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| Potters House, 2018 |
That year which I spent visiting the church (largely 1974) was devoted primarily to the Thursday night Potters House and the Gateway Sharing group. I could easily devote 30 pages describing my personal experiences with people in connection with those activities. They were largely younger people, in their thirties, from every section of the country, drawn to the church by its high ideals and alternative religious style. I felt that many of them were looking for values, and I took great pleasure in assisting them in their search.
I became an interpreter of the church to the younger generation and of the younger generation to the church. I succeeded better in the first of those than in the latter. Many of the people we knew in Potters House and in Gateway eventually became substantial members of the church. I considered my ministry that year as the highest form of evangelism.
Many of them stayed only briefly and passed on to some other place. All of them touched the life of the church and made a vivid impact upon me. A tremendous contrast to "pushing drunks", this was exactly the type of change that I needed to reestablish my identity as a "man of God".
At the C of S everybody was a 'person of God'. Formally there was no distinction between clergy and laity, each member being ordained at his reception service. Actually there was a tremendous distinction between the pastor and the rest of us. He was very much in charge and he directed activities in an authoritarian mode, although indirect and disguised.
I sometimes wondered if my feelings about this were simply subjective, but I found corroboration a few times from others, especially Terry Colvin, a young man whom I much admired. I don't quite remember how it happened, but when we got around to looking for a house in the area, Terry acted in an advisory role. He was of great assistance and encouragement in that project, which led to a special relation with him and his wife, Tammy.
Some months later they left the church, and when I saw him again I asked him if he felt that C of S was an authoritarian place. He said, "Oh yes, more than that, it's totalitarian!". He was not the only one who had that experience; it seemed to me that many of the best and brightest were turned off sooner or later. Many of the ones who remained enjoyed a dependency relationship with a religious authority.
My years at C of S more or less substantially determined the final shape of my feeling about religious authority. In an almost unique way it prepared us for the Quaker experience in which the ultimate religious authority is the inner light. After 10 years at a highly structured institution we were ready for Friends, probably the least structured and least authoritarian religious group of my experience. But that was in the Sixth Day.
I had been at the Ritz about three months when Louise Baker had Jim Cregar and me for Sunday dinner. Jim was working on his masters at one of the local universities--in statistics. He had studied at Berkeley and lived in California. Much to my surprise at Louise's house Jim proposed to move in with me at the Ritz.
It was a lonely place, and I was glad to have company. So we got a larger apartment. Jim was one of those younger people seeking values. He saw what I was doing as an exploration of commitment and wanted to try it. Jim and I were closely related from then until the family moved up in March of 1976. We lived together at the Ritz and later at David Dorsey's house, which we renamed Friends' House. (The Servant Community had dissolved by that time.)
Jim got married about 1976 or 77 as I recall. He said that knowing me, a person who had succeeded in a permanent marriage relationship gave him the courage to take the plunge. The young people of that area seemed to be pretty skittish about marriage. They had seen too much hell. The communal experiences that Jim and I had undoubtedly helped him to move to the spiritual point where he could endure a marriage relationship. We used to look at each other and agree that "community is hell", our way of saying that it isn't just peaches and cream.
Shortly after Jim moved in with me Byron started staying with us, at first during the week, but as his marriage was in the process of breaking up, he eventually became a permanent resident. He was the Jubilee maintenance man.
John Clagett had also attached himself to us, and he sort of worked his way into the commune in an informal way. His marriage was breaking up, too. We four formed a commune at the Ritz for a number of months, and after I moved over to David Dorsey's house, the others followed me over there and we formed the Friends' House.
We had some good times at the Ritz. Everyone was on a spiritual journey, and we were able to share deeply in some ways. Jubilee was having a continuous problem with the garbage, so in a spirit of "faith overcomes all", we began to gather the garbage from the Ritz and take it donstairs to the dumpster.
This went on for a few weeks. Meanwhile we were also having spiritual activities. At one of these a young doctor joined us. It was early in the morning. We had our religious fellowship, and then had to gather the garbage, but he felt no call to assist in that. His squeamishness sort of liberated me from the garbage call.
One weekend we had a silent retreat. The only outsider who came, as I recall was Conrad Hoover, the retreat master of Dayspring. Conrad was impressed with our spiritual depth and stated that he had had to amend his opinion of me. I don't know exactly what his opinion had been before that.
Conrad, a former Presbyterian minister, had become one of the key people at C of S. About that time Gordon preached on the new land. He said in essence that he no longer felt called to pastor the whole church; his call was now to Jubilee. This led of course to a crisis, and a committee was formed to work out the shape of the new land. Conrad may have been the chairman. This was too much for him, and he retreated to the monastery at Berryville. Some meetings of the committee were held out there, but eventually Conrad became a monk. (He now lives at Belmont Abbey near Charlotte.)
