The Spear and the Memory
I had spent the past year driving by on the way home from work each week as soon as I found out it had hit the market, and now it was finally happening.
A chain link fence around the perimeter, dumpsters dropped on the front lawn, and they were already full.
It was completely out of my character and behavior, but I was up and over that fence in forty seconds flat.
The pews, kneelers, and wood work all ripped out and piled to the top.
I was up and over into the dumpsters in less time, knee deep in memory.
It was the flash of blue that I recognized and the gold leaf around it that gave me a surge of strength to push the broken wood and torn furnishings aside to get to the bottom.
One hundred pounds dead-lifted overhead and I didn’t care what it cost my body.
And that is when the door to the hall opened and two women had no idea what to say.
It wasn’t the building — it was the man.
Role Models
My mother was a modest woman of modest words and when I was fifteen years old she once asked me who my role models are.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, and him.
The first two didn’t surprise her as I had all their lines memorized from the movies, it was the third one that seemed out of place.
She was shocked my father didn’t make the list.
For a quiet kid like myself the service was boring, and the school was for the little kids.
It was up there that the action happened.
You got to do something, sing as loud as you wanted, and during the procession you got to carry the banner which was mounted on a spear.
A real spear.
That was something a quiet kid who liked action heroes didn’t get to carry every day.
Training and Presence
One day after the service he approached my parents and talked to them to see if I was interested, no doubt noting my interest as I routinely sat at the front as close as I could.
It was two weeks of instruction, a book to read, and practice at the Thursday service before the real thing, and this year’s class consisted of the six of us.
Why couldn’t school be like this?
Any anxiety I had at passing a future test or getting something wrong and being sent to the stupid table by the teacher didn’t exist in that place.
First, he sat among us and took the time to explain the details but not worry if we got them all corrector not.
Every question was answered, even the ones we didn’t know to ask, and three weeks went by like that.
Even the book wasn’t so bad to read.
The key to it, he explained, was not to memorize everything, but rather try to just remember where you needed to be standing at each part of the service, and if you didn’t know what to do, just look to him and he would tell you.
I can’t say what I remember regarding my first performance, but I can say with complete recall that carrying that spear was everything I had hoped it to be.
The Turning Point
Over the services and seasons, watching him, it wasn’t so much what he said, but what he did. Certainly the words from that book had power, but it was how he read them, the reverence with which he moved, and how when it came time to minister he didn’t rush anybody no matter if the singing ended early and people were rushing him to finish so we could all get to coffee hour.
But it was something else that was the turning point in what I saw.
It was in the undercroft, a quiet discussion that nobody was supposed to see or hear. The great part in being a kid is that nobody notices you, so it was easy to stand there and eavesdrop.
They were apologizing for the argument last week that everybody publicly saw, the words that were said to him, and now how could they return with what had been said.
It wasn’t his response that everything was OK and already forgotten about, it was his presence of heart that showed he really meant his words.
It was all ok.
That is when Dolph got bumped to third place.
Lessons in Devotion
At some point I started to look out of place up there — the oldest and the tallest — as everybody else served for a while and moved on to other things like sports, dance, or cheer-leading.
Why was I still there?
Those first few years I tried to understand by moving like him — the precision, reflection, and points in the service — but now I had unlocked that it was not the movement, but the presence behind the movement, the thought behind it that made it powerful.
Maybe I should try to think like him?
During the winter season there would be a study in the rectory, which I looked forward to each year. It wasn’t the words or reading that interested me, but how he interpreted them.
That one particular night another argument — a one-sided shouting match as they talked over and shouted him down.
He just listened, and when they were done, calmly stated:
“You are going to be surprised by who IS there.”
That is when he went from the number two spot to number one.
Sorry Arnold.
From Spear to Chalice
I had been there so long at this point, the spear now looked more like a poker in my hand and perhaps something had to be done with me.
Another discussion with my parents, and if I was willing, a new role for me in the service. It would be some more schooling, more reading, and this time a requirement to be under the eye of his superior.
No longer carrying the spear, but rather administering the chalice.
The schooling was the easy part; it was the questioning by the superior regarding why I was even there. It seemed my age was a question, but it was the weight of his recommendation that made the exception possible.
When did I realize it was devotion not to a book, or the words and movement, but rather the people that was the secret.
The Rectory and Realization
Things had to tighten up a bit; something had happened with the finances, and the rectory needed to be sold. As part of that process it was repaired and repainted and we all helped out. I had the task of painting the entryway and the door, and it was during those few hours that I found out more.
Strangers would come up to the rectory door looking for him.
