MY MOST EMBARRASSING VALENTINE MOMENT

We all know that young children have a basic and concrete understanding of life.  I was no different when I was a youngster. 

As a third-grader I was looking forward to the class Valentine’s Day Party.  I had taken home the list of children’s names, and Mom had taken me shopping for cards (I was sure my Looney Toons cards were the best!).  I had carefully signed my name to each and every card, and then I had laboriously written each of my class mates names of the envelopes.  I was all ready to go on The Day.  I placed all the cards in my bookbag and headed off to Keezletown Elementary School.

Our teacher had given us a clear instruction about how we were to take the valentines home that we would collect in class that day.  So, as I walked to school I looked carefully in the hedgerow until I found what I thought she was asking us to bring: a stick.  See, my family and I are from Ohio, and way back then we still didn’t know all of the lingo of the South.  One word I didn’t know was “poke” used as a synonym for “bag,” so when the teacher told us, “Now be sure to bring a poke to put your cards in,” I pictured poke a stick through the cards and carrying them home that way.

I was so embarrassed when I didn’t have a bag!  My teacher never could understand why I had brought a stick to class to carry home my cards!

I have never forgotten the other meaning of “poke” since that day!

LATE (BUT ON TIME) FOR THANKSGIVING DINNER

While I was the pastor of West End United Methodist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia, I took a carload of ladies from the church to a Lyman Coleman small group seminar in Virginia Beach. The large auditorium at Virginia Beach UMC was filled with round tables, and seminar participants were assigned to sit at different tables so no two people from the same church shared a table.  Dr. Coleman then began the warm-up session by providing us with questions to ask each other at our table. One of the questions was “How many speeding tickets have you been given since you started driving?”  I, of course, had the most of anyone at our table, and as it turned out the most of anyone at the seminar: eleven.

Much to my chagrin Dr. Coleman then had us share some of our answers, and I had to stand and announce to the entire room that I had accumulated eleven speeding tickets in the twenty five years that I had been driving.  The ladies from West End Church seemed a little hesitant to get back into my car for the drive back to the church at the close of the seminar.  Who could blame them?  I decided right then and there that I would do better, drive better, and get no more speeding tickets.  And the only way to absolutely be sure that I didn’t get another speeding ticket would be to never again speed.  Ever.  Easy, right?  Read on…

The next week was Thanksgiving.  My son, Sam, was in the first grade, and had invited me to join him for the school’s Thanksgiving Lunch on the last day of school before the Thanksgiving Holiday break.  I had some ill parishioners across town that I needed to visit that day but I felt that I could see them and still make it to his school in plenty of time.  The problem was that at the last home I visited I found the wife to be in quite a bit of distress over her husband’s illness, so I took some extra time to listen to and console her, occasionally checking the time on her mantle clock.  They were an elderly couple, and I could see that worry was taking its toll on them.  As we chatted she invited me to lunch.  As I glanced again at her clock I politely explained that I was to have lunch with my son at his school at noon. 

“Oh dear!” she said, looking beyond me to a clock on the wall behind me, “You don’t have much time to get there, it’s already eleven forty-five!” 

“What?!” I exclaimed, quickly turning to see the wall clock, then turning back to again check the mantle clock.  Pointing toward it I said, “That clock says eleven-fifteen!”

“Oh, I know,” she giggled, “its run slow for years.  I suppose we really should get it repaired but we’re so used to it now we never think anything of it.”

I said a hasty prayer, apologized, and ran from the house to my car.  Over my shoulder I heard her exclaim, “You be careful now!”

I probably don’t have to tell you what happened next.  Every light between her house and Sam’s school turned red just as I got to it, and then I seemed to be behind every slow driver in the entire city whenever I was were I could not pass.  I prayed, I fumed, and I swore that I would never again be late!  I was determined to keep my word and not speed.  That promise was harder to keep when at last I was on the freeway and the lanes were open, and there was nothing to stop me. 

I was torn between wanting to be there on time for Sam (I hated the thought of him believing that I had forgotten, and let him down), and wanting to not speed (I had to get this speeding compulsion under control).  So, I sang hymns, and then I prayed.  I knew that I was going to be at least ten minutes late, unless I gave in and hit that accelerator hard.  I also knew that if I got pulled over for speeding I would be even later. So I prayed that, first of all, I get to Sam’s school safely, and secondly, that he not be too upset.  I asked that God please help me to get there by twelve-ten.

At eight minutes past noon I pulled into the school parking lot, found a parking place almost immediately, and walked through the doors of the school at 12:10 pm!  When I started to stop to get a pass at the office the secretary waved me on.  Down the hall was the “cafetorium” and I could already hear the loud but happy sounds of the children.

I stepped into the room, and was overwhelmed by the sight before me: there were more than seven hundred children, all of them wearing paper head décor.  There were Indians with a single, colorful feather, maidens with white bonnets, and pilgrims with tall black hats.  How was I ever going to find Sam?

As I scanned the sea of children’s festive headdresses I saw something different: one tiny hand in the air.  I stopped there, and my eyes looked from the hand to the eyes of a tiny Indian’s face beaming at me.  Sam.  I rushed over to his table, prepared to apologize.  His teacher saw me coming and stood and indicated an empty seat beside Sam.  She then directed me to get my tray and come join them. 

When I was seated, Sam beside me, his teacher across from us, I again started to explain why I was late and to apologize.  But his teacher stopped me with these words, “Sam made me save you a place, Mr. Harris, because he said that his daddy would never forget to come to Thanksgiving Dinner.”