They eventually settled on a new format for the church, called the "New Land". They divided into 5 or 6 'faith communities', each with its own organization and weekly worship service. It was probably a good move on the whole, but it was not good news to those of us who had just arrived. For us the old land was our new land, and we watched it dissolve before our eyes.
Ellie and I had established a goodly number of important relationships with people who we now saw scatter to the various faith communities. This made it difficult and often impossible to continue those relationships. We began with 'leanness' (Ps. 106; Isa 10). We had our vestigial Gateway group, which became a mission group just in the nick of time, and we remained part of the 'ecumenical' aspect of the church, not attached to any faith community.
It appeared to me that Gordon 'crawfished' considerably over the New Land. I had surmised some time before that he was tired of being a pastor to everyone. In fact I never thought he was a pastor to me or to many of my friends. He had undoubtedly been pastor to the old heads who had been around there for 20 years, but his interests had changed.
Ed Schnedl, another minister from North Carolina, and his wife became special friends after I had them come to Winston Salem on mission. Ed had given up his episcopal orders right after graduating from the Union Theological Seminary (He had originally been an architect). Infected with C of S ideas, he just couldn't tolerate the stodginess of the old line denomination. So he had made a radical commitment to C of S. He and his wife were in fact in Gordon's mission group, the Jubilee group.
I remember a conversation with Ed in which he said that Gordon's behavior was Promethean (stealing fire from the gods; the first definition in the dictionary!!). I understood exactly what he meant. Thinking less charitably I came to see Gordon as an idolater: his compulsion to "change Washington" took the place of loving fully those he was given. Every outstandingly successful person must face the grave temptation to use people for his own purposes. Cynically one might take that as the primary criterion of success in our world.
Ed made a valiant effort at C of S, but eventually left it, as so many of us did. (I amazed myself once again at how long I hung around with all this awareness and 'attitude'.)
I think the worst thing that ever happened to me was losing my relationship with my oldest son, Paul. I said something unforgivable in a thoughtless moment, and he never forgave me. It changed everything. Prior to that I would probably have said that my worst moment was when my father belted me at the age of 11 or 12. And in retrospect I came to see how similar the two incidents were (Paul was about the same age). For me the first experience in a real sense set the agenda for my life. Henceforth I have been an incorrigible rebel. Authority is never good enough to commit oneself to whatsoever: that's my agenda, and I suspect that early experience had a great deal to do with it.
So it was with Paul. He went off on another path. He left the family emotionally for his peer group. That experience (those experiences) show how the smallest inconsequential things can have life changing effects on people. But I continue to believe that "all things work together for good to them who love God and are called according to his purposes", even bad things that happened in the distant past. God is ever at work redeeming all of our mistakes.
About nine months into the sabbatical I decided to take the plunge and bring the family up. We made arrangements to move into the Servant Community. They occupied a house in Mt. Pleasant (across the street from the National Zoo) owned by David Dorsey. He and three other (younger) people, all full members of the church, had formed a commune in order to live out the C of S ideals more intensively. It wasn't working too well, and it soon dissolved. When we came on the scene, they needed additional people, and they changed their requirements to allow us to move in.
That didn't work too well either. I was immediately disappointed at the minimal way in which these folks could or would relate to my family. They pretty well kept their distance. They had their own agenda. Kip Landon and Nona Beth Creswell soon got married and moved out of the Servant Community. But before that the Claytons had had their fling and returned to Winston-Salem.
Aside from disappointment at what I perceived as a failure of community, the matter of the schools became the real sticking point. The schools were simply not appropriate for our children. Within a month I had decided this and more or less insisted that they return.
Rob had been fortunate in his school assignment. The schools in the immediate neighborhood were simply out of the question as far as I was concerned. But a friend we had met at Al Rose's house helped us make arrangements to get Rob in Hearst, a rather special and superior school over in the white area of town.
It was another disappointment to me to find that Mrs. Creswell, a supervisor in the public schools gave us no encouragement or help in that direction. That cut off another avenue at what I thought might have been a creative and helping relationship. The Creswells were from Mississippi, no doubt had much in common with us, but not our vision of friendship. Their daughter, Nona Beth, a cool young woman, I thought, did develop kindly feelings toward us, especially as the years have gone by and as Ellie has sent her money for the Montessori school she operated in the inner city
Nona Beth, one of the few second generation C of S people, has made a really serious effort to live out the ideals of the church. Her husand, Kip Landon, seemed to me one of the coldest people I ever met. He had been an autistic child, I believe. Their marriage lasted longer than I expected, but eventually it broke up.
After a month the family returned to Winston-Salem.
