One of Those Strange Dreams

(Calling any dream “strange” is redundant, I suppose!)

This short story is not intended as “filler” for the blog, except in the way it “fills in” a little more of my history with the WCG of the nineteen-seventies. I thought this, my second post, could remain personal and not yet say much that’s controversial. Prepare for that kind of post next time!

This piece is here to clarify a terse summation in my earlier post that merely stated: “By spring of 1976 I had lost interest in riding a train to nowhere and resigned in July.”

One recent morning, in a half-sleep around five o’clock, I realized I was in the throes of a vivid dream (or nightmare).  I stayed still in bed with eyes closed to assist the dream to a conclusion.  It didn’t work.  I merely awakened further and moved from bed to keyboard.  The typical oddities of dreams – misplaced and mismatched people and places – were all there.  But the stranger part was the clarity with which my subconscious mind arranged some of the players and events.
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In the dream:  The Powers-That-Be at church headquarters were sending me on a ministerial mission, back to my original home area. Rumblings of mutiny were supposedly advanced in the congregation and I was proposed as the one best equipped to bring unity and peace to the group. Arriving at my destination for a first “look-see” at a congregation I had not visited in many years, I was unimpressed by the mix of tired-looking, old guard stalwarts and the new youthful converts, many of whom seemed to wander about distractedly. Some of the younger congregants, though dressed in the requisite attire and looking dutifully uncomfortable, had earphones in place and were obviously hearing tunes from a device. Others were perched casually on a surrounding brick wall near the meeting room, playing chess or scrabble, anything but studying their bibles and exhibiting dedicated Sabbath conduct.

Leaving the immediate confines of the meeting place, allowing the officious deacon/emcee and his piano player to get things underway, I sought out the leading elder for a preliminary chat. His name was just “Butch.” I found him standing alone in an area under construction, several yards away from the meeting room.

We launched into a talk which immediately left the main subject of the local congregation and its needs of the moment, and meandered through fields of reverie.  “Butch” was, suddenly, the only Butch I can recall ever knowing, my friend in elementary school. [In reality, we have not spoken to each other since 1956.]

As we walked, then mysteriously got separated and had to re-connect after visiting various stores and other venues in the area, our talk finally got back to the trouble at hand: what to do with the unrest in our midst. It was already past the time for me to stand up as honored guest (not yet to be introduced as their new pastor), and begin my sermon. And my sermon was going to be a problem for me. As I intimated to Butch, my personal beliefs no longer were in sync with the old church line. I felt these people had more than a good reason to mutiny; they should walk away and not look back. Butch thought I should leave without revealing anything at all of my personal beliefs. I agreed and we shook hands solemnly as I turned to leave the scene.
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Dreams usually seem this nutty and disconnected – actually more so – but this one at least had ample reason to lollygag in my subconscious. As I gained full consciousness on this particular morning, I realized I needed to write these things down for reflection. Obviously the reading I’ve been doing of late has put me into a reflective mood. Check out the parallels from the dream in this actual history:

In 1975, when I was told I was needed in the Chicago (south) church area for WCG, some interesting tidbits were in place. Clearly, these items were the framework of my early morning dream. For one important point, the main reason I was given by my superiors for this transfer (for real, in 1975) was to bring a unifying attitude to the Chicago region. For another, Chicago south actually met for services in northern Indiana (not far from my boyhood home).

It would be interesting today to know whether George Meeker ever knew of my somewhat “clandestine” and unwritten mission as I was moved from Texas to become one the four pastors in the Chicago area. (Of course, due to his seniority, he possibly was told quite a different, perhaps more complete, story.) George was pastor, for some few years there, I think, of the Chicago (north) congregation. Carl Gustafson had fairly recently been brought to Hinsdale, Illinois to pastor the Chicago (west) group. In this old and expanding domain of Dean Blackwell’s pastorate of the early 1960s (where I met Joe Tkach as a new deacon, once called by Dean Blackwell in my hearing “the hard-headed Russian”), the fourth congregation was the Chicago (black) group, pastored by the late Harold Jackson. Too bad I never got to talk with Harold again in later years; he could have enlightened me quite a lot, I suppose.

