Family

May 31, 2020

Sometimes you just want to breathe in deeply and savor the moment. Words are unnecessary and inadequate to express the depths we know. For the past year, Linda and I have talked about how we wanted to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. We went to England for our twenty-fifth, and thought perhaps another major trip would be nice. With all this COVID stuff going on, it’s a good thing we didn’t actually make reservations! 

Our problem is simple: there’s nothing we need, and we aren’t passionate about going anywhere. And yet...fifty is a bit of a milestone. 

We knew something was up when our kids told us not to plan on going anywhere today (like THAT was an option!), but just what it was, we didn’t know until as we were finishing up dinner we watched them streaming in the driveway, unloading tables and coolers and huge tubs of ice cream. They had arranged drive-by greetings, and people came. It was wonderful to see everyone, to have conversations we haven’t been able to have for the past three months. 

After it was all over, they presented us with gifts; beautiful window art crafted by our granddaughter, and a binder of letters and cards from family and friends. Reading what people wrote, two things stand out.

1. When we started ministry fifty years ago, we were told that pastors can’t have close friends in the congregation. We decided right away we weren’t going to operate that way. If we couldn’t do ministry with friends, we couldn’t do ministry at all.

2. At our very first Administrative Board meeting when we first arrived in Sinclairville in 1981, I told this governing board how my priorities worked. “If there is something going on for my kids at the same time there is a church meeting, don’t look for me at the church meeting,” I said. Of course, there were exceptions—emergencies that couldn’t be put off, but for the most part, that’s how we operated. It wasn’t always appreciated. Some years ago when we were going through a difficult time in ministry, our bishop at the time chastised me, saying that we were “too intertwined” with family.

The letters we received today bear testimony to our decisions. Friends are kind. Their words touch our hearts. People talked about ministry; my sermons and Linda’s warm welcome, but what we read over and over was not primarily about formal ministry. It was about family. People saw how we interact, how we treat one another, how we lived as a family. That’s what caught their attention and moved their hearts.

I say this not to brag, but to highlight the importance of little things that aren’t so little after all. Things like integrity, faithfulness, forgiveness, perseverance, laughter, and unconditional love. Linda and I have been on the receiving end all our lives; we’ve experienced grace from each other, from God, and from people. There have been times when it seemed to us that what we were doing didn’t really matter much in the great scheme of things. Perhaps what we were doing didn’t, but who we are does. And if it matters for us, it matters for you. Tonight, we drink deeply from the well we’ve been digging for fifty years. The water is cool, slaking our thirst, satisfying our souls, and we are both very thankful tonight.