One of the worse things about that abortive move to Washington was that it knocked Mark out of his year as Senior Patrol Leader. (All three of them were elected SPL by their fellow Scouts, a fact I mention here with great pride.) Paul had served his year and won much prestige and honor with his peers. A couple of years later Mark was elected, but a month later they came up to Washington, and he lost his place.
When they returned, he was just a Scout. New, establishment type adults had taken over the trip, and soon they ordained that one must be in perfect uniform to belong. Mark only had an old uniform which he had long outgrown. Paul, who had retired from Scouting went to the Scout meeting to try and reason with the adults about it, but to no avail.
Nevertheless on the whole the Scouting experience was beneficial to our children. Today we are strong exponents of Scouting, although we are keenly aware that there are good, bad, and indifferent troops.
In November I returned to resume my job with the Probation Department. They really didn't know what to do with me: there were now three alcohol specialists at Winston-Salem. I went to Raleigh to talk with the new (Republican) administrators. I told them a few things about the halfway houses in the state, and I think they were beginning to think of me to start a halfway house program, but I made the mistake of mentioning that I was a Methodist preacher, and I could immediately see that that ended that. I returned to Winston-Salem and took up the same work I had left.
I had to hang around the office (without my own office) for about a month while they decided about my assignment. My spirit was still much in Washington. I did a good bit of journaling during this time, taking a piece of paper out of my coat and writing on it. I believe the other P.O.'s thought I was taking notes on their activities, likely a spy for the new administrators.
C. 1975-6 My Second Year in Washington
I had been back three or four months when word came that the Transportation Department had called me and left a number. I assumed it was the Raleigh office; we had occasional business with the N.C. DOT. But it was the U.S. DOT calling about a job. I had taken the P.A.C.E. (Professional and Career Examination) back about August and now 6 months or more later I was in line for a civil service job.
I was ready to go, extremely glad to get clear of the Probation Department (after ten years the work seemed pretty old and moldy), but not wanting to cause any more strain on the family. I told Ellie about it, and she said "Are you going?" I said "with your permission" or something of that sort. It took her about ten seconds to say yes, characteristic of the way she has always supported me.
Unfortunately the second year wasn't quite as much of a banquet as the first had been. The first year I 'enjoyed' fulltime. The second I worked fulltime. I had never before had to serve as a wage slave. In some ways an 8 to 5 job was a welcome change: I no longer equated my identity with my profession; it was just a job I did for bread. In other ways it was a damn nuisance, such that March 7, 1988 (in the Seventh Day!) became one of the most significant liberations of my life.
The first week at NHTSA was sheer hell, and one of the longest weeks of my life: everything was new, and it was a terrible adjustment to assume the awesome responsibility of docket clerk and keep up with the work load. It soon became much easier. I would have stayed there if they had treated me decently, but I was one of the few Indians in an office with a lot of chiefs. Worst of all there was no longer any room for any more chiefs.
After three years I found a better opportunity down the street at EPA.
Working full time in 1975, living in a group home with a number of other struggling pilgrims, life was much harder than it had been the year before. I had much less time and energy to devote to church activities, counseling, generally being a friend to a lot of lovely people, and still keep up with my family 300 miles to the south!
I soon began to compare myself with Daniel Boone, who spent 2 years in the Kentucky wilderness before bringing his family from NC, in fact from close to where my family was now. I went home every two or three weekends. In August I got a week off and went hiking above Damascus with Mark. I would have loved for Paul to go with us, but he had other ideas and plans by now.
Starting that trip I was so 'hyper' that I managed to get a ticket for reckless driving (my last ticket fortunately until the present; knock on wood!) Mark and I both enjoyed this trip, and it made us closer. The fact that Mark could still affirm me after Paul had practically disowned me caused me to lean on my relationship with him-- from that time to the present ( likely the other boys perceive that as favoritism. Ah me! Life is so unfair!)
I probably pushed Rob too hard at times because he seemed (and still does) somewhat less responsible than the other two. But I guess he is responsible enough; maybe it's possible to be too responsible. Rob was always the Joseph of our family, with or without his father's approval, with a coat of many colors, the widest variety of gifts. And one of his outstanding gifts was not needing to 'win', to beat anyone else. We are extravagantly proud of all three of them.
Paul had gotten badly turned off by a really stupid 10th grade English teacher. She convinced him that academia is for the birds. Still he stuck out high school. At an early age he had moved down into the basement at Jersey Ave. and saw us mainly at meals. He became his own man and had less to do with the family than the others.
We had decided that the family would remain in WS for another year to give Paul a chance to finish at Reynolds High. So in March of 1975 I went back to Washington for another year as a part-time batchelor. The Servant Community had completely dissolved about this time and David Dorsey, the owner of the house didn't know exactly what to do. He invited me to return and soon Jim Cregar, Byron Marsh and John Clagett were living there, too, and also a young woman named Ann Carr with a small mulatto son. We continued to have painful, as well as pleasant, lessons in the meaning of community. We called ourselves Friends' House.
