Minister-For-A-Day

This morning, I’ll be offering the sermon at the on-line service of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Grafton and Upton. Having been very involved in the UU church here in Worcester in the past and continuing my involvement with UU’s through the institutional connections between Boundless Way Zen and UU churches, I occasionally get asked to be a guest preacher at different UU churches here in central Massachusetts. (On January 3rd, I’ll be preaching at the UU church in Harvard, MA.)

Being a guest preacher is getting to play minister-for-a-day. As a PK (Preacher’s Kid), being in front of a congregation and leading worship stirs up powerful associations. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting the back pews of a small Presbyterian church in northern New York as my father stood up front in his wonderful black robes.

I remember my brother and a friend and I passing Canada Mints back and forth as we tried not to crinkle the cardboard box. The mints were big and chunky and didn’t taste very good, but were a real treat for two little boys growing up in farm country. Mom would sit with us and supervise and as long as we were quiet we could draw on the bulletin with crayons she kept in her purse.

I didn’t really get what was going on, but I was wildly proud of my father. He was there up front and everyone was listening to him. Being a minister allowed him to be his best self. He was kind and warm. Wise and funny. Leading worship was something he clearly enjoyed and did well. His favorite part and the part where the whole congregation came alive was in the children’s sermon. My Dad was a wonderful storyteller.

For my brother and I, he told stories about Tuffy and Spence – two dashing adventurers of the ‘Beau Geste’ type who were always rescuing people in need, getting into terrible messes and generally having a wonderful time. They made plenty of silly mistakes, but in the end they always found their way through. We didn’t get a Tuffy and Spence story every night going to bed, but when we did, it was a good night.

It took me many years to realize that he made these stories up on the spot, I always assumed there was a compendium of traditional stories that he drew from. I suppose many of the plots were borrowed from different sources, but my Dad had a lively capacity for improvisation. Perhaps listening to those stories of twists and turns and encountering the unexpected was part of my earliest training for the dance improvisation I practiced and performed in my young adulthood.

In church, the children’s sermons were almost always stories about our Boston Bulldog, inspiringly named Myles H. Himlay, III. Myles was a small, friendly and inspiring bulldog. We all loved him. He must have died when I was three or four because I’m not really sure if I remember him in person, or just in the pictures of the two cute little boys cuddling with this small black-and-white bulldog—and the decades of stories.

Myles was my father’s alter-ego. He was the underdog with common sense that came through in the end. My father was small as he was growing up and often told the story about being picked on by bullies until he surprised them by fighting back. After that, they left him alone.

Once, in Sunday school in the third grade we were asked what we should do if someone hit us. I blurted out that my father said we should hit them right back—not exactly where the teacher was going. The encounter got back to my father who told me I was right, but that I should be more careful about who I say that to. Myles, however, didn’t have to worry about being appropriate. He was never afraid and stood up to bullies and also specialized in rescuing those in trouble.

Thinking about it now, I can’t remember a single story, nor how my father pulled off making these stories feel engaging and true. But I remember everyone in church listening with rapt attention. Even when we were the cool high school kids sitting in church until we were released to Sunday school, we stopped poking each other and flirting with the girls when my father told the children’s sermon story.

I won’t be giving the children’s sermon today, just the main event. I won’t get to actually be in the small white New England church with the many kind faces looking up at me, but I’m happy to remember this legacy and offer whatever I have to invite people deeper into their own lives and experiences. And to be minister-for-a-day.