Rough men, mis-dressed men, dirty men, and women who were down on their luck.
Everybody had a story, and after that story they said he would not ask any question, but only offer a hug and some money to help get them through the week, or in some cases make it to the next day.
They all said the same thing.
He always had the time to listen and never turned them away.
What if we all did that?
What if we never turned anybody away?
Watching the Service
On that one night in particular, after the service, as part of the passion of that reenactment, there was a sign-up form at the back of the building where you could write down the hour to sit and watch in memory.
Many signed up for the easy and early slots, and over the years so did I, but what about the time from 2 AM onward, which was always empty on the paper list year after year?
This year I decided it would be different; I’d show up at that time without telling anybody or signing up and watch and stay until somebody else showed up for the 8 AM slot.
When I quietly entered the building and sat in the back I wasn’t alone.
There he was, kneeling under it, the blue and the gold, and there he stayed without moving until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
Choices and Devotion
My mom was busy in the kitchen, unusually quiet with the preparation, as my father and he shared a drink at the bar in the family room.
It was after lunch that brochures all came out and he wanted to talk to me about my upcoming graduation.
Did I consider going away for college?
Had I considered that vocation or felt a calling to it?
It would be five years, and everything would be paid for — room, board, and education.
He had spoken to his superior and everything had been arranged.
No answer was needed right now; spend some time thinking about it and reflecting on it, and he was always around if I wanted to talk about it further.
In secret had I ever considered it?
Yes.
More than once, but I was conflicted on certain points that would be required.
When he left, after the pleasant good-byes, I could read my parent’s minds.
My dad would have none of it, as there was no money to be made in it.
My mother was relieved and would have me follow any other vocation compared to the one I was heading down, still quite upset when the recruiter visited the house on my invitation.
Time was getting closer and closer, and if I didn’t take the spot, I certainly didn’t want to hold it up for somebody else deserving of it.
My heart told me the best course of action was to kneel under it, where he would, and open my heart to what was the correct direction.
The Last Duty
Getting into the building when it was not being used was easy: just take the fire escape up to the office and give the door a quick slam in a certain spot. The roof and some other parts of the building had been broken for years and never repaired.
In all these years this was the first time I had kneeled under it and asked something of it. It was rather difficult, as it hung from the ceiling about fifty or so feet up, being held up by two thin metal wires.
It was scary being under it.
I heard it had already been hanging there for thirty years or so when he arrived as a young man in 1950.
If now was the time it fell, that certainly would solve the conflict for me, in that I wouldn’t have to make any decision.
The plan was to sneak out as I sneaked in, but when I stood up, he was in the back of the building motioning for me to come over and sit down for a bit.
I explained my hesitation, and while certainly I felt much of it, there were parts that still lingered and parts that I was not sure about.
What I was also saying but left out was that I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“We are all called to serve. What is important is not where you serve, but the leadership with how you serve.”
When I got home and told my parents about my decision, my father was elated and my mother really concerned as the other option was only a few months away.
You had to be at least twenty-five to serve on the vestry, and at this point things were where they were, so what was the difference of a year or two.
They said he had retired, but the truth was that his superiors had forced him out and began taking over the finances of the building in order to loot it.
More money was going out versus coming in, and since I was a young and a smart money guy, maybe I could help with some ideas on how to keep it going.
Being long on theory and with little practice, even I could see the problem.
It was one of years in the making — a changing demographic, changing market forces — that was the problem.
Cutting expenses had worked over the years along with deferred maintenance, but what balanced the books was the voluntary reduction of his salary year after year, to the point of not drawing a salary for the past five years.
If the leadership beyond the church didn’t help out with the promised charity from taking it all over, it was inevitable.
When the new guy left after only a year, everybody on the vestry knew we were cooked.
Things just didn’t work that way anymore, like they did in the 1950s.
The surprise of it was quickly wearing off, and I had to come up with something fast or else the police were probably going to be here in a few minutes.
A lie would have been more believable, but I went with an apology and the truth.
That I was a long-time member here before it closed twenty years ago.
That to my recollection I was the last surviving vestry member, the last one still alive, and as such I was tasked with certain responsibilities which never formally ended since I was never voted out.
Responsibilities that I pledged under this, but was never able to fulfill, and now I was taking this home with me.
If there are any questions, here is my driver’s license and you can find the same name on a wall plaque inside at the back of the building if it already hasn’t been ripped out.
There was no way it was going to fit in my car, barely being able to fit on the roof of my car.
The police did pull me over, but not for dumpster diving, but rather to give me an escort home.
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