continued in Rev. Deb McKinley’s tenure

Now, let’s be clear: they didn’t just feel free to barge in unannounced. Except Wesley Megaw. He was a retired Presbyterian pastor who had settled in the area, a long-time friend of the church, and sometime substitute preacher. One day while Joan was in the kitchen and I at my desk, a booming voice called from inside the front door, “Hello, Kellams!” I suppose Wes thought that since it was the church’s house, the door was open anytime and he could just enter at will. (At that time, few Vermonters in rural areas locked their doors. Some didn’t know where their keys had gone, such was the perceived safety of the culture then.) We learned from Wes’ habit that being fully clothed on the first floor of the manse was a good idea.

The walls of that large room witnessed the prayers, singing, meals, and discussions and decision making of an active church that felt at home in the pastor’s space. That’s what welcome does: it makes for a home. Not at all threatened by the regular presence of the “landlords” (the church folk), we remember those days warmly. For they had first welcomed us.

How welcoming is your space? Our community? Our country?

[A footnote: That room in the manse of the East Craftsbury Presbyterian Church was replicated on the set of the Alfred HItchcock film “The Trouble with Harry.” It became Shirley MacLaine’s living room. The exterior of the manse was used “on location” with actor John Forsythe walking up the tree-lined front walk to sit with MacLaine on the porch. (The porch was not original to the manse, but was added by Hitchcock for the movie and then dismantled and moved to the back of the house where Joan and I would enjoy our summer meals some forty years later!)]

 

Day 2, Room 1

Looks like “Day” edged out “Room” in a close game. But it’s day 2 of Lent, and this is the first room I have chosen to write about. It’s pictured here, in one of its designs. When I think of a living room, this is the one that often comes to mind. I’ve spent more time in others, but a decade in this one was maybe most “formative” for me growing up.

This home was the Kellams’ (and no doubt the bank’s) from around 1954-1964. Mom and Dad and their six kids spent many hours each day in this room, one of thirteen in the historic house on South Liberty Avenue. It had been built circa 1840 by Joshua Mersereau, son of a prominent family in the village’s history. The front door led to a two story hall, complete with a self-supporting winding stairway to the upstairs bedrooms. Turning immediately to the right on the first floor, one entered this room.

For my parents, it was the room in which to read the newspaper, play board games, listen to the console radio and later the huge stereo where Mom’s Sinatra records were often playing, and to entertain the many family members who lived a short distance away. More than once we kids would see Dad and Mom lying on the floor embracing (!), or standing in the middle of the room in each other’s arms. Yeah, such displays of affection…well, LOVE…were frequent there in that room.

Posing, with a fake cigarette

As for us kids, that front room was where we rough-housed, played, watched TV, did our homework (often while we watched TV), tore open enough Christmas presents for the eight of us, and watched slides I’d taken of those aforementioned activities. It was in that room that the youngest of us was confined to a playpen, and the oldest of us ( that would be me) posed for prom pictures.

That’s the room my younger (by 2 1/2 years) brother Kim and I had a no-holds-barred fight, to settle some now-long-forgotten disagreement. While Kim has no memory of this, I remember clearly being so ticked off at him, I said, “Let’s just go settle this in the living room, and no holding back!” He accepted the challenge, threw one opening punch and chipped one of my front teeth. With that, I tearily complained to Mom, “Kim hit me!”

One very special memory of that Liberty Avenue living room involves my call to ministry. Dad was in a highback chair reading his evening paper, and I approached him with a form to fill out for my junior high school guidance counselor. The completed form would help plan my high school course of study. I had filled in my first two vocational choices: dentistry and scientific writing. I had chosen the latter only because my guidance counselor had found that my good grades in math and science matched some primitive algorithm printed in “The Ninth Grade School Counselor’s Guide to Helping Students Find a Job Based on Present Academic Progress.” The subtitle might have been “…Providing the Student Continues to Make Successful Progress in Chosen Areas.” Turns out, I didn’t.

As for dentistry, that was purely my decision. I have no memory of why. But there was a third blank to fill in. Dad put down his newspaper, is looking at the form, and asked, “What do you want to put down for number 3?” When I said how about the ministry, he turned from the form and looked at me and said, “Are you sure?” And the rest is ministry.

Harry and Bev at leisure

That room, by the way, was in constant flux, interior design-wise. Mom loved redecorating. The furniture was moved frequently, the carpet replaced, the entry door became a French door with wall-papered panels…you get the idea. Mom wanted her living space to be a sometime sanctuary, away from the kitchen, her sewing room, and the ironing board.

Thus, the first room I think about in this Lenten series is a Liberty Ave. living room. Living room. It’s where we did our living as a family, and it lives long in our memories. No doubt some less pleasant memories are hidden under the sofa or covered over by a carpet. I’m grateful though that for the most part my thoughts about that main room from my youth lead (present tense) to warm smiles and positive remembrances of home.