AHA!

My dad just spent the week in the hospital in Jacksonville. I had just talked with him last Tuesday, and everything seemed pretty well. He asked all the right questions about my boys and the grandchild we are expecting, even making some comments about Martinsville and where we had moved. On Thursday, my brother Patrick called me to say that Poppo (my dad) had called him in a very confused and concerned state, not knowing where he was or how he got there. He was at home. After multiple tests, the doctors have decided that the mini-strokes that he has apparently been suffering through for some time are the early stages of the onset of dementia. And I guess at almost 80 years of age, we should have been expecting something like this. But needless to say we were still taken by surprise. Tuesday, my dad called me from my brother's house (where he will now be staying) to let me know that he was home. He seemed himself, in spite of the hospitalization. In the midst of all of the routine, my dad had one of those "aha" moments. As we were talking about something, he spouted the words "Starling Avenue." I asked if he meant Starling Avenue here in Martinsville, and he continued "Starling Avenue Baptist Church." That was the name of the church he had been trying to remember. The fact is that in the last six months we have spoken often about Martinsville and the fact that they had lived here before WWII, and I might be, and eventually would be, moving here. But in all those months, I had been able to get very little out of him about those years in Martinsville. Now in the midst of this onset of dementia, he suddenly recalled that Pop had helped build the Starling church. As he recalled, the church hired many of the unemployed workers from the factories to help with the building and paid them in groceries and rent. Because of that my family had made it through the depression without going hungry. My dad made a comment about not having been willing to admit that they lived in the "poor" area of town. But he also told that how the bell from the church began ringing, apparently before it had been roped, and it was my grandfather up in the bell tower banging away with a hammer, tolling that the building was finished. I don't know how long it will be before my dad will not be able to recall things, but I hope that I'm around for a few more "aha" moments. But more than the story itself, what he shared about how the church allowed those who lost jobs during the depression to maintain their dignity and earn food and rent, should be for us today a model for these economically disasterous times in which we now live. It's time for the church to have an "aha" moment, and realize that we can make a difference, because Christ has made a difference in us.