I may have mentioned that people at my Baptist church loved to sing. Several of us in youth group joined the adult choir as soon as we could. Every Sunday night we also sang together in youth group, and we harmonized around camp fires. We sang on the church bus on the way to area-wide youth programs, which our association held a few times a year. Christmas and Easter were, of course, prime singing seasons, with the adult choir preparing a cantata (John W. Peterson, not Johann Sebastian Bach) for Sunday morning service. If Dec. 25 fell on a Sunday, so much the better! But for youth group, the joy of the season was Christmas caroling. We met at church, then carpooled to several stops, most of them homes of the “shut-in” church members. (We now call them “homebound.”) We knew the words to multiple verses of Christmas carols, and at least one member could start us off on a decent pitch. We’d sing a few carols in four-part harmony, and sometimes be invited inside to thaw out with cookies and cocoa. That invitation was a special treat, not only because we were usually benumbed with cold but also because those Hungarians made delightful Christmas treats. I suppose now that one of our youth group leaders called ahead to each home, making sure our company would be welcome. And it occurs to me that some of those leaders must have paid babysitters so they could be with us. At the very least, they gave up a cozy evening with their own families to drive us around the city and suburbs, and often, to a Christmas party after caroling. I loved those people, even in my innocence of what it meant to take charge of dozens of kids. Thanks be to God for them!
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My high school had a guidance counselor, tasked (among other duties) with advising seniors about college. Most of my fellow students who went to college attended Akron University (as it was then known) or Kent State University. Both were inexpensive, with an option to live at home and save even more money.
But Mrs. Keller had no need to advise me and was smart enough not to try. I had made up my stubborn mind, and nothing would change it. I chose my college for the best of reasons: people smiled at me as my youth group toured the campus. (They don’t now, of course; they’re staring at their phones. Enrollment remains high anyway.) Our pastor had an unmarried sister who taught Christian Education at this college, some 300 miles from our city. To visit her and do any handyman work that needed cared for, he took us to visit the college, where two young people from our church had already gone. We trailed our tour guide, Gail, she of the long, swinging straight blonde hair, looking at the few buildings, two of them built the previous century, when the school had been under the auspices of the Presbyterian church. (The Baptists bought the place in the early 1950s, looking for a new home for a Bible college then in Cleveland.) I loved the trees that formed a canopy over Main Street, in a village of only a few thousand people. Green and leafy overhead, with brick streets, a women’s dorm named Faith, a sense of peace—why wouldn’t I choose that place? I didn’t care about academic credentials or what doors a degree from a small Christian college—with fewer students than my high school had—might open. When I announced my decision to my parents, my mother said, “I think we can afford one year.” And with all the self-absorption of an adolescent, I replied, “Well, I’m going for four years.” I had no thought of what the cost—one year at my chosen school equaled roughly four years at Akron U or Kent State—would mean for my parents or my younger brother. I was going to the college where I believed God had called me, and, as a future missionary, I was going to major in Bible. The Bible contains 66 individual books, comprised of a total of 1,189 chapters and 31,102 verses. (No, I didn’t count, but someone did, and posted on the Internet, God love them.)
Out of all that wealth, we young people were encouraged to find a life verse, preferably as we read through the Bible annually and memorized such verses as “spoke” to us. A life verse was supposed to be one’s guide for all of life. I had trouble with that notion, but was more comfortable with choosing verses for a season of my life. I recall when it became clear I was taking a job in Florida, I chose Isaiah 58:11: and the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. I recalled seeing the backyard gardens in Key West, where I’d gone during college, little oases in the tropics. I wanted my life to include a satisfied soul, a watered garden, a spring of water, though I was less excited about fat bones. I envied the couples getting married who had included in their wedding program Psalm 34:3: Oh magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I, too, wanted to magnify God with a life partner, to have the napkins at the reception printed with those words in silver or gold script. Although I didn't marry, I did get a grand life. The nearest I’ve come to a life verse is Psalm 37:4, which I now include with my signature if someone wants me to sign a copy of my book: Delight thyself also in the LORD; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Q: What was Peter’s favorite sport? A: Football, per Acts 9:32: “And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters . . . ” When you know Scripture the way we did, you could play with it, and we did. Here's another one of our jokes: Who was the shortest man in the Bible? We had two possible answers— the Roman soldier who slept on his watch or Bildad the Shuhite (say it aloud to get the joke, pronouncing u as oo). In college, a friend had this advice for anyone with a problem: "Take two psalms and call me in the morning." It was fun to find that other people had this same sense of playing with what we knew about Scripture. We could scramble the passages, mix and match. During my twenties, I’d been looking for my principal at the Christian school where I taught When I finally found him, I cried, “Thou art the man!” To which he replied, “And hast thou found me, oh my enemy?” We thus jammed together a story from the life of David with one from Elijah’s life and had a good laugh. In my thirties, working in the library of my alma mater, I once asked my boss how he was doing, and he said, “Two out of three,” and then laughed. By which I was supposed to know (and did) that he referred to the healing of the maniac of Gadara. After Jesus healed this man who had lived naked in the tombs and had to be chained, it was said of him that he was “seated, clothed, and in his right mind.” In an earlier era, none of this would have seemed unusual. Knowledge of the Bible was cultural among the Anglo world, influencing art, music, and literature. Steinbeck chose East of Eden as a novel's title; Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom! If you knew the Bible stories, you knew what to expect. |
Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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