ON HATING HELEN

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

Barbara followed me into the kitchen. She was almost in tears. “I hate your wife,” she blurted out.

We were hosting a pot-luck in our parsonage in Hoopeston, IL for the other ministers and their wives. It was a good fellowship. We were a wide range theologically, conservative and liberal and everything in between, but only one minister in town boycotted the Hoopeston Area Ministerial Association. Everybody in the HAMA came to our potlucks.

Barbara was the wife of Dirk, the Lutheran pastor. She looked like a super model, and Dirk was a George Clooney type, except younger and good looking. I figured Helen and I had more reason to hate them than the other way around.

We didn’t hate them, though. In fact, when their church building burned, we invited them to share ours.

We had enough empty classrooms that we could accommodate their Sunday School at the same time as ours, and we worshipped at the same time, too, with Lutherans in the fellowship hall while Methodists were in the sanctuary. It was quite unusual for Missouri Synod Lutherans.

We loved it. There were so many people in the building, so much activity. The way you know your church is a going concern is whether you have to stand in line for the rest room. We felt bereft when their building was rebuilt and they moved out.

I couldn’t believe that Barbara hated Helen. There were people in the churches and towns where I pastored who hated me, but everyone always loved Helen.

Barbara blew who super-model nose into the napkin from the plate she was placing on the counter and said, “She makes being a preacher’s wife look so easy, and it’s not.”

“That’s because she doesn’t try to be a preacher’s wife,” I told Barbara. “She is just herself. That’s a lot easier.”

I don’t know if Barbara ever got to be herself. The Lutherans moved out of our building, and the bishop moved us to Charleston. No more HAMA potlucks at our house. But it’s Sunday morning, and I always pray for my preacher friends on Sunday morning, including all the wives who hated Helen for making it look easy.

JRMcF

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

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{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

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