the reverend doctor
Today my dad turns 78. When I began to go through all the memories I could write about, I realized I had enough to fill a 5 season sit-com.
And that's just from the last few years.
As I get older, I get more intensely nostalgic for the place I called home as a young girl. Home of honest Abe, the jewel of the Midwest, none other than Springfield, Illinois. I miss the change of seasons and landscape, so much. I miss how as soon as the ground thawed we were walking barefoot to toughen up the soles of our feet for summer. Why this was a thing I don't know.
We lived in a two-story Craftsman parsonage, as my dad was the head pastor at Trinity Lutheran in downtown Springfield. It sat right across from the Capitol, where my brothers got in trouble for after-hours hijinks in the rotunda. But that's another story for another time.
My dad is an interesting mix of comedian, pastor and professor. Maybe not in that order. He also holds a degree in non-verbal communication, which helped in his counseling days, I'm sure. In the Reverend Doctor's early days as a pastor, I remember watching him through his lead-glass-paned study doors, rehearsing his sermon on the weekends.
It was in that study that he told me how Googee my hamster had been set free (the truth of his demise is still debatable, but might involve a sock and baseball bat.) This is also the place where I sat on his lap as he used tweezers and a jeweler's loop to pull out slivers from my fingers. And his study is also the place where he pulled out my Spencer earrings that were covered in pus and scabs, and were too painful for me to extract on my own.
On Sundays I would ride with my dad to the early service, where he would park his BMW (always a BMW) in his special spot behind the church. Then we would enter through the back of the church directly into the vestry. This is where all the linens and robes and sashes and communion ware is kept. Where the magic happened. I would sit on a chair and watch him dress, like I was getting a special audience with the pope.
The Altar Guild ladies were busily in and out, replacing candles and pulling out the correct altar clothes for the church season. They paid no mind to me.
"Jill is not here to acolyte today. Looks like you're up," my dad would say. Yes! This was the news I most liked to hear. I loved wearing the acolyte robe and sitting on the front pew, watching all that happened up front instead of being stuck behind someone in a pew. I loved looking at the ornate olive wood carvings of a lion and lamb on the altar and pulpits. I loved singing the hymns along with the great organ, not having to hear my family's voices. I loved lighting the candles with the big brass candle wand, and putting them out. It was the Lord's house and I liked to play hostess.
I would watch my dad eloquently speak his carefully rehearsed sermon from the pulpit, pausing for laughter and using his sharp non-verbal skills to make his points. He knew how to keep the congregation engaged.
When the service was over, I would follow him and the other pastor into the vestry to hang up my robe and listen to their remarks to each other. There was the Sunday someone lost their false teeth in the communion cup. Lots to talk about in the vestry that day.
Before the service had completely ended, though, my dad greeted everyone at the door on their way out, and I joined up. I seriously thought I was needed and that it was part of my job as the pastor's daughter. I shook every single hand, every Sunday, at every service I was at, until we left Springfield. If I was in the National Honor Society today, I would have had about 400 service hours of church ministry to report.
I was also a presence at the Ladies Aid meetings, where I faithfully attended with my mother and won the door prize almost every time. I'm sure someone resented all the plants and baskets I was collecting as my Ladies Aid booty.
And I remember the day my father told as at dinner he was no longer going to be a pastor. The long hours had kept him away from his family, and he was moving on. I had no idea he held a Ph.D. in Communications and had been asked to start up a Communications program at Concordia Lutheran University in Austin.
"What are you going to do?" I asked, horrified. "I mean, what can you do? Will you have to work at the gas station?" Did I mention I was a little sheltered in grade school?
I cried all the way to Austin in back of my dad's car. I was homesick for a good year. But looking back I see the wisdom and love in which he acted out of, to provide for us and to be present in our lives.
He still continues to do that and be that. I love you very much Dad. One day when you're gone, I'm going to make the trek back to Springfield, and stand in that church, in that vestry, by that first pew, and at the door, and think of you. Then I will go out back and get into my BMW (future thanks, by the way) and tell God, thanks so much for a dad like you.
