Another God Thing,

Monday after Pentecost

2020 is turning into an extremely difficult year for our country. Part of me would like to comment on it. I suspect you're hearing, seeing, and reading enough that you don't need more comments from me. The other part of me thinks it would be better to stick to my subjects, to things I know about. I'll do the latter part. I want only to ask for your prayers for our country in all its problems and for the world in the Coronavirus pandemic. 

So it's Monday, the day for the faith journey narrative. I'm back in the years 1976-1979 being pastor of a three point charge in northern Chatham county. Folks in small rural churches tend to be conformists to their community, same accent, customs, tastes, and world views. But there always seems to be one "character," as we would say in my generation. Nowadays it might be the word  "outlier." I'll stick with the old word. "Characters" are liked, yes even loved, by their communities, because they are colorful, different, and odd. Because they were brought up in the community and everyone has known them all their lives, folks accept them in all eccentricity.  The character in the Mt. Pleasant-Cedar Grove-Mann's Chapel charge was Lamont Norwood. 

Lamont was a dairy farmer. He had a normal wife (no children), a normal house, and a small farm with about 30 cows, which he milked twice day, 365 a year, as dairy farms do. That's as normal as he got. Except for church on Sunday, he always wore overalls, long sleeve shirt, and a big straw hat. He spoke with an distinct accent, but no one, including him, new what the accent was or where it came from. It was not Southern, not American, not British, not like anything else. He was very intelligent, sort of. He had a high school education and joined the Navy in World War II. He was a Pearl Harbor veteran. The only other Pearl Harbor veteran I ever new talked about it all the time, gave talks at schools, and could describe the action in detail. Lamont couldn't describe anything about it. He was a cook and was in the belly of his ship the entire day. He could only say that it was loud. Some folks said it was too loud for Lamont and that "shell shock," (a form of PTSD nowadays) caused his mind to be so odd. 

Here were a couple of little oddities. He was renowned by other farmers in the area for some of his farming abilities. You could show him a piece of land--just where the fences and other boundaries were--and he could tell you exactly how many acres it was down to small fractions. You could show him a field and tell him what you intended to plant there. He could pick up a handful of dirt, and tell exactly how much fertilizer and exactly what kind your needed to buy for the season. Lamont also had a superb knowledge of classical music. Go figure.

Lamont and his wife Blanche had me over for lunch every Monday,  a standard date, didn't have to confirm. Blanche was a fine Southern cook. Lamont ate only meat, potatoes and dessert, no vegetables other than potatoes ever. Every Monday was about an hour and a half of eating and conversation. Most of the conversation was on theology. Lamont was close to being an agnostic. He had a vague belief in God and reverence for Christ, but expressed a certain cynicism about every miraculous story in the Bible, and a greater cynicism about TV evangelists, and local evangelists who toured the county now and then. He thought people of more conservative denominations were either self-righteous or nuts. He was very doubtful that God intervened to any extent in human affairs. I argued the opposite position, though certainly not from any fundamentalist position. Lamont loved our arguments and respected my knowledge, but never came to agree with me on anything. Lamont and I had the discussions almost every Monday for three years. Blanche would talk but not about theology. After I left the charge in June of 1979 Lamont wrote me letters, about two a year, for a good many years. I deeply regret that I didn't write back. 

Fast forward 29 years to 2008. I had heard that Lamont had died a couple of years earlier. 

I was going on Emmaus Walk, a spiritual retreat long weekend, single sex, no cellphones, or outside communication except in emergency. It was 19 talks on grace over a four day period, with singing, and a band, worship, small group discussions, and alone prayer time. The Upper Room sponsors it. Nell Laton from University and Danny and Jennifer Reece from First, North Wilkesboro have been on it. John Combest from University has been on Cursillo, which is the Catholic equivalent. There are many Emmaus Walks all over the country and here in N.C. many times a year.

On the first evening my small group, four men who had never seen each other before, told something of our spiritual journeys. The youngest of the four, mid-twenties, said that he was a member of Mt. Pleasant Church in Chatham County. I was stunned. What were the odds that I would be in a small group with someone from this small rural church I had pastored decades earlier. He began to talk. He was going to enter Duke Divinity School in the fall. He told the group that he had come under the influence of a brilliant, if quirky, old man in the congregation, who frequently had him over for lunch and theological discussion. The old man had led him to Christ. The old man had nurtured him over several years to the point that he wanted to become a United Methodist minister. The old man was of course Lamont Norwood. Again what are the odds. I was surprised that Lamont would lead anyone to Christ and nurture anyone in the faith but fascinated by this young man's experiences with Lamont and our common bond with him. 

But one thing seemed strange to me. Over the course of the weekend, as the young man  talked more and more about the things Lamont had taught him and the way Lamont had led him, I became puzzled. It just didn't seem like the Lamont I knew. Then  came from the young man 's mouth a few thoughts, a few words, a few phrases, that seemed familiar to me but didn't seem like Lamont. The more I listened the more I realized--these thoughts and words and phrases were from Lamont, but not the Lamont I knew. These thoughts and words and phrases, this understanding of the faith, this world view was mine. The things I had argued with Lamont those three years, Lamont had apparently eventually accepted and made his own and passed on to this young man, who was amazingly in this one four man small group this on this one Emmaus Walk.  

Was this a God thing?

Faithfully,

Christian