Here we were, in the mid 1970s, still gradually adapting to the need to practice racial equality in this land of the free, etc., and part of my “mission” was to see that all the players in the ministerial group could get along and cooperate. And within the mix was a segregated congregation! Apparently, as I was surreptitiously told without clarity, the white pastors were not making enough effort to locate meeting halls for the holy days, and other potential occasions, where all members in the Chicago area could meet together. There was obviously concern on either side of the race issue about bringing large numbers of whites to the south side of Chicago or, conversely, to bring (any!) number of blacks into one of the other districts. Not only this, it was hinted to me with the old “Mission Impossible” style of secrecy, (the authorities would disavow any knowledge, blah, blah, blah) that I might have to use polemic persuasion to get all the actors to perform in harmony. In fact, it was perhaps going to take magic (my word) to assist even the other two white pastors to interact with each other in a more positive way.

So we see my dream’s old stalwart (George) and the young renegade (Carl), who probably would have been carrying an Ipod with tunes in his ears, had such technology been around then. [I got to know Carl quite well and really like the guy. My wife and I visited him a few years ago in Casper, Wyoming, where he owned and operated a lounge. He also sang with his band, performing very well a few jazz numbers he had composed.]

Then the most respectable of all, probably, Harold the black pastor, was being discriminated against even by our own directed church policy. The mutiny of my dream was observable, in 1975, in the ministry itself, and I was sent there with the understanding that bringing unity to this region was right in my wheelhouse.

Keep in mind here that in 1975, I was still blissfully ignorant of much of the previous year’s mass exodus. Yes, I had helped to “rescue” some “lost sheep” in that eastern seaboard mission for a few weeks in ‘74, but I really did not know the magnitude of the uprising. Years later, looking at the whole Chicago arrangement through disassociated eyes, I could see clearly why headquarters sent me there.  And guess what; within a few months there was, in fact, more unity evident. George had enthusiastically joined me in finding a great meeting hall somewhere on the north side of town and Carl went along on some of the planning trips, joining George and me for lunches, dinners and drinks as we worked out the details. I believe we convinced Harold to come along on one finalizing meeting. Then for the two holy days before heading off to the FoT, we met as one large congregation with the four of us pastors sharing the speaking duties. No racial undertones ever seemed to tense up or cause any fear for our African-American members as they ventured bravely out of Chicago’s south side and into “whitey” country.

By early 1976, all pastors were getting along well, services were being planned for spring all in one hall, peace seemed to reign in Chicagoland, and I was bored out of my wits! My value as a political pawn was now minimal but my sudden awareness that the church was playing politics stirred something deep inside. The willful naiveté of my ministerial years was gnawing at my conscience and questions of my own worth began to emerge.

Also, the longstanding personal struggle I had been feeling, that of having to judge people in their personal lives, to separate couples who were judged “not married in God’s eyes,” to instruct young couples in the details of what would be allowed and disallowed (after marriage!) in their sexual activity, etc., etc., all came to the fore. I looked in the mirror one morning in late spring of ’76 and asked one question of myself: “Do you like what you’re doing with your life?” The instant answer was an unequivocal, “No!” So I was living in a “good-news, bad-news” joke. The bad news was that I was not happy with what I was doing; the good news was that, if I did it right, I could keep on doing it for eternity!
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Oh yes, the dream. I figured out the part about Butch. Though it wasn’t clear why no actual elder, such as one irascible fellow who owned a mushroom farm out south of Chicago and often partook of wine in the close company of a Catholic priest, made it into my dream at all; it is clear why Butch, the innocent bystander, was there. In my current (2011) consideration of whether I might make it back to northern Indiana in a couple of years for a fiftieth-year reunion of my 1963 graduating class, I also suddenly thought I might locate some fellow students from the first school I attended up to sixth grade. Maybe some of those will be getting together some miles from where I would probably be visiting with a few of my actual graduating class. If this other reunion of students occurs, perhaps I could visit with them also. And who knows, I might find my first best friend there as well – Butch!

If Butch and I should get together, I’m confident we will not discuss unrest in the CoG!

Next time, look for some words on the subject of cults.  Quite a lot has already been thrown out there in blogland, and I definitely have my views.

Markman