Paul and I attended the funeral of a friend on Monday.
We were invited to John's 80th birthday party, the day before he was buried. He was one of the most influential people in our lives; Paul says he doesn't know where he'd be if it weren't for John. But maybe I should start at the beginning.
Over thirty-five years ago, when Paul was nineteen, he moved to Holmes County, to start a new life. When he was younger still, he had told his old-order Amish family that someday he was going to get a guitar and he was going to play it in church. They found this highly amusing, and Paul later admitted to me that he, himself, had never heard of such a thing as anyone playing a guitar in church. Unsure where his desire had come from, he nurtured it none-the-less, buying a guitar and struggling to learn a chord or two. Musical instruments were strictly verbotin in his parents' house, as was pretty much anything that smacked of enjoyment. So he left, when he was seventeen, to work for an "English" farmer. Eventually he made his way to Ohio, where he met John.
One evening, through his open window, he heard the music. Guitars, drums, and singing. What it lacked in perfection it more than made up in enthusiasm and he was drawn to it like a fly to honey. The sound was coming from a small, nondescript building with a sign boldly proclaiming it to be the Berlin Gospel Tabernacle. He watched as people loaded their various instruments into a small white trailer with "Johnny's Gospel Team" emblazoned on the side. He watched as the old car pulled out with trailer in tow, off to some unknown place, full of fun and singing, no doubt.
Paul says he was pretty disillusioned about religion, having had an unhealthy, dysfunctional, and legalistic form of it shoved down his throat from the day he was born. One day, though, he couldn't stay away any longer. Venturing into the little white building he saw something he had never before witnessed: guitars, music, and joyful singing. . .in church!
The small group of enthusiastic musicians welcomed him in and before long he was a part of them. They encouraged him to sit on the front pew and keep trying, to practice, to learn, until he could play along, although not very well. John teased Paul later about his lack of musical skill in the early days, but back then they had done nothing but encourage his determination, spurring him on.
An old girlfriend convinced Paul to go with her to visit her church. A congregation of souls who were no longer Amish, they drove cars and had electricity and telephones. And even more rules than the Amish they had left behind. After his second visit to the church, the preacher's wife mentioned her concern with the radio antenna on Paul's car, and the bicycle-print on his shirt. He shook the dust from his feet, as it were, and never looked back.
John was the first glimpse Paul had of a man who lived his faith, without dogma, without hypocrisy, without apology. John always said that even if there were no heaven, if there were no hell, Christianity would still be the best way to live life. And he proved it.
When Paul found himself needing a place to live, back when he was still pretty much alone in the small rural community, John and his wife Marie took him in. And then Paul got to see up close, what true religion really means. Complete acceptance of a stranger. No attempt to make him into their version of a cookie-cutter convert, they passed on the simple message that Jesus loved him enough, just the way he was, to die for him.
Later, when Paul and I decided to spend life together, John officiated at our wedding. And then it was my turn to learn what true religion is all about. A little white church filled with people who accepted me the way I was, and loved me through the hard times when I was not easy to love. We went to that church for over thirty years and we knew what it meant to have family. We learned what it had cost John and Marie to leave the comfort of their own families, and the churches they had grown up in, to start this little church. This church with the simple message of God's love for His people. Without dogma, without hypocrisy, without apology.
I've seen a lot of changes since that time in the little church. Over the course of years a larger building was erected, new people came, other people left, babies were born, including two of our own, older people died, and some not so old too. Eventually Paul and I moved on but some things didn't change. Even though life sent some storms his way John's love for his God never wavered. His corny jokes, his passion for his church, his love for his music, they were the same as they were all those years ago.
Someone said at his memorial service that we should all live lives worthy of a good funeral. John did. And I'm sure his 80th birthday was far better than it would have been had he been here.
