Memories, like the corners of our mind...

Thursday, April 23 I visited the building where I attended high school. The Grand Rapids Public Schools had sold the property to the Grand Rapids Christian Schools, and the new owners determined they would dismantle the historic structure in favor of a more cost-effective approach - to build a new building on the present site.

I hadn't been to the former Ottawa Hills since 1985 when I helped prepare a slide show for our ____ class reunion (guess which number fits in here). So April 23 as I drove to the school, still several blocks away, I was moved to see how many cars and people had come out to say good bye and pay tribute to the place we once called "The Big House" (check the corner towers this freshman referred to as "guard towers" back in the day). I'm not big on that analogy, so I won't take that illustration any further...what did I know at age 14?

I parked three blocks away, and as I walked toward the school I was aware of a kind of heaviness washing over me. I wasn't ready for my reaction to the tour on Thursday. How does it happen that we feel an attachment to buildings that, when we were using them day-to-day, were merely the space where we went for what we did at that stage in life? Men in old varsity sweaters and young families with children swarmed around the two city blocks at Alexander and Iroquois. All of them sensed there was something here more than bricks. What was the meaning of that baseball-sized lump in my throat, while standing in the old corridors, gazing at a dusty gym floor, looking out through the third floor classroom windows where the Legend Year Book staff gathered once a week. I wanted desperately to open locker #119, but figured people would think I was nuts. Oh man, did I remove those pictures...?

What is it about "place" that is at the very core of us? The biblical story-tellers know. Our ancestors understood that an experience was worth marking with some symbol, most often a pile of rocks. God had been there, and you are supposed to remember where you find God.
You never know when you may want or more likely - need - to go back for a visit, or tell your children a story and want to show them for their own eyes to see. Even the Bible is a symbol, a collection of memories whether poetic or chronicled, telling the story of God's relationship with humankind. It's a spiritual book. It's where God can be found.

In January 1979 the First United Methodist Church of Holland burned to the ground. On the sidewalk in front of the rubble that used to be the building, an old saint and former pastor of the church , John Hagans, stood with then Senior Pastor John Francis and I. In his 90s, the good Reverend Hagans had been driven from his home in Allegan, to pay tribute to his former church. I'll never forget his words: "You know, that wasn't the church...the church is still here. That was a building; the church is the people." Yes, the church is people; and the old school was the people who taught us, who sat in class, crafted the year book, broke their bones and bore bruises, cheered and cried with us. But...

A Holland church member stopped by later that same day, and looking at a door frame left standing in the corner of the sanctuary, he said, "That's the last door I walked through as a single man." The words spoke volumes.

So where is the truth? No doubt it is somewhere among the great mysteries. People are more than places. And places are more than rocks, brick, mortar, steel and glass. Places are spiritual symbols that are part of who we are. Without them we are less than animals. With them we connect with the highest reaches of humanity, something just short of God-like-ness.

A part of me crumbles when the wrecking ball swings. And a part of me lives in the memories of relationships honed in that place once called "The Big House". Life is like that. We are body, mind and spirit. I didn't know at the time exactly how big that house was.

Pulpit Preview

Rethinking Church

A new media campaign of the United Methodist Church is designed to promote the idea that there is a rich mission field at our doorstep, if we will only rethink the way we "do" church. To get a glimpse of this campaign, you can check out http://www.10thousanddoors.com/.

Have you ever wondered why God would create the Church? On Sunday mornings in May I'll be looking at what the Christian tradition calls the Body of Christ. Using passages from John's gospel, I'll begin with what Jesus says about himself, and try to unpack the purpose of the church using his wonderful images in John 15, "the good shepherd", "the true vine", "friend", and then round it out with Jesus' prayer for his followers in John 17.

Join me in thinking through this idea, or, as I've called the series, "Rethinking Church" . I'd love to see you!