And that's just from the last few years.
As I get older, I get more intensely nostalgic for the place I called home as a young girl. Home of honest Abe, the jewel of the Midwest, none other than Springfield, Illinois. I miss the change of seasons and landscape, so much. I miss how as soon as the ground thawed we were walking barefoot to toughen up the soles of our feet for summer. Why this was a thing I don't know.
We lived in a two-story Craftsman parsonage, as my dad was the head pastor at Trinity Lutheran in downtown Springfield. It sat right across from the Capitol, where my brothers got in trouble for after-hours hijinks in the rotunda. But that's another story for another time.
My dad is an interesting mix of comedian, pastor and professor. Maybe not in that order. He also holds a degree in non-verbal communication, which helped in his counseling days, I'm sure. In the Reverend Doctor's early days as a pastor, I remember watching him through his lead-glass-paned study doors, rehearsing his sermon on the weekends.
It was in that study that he told me how Googee my hamster had been set free (the truth of his demise is still debatable, but might involve a sock and baseball bat.) This is also the place where I sat on his lap as he used tweezers and a jeweler's loop to pull out slivers from my fingers. And his study is also the place where he pulled out my Spencer earrings that were covered in pus and scabs, and were too painful for me to extract on my own.
On Sundays I would ride with my dad to the early service, where he would park his BMW (always a BMW) in his special spot behind the church. Then we would enter through the back of the church directly into the vestry. This is where all the linens and robes and sashes and communion ware is kept. Where the magic happened. I would sit on a chair and watch him dress, like I was getting a special audience with the pope.
The Altar Guild ladies were busily in and out, replacing candles and pulling out the correct altar clothes for the church season. They paid no mind to me.
"Jill is not here to acolyte today. Looks like you're up," my dad would say. Yes! This was the news I most liked to hear. I loved wearing the acolyte robe and sitting on the front pew, watching all that happened up front instead of being stuck behind someone in a pew. I loved looking at the ornate olive wood carvings of a lion and lamb on the altar and pulpits. I loved singing the hymns along with the great organ, not having to hear my family's voices. I loved lighting the candles with the big brass candle wand, and putting them out. It was the Lord's house and I liked to play hostess.
I would watch my dad eloquently speak his carefully rehearsed sermon from the pulpit, pausing for laughter and using his sharp non-verbal skills to make his points. He knew how to keep the congregation engaged.
When the service was over, I would follow him and the other pastor into the vestry to hang up my robe and listen to their remarks to each other. There was the Sunday someone lost their false teeth in the communion cup. Lots to talk about in the vestry that day.
Before the service had completely ended, though, my dad greeted everyone at the door on their way out, and I joined up. I seriously thought I was needed and that it was part of my job as the pastor's daughter. I shook every single hand, every Sunday, at every service I was at, until we left Springfield. If I was in the National Honor Society today, I would have had about 400 service hours of church ministry to report.
I was also a presence at the Ladies Aid meetings, where I faithfully attended with my mother and won the door prize almost every time. I'm sure someone resented all the plants and baskets I was collecting as my Ladies Aid booty.
And I remember the day my father told as at dinner he was no longer going to be a pastor. The long hours had kept him away from his family, and he was moving on. I had no idea he held a Ph.D. in Communications and had been asked to start up a Communications program at Concordia Lutheran University in Austin.
"What are you going to do?" I asked, horrified. "I mean, what can you do? Will you have to work at the gas station?" Did I mention I was a little sheltered in grade school?
I cried all the way to Austin in back of my dad's car. I was homesick for a good year. But looking back I see the wisdom and love in which he acted out of, to provide for us and to be present in our lives.
He still continues to do that and be that. I love you very much Dad. One day when you're gone, I'm going to make the trek back to Springfield, and stand in that church, in that vestry, by that first pew, and at the door, and think of you. Then I will go out back and get into my BMW (future thanks, by the way) and tell God, thanks so much for a dad like you.
