In 2015 our friend Judith Larsen wrote Becoming Ourselves: Thirteen Conversations in which she related interviews with thriteen octogerarians. Here is some of what Larry told her.
Larry
Larry grew up in Louisiana. His father was a preacher. There is a picture of Larry, a sullen teenager, arms folded, staring at the camera in a way that says “Bring it on!” The last thing on that young man’s mind is preaching the Gospel!
Even today, Larry is counter to expectations. He speaks simply with a deep Southern accent. He talks to the man at the cash register in Wendy’s, to the folks who gather in his home on Sunday, to distinguished academics in the same down-home way. It is after you have been with him a while that you recognize his brilliance, intuition, and learning. Duke and Tulane Universities broadened his reach, but didn’t layer any social pretensions on him. He came to a crisis.
I’ll tell you how it was. I had a good job, a nice house, a nice car and everything that anybody could want. 1954-5. And it occurred to me that there wasn’t anything else – I thought to myself “Is this all?” I was kind of desperate. In desperation I prayed. That must be the first time I ever really prayed in my whole .life. “God, send me something to read.” I had heard plenty of preachers and I was always distrustful – do you really mean that or do you just throw that at us, but a few days later I was at the barber chair and a Roman Catholic young man was cutting my hair, and he started raving about Norman Vincent Peale, and he said “He’s the best there is.” I got the book and it changed my life. Positive thinking. God loves me personally. That is the whole deal.
How should he express this with his life?
I wanted to do something for God! One possibility was to be a social worker. But then my brain just tipped like that, I realized that I wanted to be a minister.
It was 1954 and he had in mind studying theology at Southern Methodist University, but he met Ellie in New Orleans and destiny took a hand. In order to be close to Ellie he attended a local Baptist seminary. From his studies:
I expected nothing and I didn’t get very much. I got a piece of paper. I needed a diploma, I needed a B.D. to be admitted into session in the church.
At first, restless Larry – now married to Ellie, with little ones on the way—tried to bind himself to a traditional minister’s role.
8 years was enough. I finally came to believe that preaching was not the way, not the thing to do. Preaching is…preaching doesn’t really help much. All the preaching to people who were already better than I was, they were glad to hear what I had to say… Here I am every Sunday, preaching to good people, and I shake hands at the door, and “Preacher, you really stepped on my leg today!” That’s supposed to be a compliment. And then they would go home and put their feet on the table and eat their chicken dinner and watch the football game.
Larry and Ellie moved to Winston Salem N.C. where Larry was attached to the court as a pastor. A number of the people he counseled were habitual drunks.
I found myself in court one day, and I asked [the court] to release these drunks. There was a whole pack of them who were continuously going in and out of the jail. [The] judge would say 30 days! 28 days they were back. 30 days! The judge was so glad to have someone try to do something for them. “Take them.” And I took about 50 of ‘em.
Larry formed the Alcohol Education Program, which operated much like Alcoholics Anonymous, with good results. The groups grew in size. When the Methodist Conference said they had a new church assignment for Larry, he asked instead for a special appointment as a probation officer. He worked hard at that, but after 10 years he began to feel infected by the mindset of the prison system.
They say “You’re not coming back,” and the guard will say “He’ll be back. Because it changes you, the criminal mind.
Larry and Ellie intended to take a trip around the country to refresh their outlook. One of the first stops was in Washington D.C. They visited the Church of the Savior, a group of Christians dedicated to good works in the city. The church’s organization around early Christian values appealed to Larry so strongly that he stayed, while Ellie returned to North Carolina to care for the children. Within 2 years the family had re-joined Larry in Washington.
You were not really a member of the Church of the Savior, you were a member of your mission group. And that was a lot of fun. One of the groups I was in, they bought the Ritz which was an old apartment building that used to have had better days, and they formed task forces to refurbish it [for the homeless].
Almost coincidentally with Larry’s arrival at Church of the Savior, though, the church began to go through “Dispersal,” which meant sending its members out into the world. At that point Larry sought a civilian job with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That is when I met him – I was also an employee of the agency – never suspecting that Larry was a Methodist minister. Larry has always had a disarming, simple and direct manner that doesn’t advertise any particular social or professional status. He is that rare person whose ego doesn’t need to be supported by someone saying “Oh, you’re the pastor of the church.” He makes his own way, deciding where he needs to be, without asking for social reinforcement.
During his Washington D.C. residence, Larry and Ellie attended a Quaker Meeting, drawn to the simple gatherings and shared tasks. Later, when they moved South again first to South Carolina, and then to Florida, they worshipped in Quaker meetings, and opened their door to anyone who wished to join them in fellowship. Larry tends the sick and dying in a local hospital. He tends a William Blake blog, and is in touch through the internet with seekers all over the world. In these simple, gentle person to person ways, Larry lives, checking in with God, through prayer. Underneath the good works, however, is a radical man in the early Christian sense.
I have no home. My home is upstairs.
I worked for three institutions, but they didn’t own me.
Society is to me what it was to Dickens – he never fails to lampoon society. Society is for the birds.
I like myself. Some people like me and others don’t and that’s all right.
Most people think that you keep your wits about you, say things that people need to hear. I don’t feel like that. I have other aims in life, so I frequently say something I shouldn’t have. I have failed in many ways with my mouth.
[As for society] I’d be content for the tent to collapse. An entire shakeup. We need that, another revolution. Divine intervention.
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