Returning to Sterling KS I

After spending three lovely days in Garden City KS (Feb. 9-11--essay to come!), I continued East, looking for more adventure in Central KS (here are my essays on searching for Mt. Sunflower). I had taught at Sterling College ("SC") , a small Presbyterian-related college in the town of that name, from 1990-96 and I hadn't returned to Sterling since some stormy days of the mid-1990s. I will tell a little about the reasons for that storminess in the next essay; suffice it to say for now that SC was going through some massive changes in that period, we didn't have the right President to navigate those changes, and I didn't have the wisdom or grace to discern what my role should be in the turbulence. Thus, I didn't leave Sterling and Hutchinson (where I lived from 1993-96) on a high note, and I have felt a little bit of emptiness in my life since then because of that.

I didn't plan to see anyone during the visit to Sterling and Hutchinson; I guess I felt like Gene Forrester in A Separate Peace--a man who returns filled with emotions to his alma mater and tries to come to grips with his identity then and now, primarily because the vivid things that happened to him at his school years are still "with him." Greta Ehrlich has written: "To see and know a place is a contemplative act. It means emptying our minds and letting what is there, in all its multiplicity and endless variety, come in." I guess I knew she was right, and I needed an occasion to let Sterling "come in" to my life again.

Route 50

So I set out East along US 50 out of Garden City in the 25 degree cold. I felt a little like William Least Heat-Moon, who took a Western drive along the same route, focusing however on Chase County, KS and writing his 600-page classic, PrairyErth, to commemorate it. The towns became more and more familiar as I ventured further East--Dodge City, Spearville, Offerle, Kinsley, Macksville, Stafford. I remember being able to recite them like a priest recites the Creed, and I quickly relearned them here. Kinsley proudly boasts a sign that says it is midway between New York and San Francisco (1561 miles each way); I chuckled to myself as I read the sign. I spent many years both in the New York and San Francisco areas, and here I was right in the middle.

Stafford Memories

I turned off the highway in Stafford, not because I was hungry or needed to stop, but because memories of that little town filled me, and I had to let them simmer for a moment. For one year (1991-1992) while I was a professor at Sterling College I was also the pastor of a little church in Stafford, the Stafford Presbyterian Church. I had a successful pastorate in 1988-89 in a large church in Oregon; in the space of ten months in 1991-92, however, I managed to kill off this little church. Well, that may be giving me too much credit. I took it over from my friend and colleague Tony Petrotta (who is now an Episcopal Priest in Wilsonville, OR) and, as soon as I began to preach, people began dying. I don't know if there was a causal relation between the two, but in the space of about six months I lost about 1/3 of the congregation. Two of the surviving men, Ritchey Stewart, SC class of 1936, and Don Brownlee, whose family has probably contributed more to the history of SC than almost any other family, then met with me and said that they decided the church needed to close and merge with the Zenith church just down the road.*

[*I just found Ritchey's obituary notice online. He died at 92 in November 2006. Here it is.]

It was a sort of tearful time, and I felt and feel privileged to be have been able to share in the grief of closing a congregation. On one occasion at this time David Brownlee, the youngest attender (in his early 40s), even took me out to show me the readerboard with a surrounding metal casing, pointing out a slight indentation in the metal where he said he had slammed someone's head into it about 35 years previously. Ah, the Presbyterians have always been known as the "fighting saints"!

And so I got out of the car in front of the building that used to be the Stafford Presbyterian Church. It is now a chiropractic clinic, which is probably appropriate. Had the chiropractor been there 15 years ago, perhaps the church wouldn't have had to close. I ran my finger over the readerboard, trying to find the indentation David Brownlee had shown me; I didn't see it. I looked at the building, a one-story (with basement) structure built in the late 1950s, with the gaudy-colored windows characteristic of 1950s/1960s church architecture still in place, and I saw in my mind's eye the elderly people from that congregation limping in and out, rolling their oxygen tanks after them and placing their walkers down before them. And I knew, for one fleeting moment, that I was back home--in a place where people had welcomed me into the intimate spaces of their lives, had listened to me preach, had engaged me in dialogue and had let me do the funerals for their loved ones.

I will never forget a Sunday afternoon in 1992 at the Brownlee farm in Sylvia, about a dozen miles from Stafford. The Brownlees had been one of a hardy clan of Scotsmen who had homesteaded this seemingly-barren stretch of land in the 1880s, and Don was the last of the sons from the WWII generation on the land. Don was known as the "local genius" because he seemingly could solve any problem, diagnose any mechanical ill, and give insight into any situation people faced. On that occasion Don, Mary Lou and David welcomed me and Don sat down at the organ which he had constructed and played a tune. I didn't recognize it, and then he said, "Your sermon on Moses at the burning bush ("Burning but Not Consumed" was the title) inspired me to write a song, and put words to it." Don regaled me with his musical composition, and then we talked for a long time about the nature of creativity. I asked him what it was like for him to be a creative person. Without batting an eye he said, "It is like going down to a stream everyday and dipping in and knowing the water is cool and fresh and clear." I, who was frantically worried that I was losing more thoughts each day than preserving them, was calmed and inspired by his explanation. "Don't worry, Bill, the water is there for you at any time."

On To Hutchinson

The visit to Stafford lasted all of about 10 minutes, but it allowed these thoughts to tumble over themselves in my mind. I returned to my car, and headed on to Hutchinson, passing through Mennonite towns and skirting other small villages until I came to Hutchinson. The drive made me hungry, and I headed to Bogey's--on Plum St.--my favorite Hutchinson restaurant from the 1990s. I forgave myself in advance for ordering the curly fries and a thick chocolate milkshake which you have to eat with a spoon. I felt like a king as I dined on my $5.00 meal.

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