Time seemed to stand still at that moment, as a wave of emotion rushed over me.  I slowly sat down, and glancing at Sam, who was happily engaged in eating his lunch, I had a profound realization:  Sam placed more trust in me as his father than I deserved, but my Heavenly Father wanted me to have just such a child-like trust in Him.  Then, as I tried getting the turkey and mashed potatoes past the lump in my throat, I also realized that despite what anyone’s watch or clock might have said, when I entered that room I was, in fact, right on time.

Sometimes trusting God means not allowing what seems to be true to be all we will settle for; it sometimes means believing that which is not seen, but is truly real and really true nonetheless.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

How My Hometown Came to be My Hometown

I grew up in Keezletown, Virginia, in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. We moved there from the place of my birth, Cincinnati, Ohio, when I was nearly three years old.

I had two special-needs siblings.  My brother Paul had been born with cerebral palsey and he was being seen regularly by doctors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and my sister Merle, four years older than Paul, had been born with a hole in her heart and was being treated by doctors at the Medical College of Virginia Hospital in Richmond.  As a result, my parents were making lots of trip from Ohio to the east.  They would usually come through the Shenandoah Valley, or “the Valley” as we refer to it, on U.S. 33 and they always admired its beauty.  Finally, Dad came by himself one time to find a home they could purchase so they would be closer to the hospitals.  They also wanted to be out of the city.

My parents were concerned about my oldest brother Hugh, that he might be starting to hang with the wrong crowd, and the direction his life was taking him.  He was 14 when we moved, and it was really hard for him.  It wasn’t too hard for me, I loved the big yard, the apple orchard, and the various out buildings that made up our little farmette of three and a half acres.

It was also hard on my mom. She had always been a city girl. Now she lived in a small town with one small grocery store/gas station. It was especially hard because the good folk of Keezletown eyed our family with great suspicion.  They couldn’t imagine why these city folks would want to live in their little community.  Even at the little Methodist church people were very slow to warm up to my family, and they didn’t let them get involved in things at first.  This added to the isolation Mom felt, and as a result, she  became very homesick.

I was oblivious to all of this, of course, until something that happened in the third grade.

People from Ohio are “Yankees”

I adored my third grade teacher, and so I choose to believe that she didn’t know how her actions of that fateful day would affect my life.  I was reading something aloud in class and she stopped me and said, “Jimmy, you pronounce your ‘th’ words like someone from Ohio.”  “Oh,” I innocently replied, “that’s because I am from Ohio. I was born there.”

A shudder of realization swept the room, and my fellow student eyed me suspiciously.  I seem to remember some of them even backing their desks slightly away from mine.  At recess that day I learned that I was a “Yankee” and they were “Rebels” and Yankees and Rebels were sworn enemies for all time.

We often would play Civil War on the school playground, with us school kids, the “Southerners,” always winning against the unseen and invisible Northern Enemy.  But from that fateful day onward they had a visible Yankee, and the North routinely lost the Civil War on the school playground.  How could I help but lose, being so greatly out-numbered?

It was a bit confusing to me, however, because they were all crazy about baseball, and their favorite team was the New York Yankees.  It was bad for me to actually be a Yankee, but they had no hesitation to root for “the Yankees” during the baseball season.  The only baseball team I ever heard about at home was the wonderful Reds of Cincinnati, and so I stupidly suggested to my schoolmates that the Reds were as good as the Yankees, which did not endear me to them either.

People often say, “Oh kids will be kids, I’m sure they got over it and forgot you were a Yankee.”  You would like to think so, but the following year the Fourth Grade Class took a trip to Williamsburg and Jamestown, and I bought a Rebel hat at the gift shop in Jamestown, hoping desperately to fit in better.  I tried to wear it home on the bus, but my classmates became so enraged that I, a Yankee, would try to disguise myself as a Rebel that they took my hat from me, and I never saw it again!

My Adopted Hometown Finally Adopted Me

Of course, over time my family gradually gained acceptance.  My mother became a Sunday school teacher, and my Dad was on the church board, and took turns holding various offices in the church. However, when my parents opened a boarding and day school for the severely physically handicapped adults of the area rumors began circulating that this non-profit organization was a sham, and that we were raising funds to build a bigger house for ourselves.

My parents never would talk much about how hurtful that was.  Instead, they set out to win the hearts of the people in Keezletown.  First of all they named it Community of Hope, and then they recruited people of the town to work there.   It was the best thing they could have done, because the people who worked there became eyewitnesses to the good that was being done, and could see how the monies were being spent.  Over time the rumors died out, and Keezletonians came to accept Community of Hope as a part of the town.

I persevered as well, and to this day I am close friends with many of my old elementary school friends.  I came to love that little town, as did my Mom.  The folks there came to love us as well, though they never forgot that we were Yankees.  Or so I thought.

In 2004 when I was about to retire from full-time pastoral ministry the Keezletown Postmaster attended my retirement worship service at Fishersville Church.  She was in her early 80’s and had been the Postmaster there for more than 40 years, and in fact, the Post Office was located in the front room of her house!  When testimonials were called for she stood and said that she was proud of me and my success as a pastor, especially since I was the only one in my family who had been born in Keezletown.

Wow!  Now that’s acceptance, when they think you were born there and that you are one of them!

I bear no ill will or bad memories of those childhood days.  I learned many things through living that out, things that I have used throughout my life.  Seeing how my parents handled the rejection and suspicion was a great lesson as well.  They simply chose to return not in-kind, but rather to love the people until at last they loved them back.

Now, for me, Keezletown is my home town, not Cincinnati.  And I thank God that I grew up there.

 

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. ~ Psalm 139:15-16