Some of it was petty squabbling: 6 highly individual adults don't become a smoothly functioning living unit overnight. Some of it was serious, about real values. The biggest problem seemed to be sex. Jim entertained a girl friend in his room one night. I objected to this strenuously. We were all related to the C of S, and I thought we should maintain the best moral standards: my reputation was already shaky enough in the church; many of the good people simply couldn't understand a man leaving his family for so long as I was doing. I think some of them probably just assumed my marriage was on the rocks.
We had some earnest discussions of the matter, and my viewpoint carried the day. A couple of years later Jim told me that I had been right. The worst thing about that crisis was the loss of friendship with Byron. In the course of the discussion he felt that I was judging him for his extra-marital activities. I had no such idea in mind. I felt that anything anyone did off the premises was entirely their own business, but not in my home! Byron simply couldn't understand that and became estranged, and I feel that he probably never fully recovered from that incident. All too many times that's the way life has proven!
Lillian Kleiser was a middle aged doctor's wife from Lebanon, Pa. Like so many of us she had come to the church to lick her psychic wounds and to find new direction for her life. During the year she was around she became a member of Gateway and a close friend . This happened partly because she decided she wanted to live over at Friends' House. I explained to her that it was for church members, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She cooked a meal or two for us, and worked her way into the house.
She brought a nice chair with her to add to our living room furniture. I admired her chair, which led to her giving it to me when she left for an apartment at Upperville. (The chair still resides in our living room.) Lillian got a crush on Bryon as I recall, but by that time Byron was pretty well committed to another middle aged lady, who had left her minister husband. So many of those refugees from broken marriages seemed to flock around the church! I suspect that many at the church casually put me in that category, but it was far from the truth; I always simply trusted in Ellie's understanding to allow me to follow the leading that came to me.
David Fitch was another of our refugees at Friends House. David differed from the rest of us in that he was very much of a senior member at the church, married to Carole Fitch with 3 or 4 grown children. Then they split, and he moved into our place.
Ellie and I felt that this was one of the least credible things about the Church of the Saviour. It was entirely for adults; the children's program was miniscule. The mission group experience was so intense that many people seemed to take it for their primary community. That put a strain
on marriages, and an awful lot of them broke up. Maybe those folks would have split anyway, but I always tended to blame the church for each one. The church is a center of spiritual strength, but the leaders did not understand that good marriages are spiritual achievements far beyond the puny things the church was doing.
The Claytons understood this, and so did the Browns--Tom and Carol. These were two of our oldest friends at the church. They were early members of Louise Baker's fellowship group. Thoroughly middle class people, they owned a split level in Annandale and had belonged to Annandale Methodist Church. At least Carol did; Tom was something of an agnostic in those days. He had enjoyed a good career with the Department of Labor.
They had graduated from Methodism and were exploring the Church of the Saviour about the time I came there. I remember one year they had the Gateway group to their house for Thanksgiving dinner; it was a gala occasion. When I organized my task force at the Ritz to renovate the apartment, Tom joined it. One thing Tom and I had in common: we realized that marriages endure when man and wife do things and spend time together. When the rest of life becomes more exciting and more of a commitment, the marriage may likely fizzle. That seemed to happen all too frequently at the church, but perhaps it was simply a more or less universal attribute of society in that milieu.
I should write a word about the Ritz task force. When Jubilee began, some 18 or so task forces were organized to renovate that many apartments (there was probably pretty intense competition for workers since we had a community of about a hundred people to draw from!). Each task forced worked one evening a week on one apartment. When an apartment was finished, a tenant moved in, and the task force moved on to another apartment. In that way these good, middle class, well scrubbed people would do good for the needy and feel better about themselves, and go home to their nice houses in the suburbs for the most part.
When I moved into the Ritz apartment it was with the understanding that I was to fix it up, and move on. I had no trouble attracting a group of what I considered young people (actually 30's for the most part). But my style of work differed considerably from the generality. For example Betty O Connor and, I think, Gordon as well had organized a task force that met the same night as mine. It was silent! That meant that they gathered in silence, worked in silence, and supposedly disbanded in silence.
This was supposed to be a spiritual exercise, but I sometimes suspected that it was a device to get work out of people without the labor of relating to them; perhaps I was subjective about it. Anyway my task force operated from the opposite pole; it's entire orientation was relational. We began with a common meal--pot luck with the usual good fellowship of breaking bread together. Then we turned to for a couple of hours, and then we moved over to Potters House to celebrate our victory. No doubt we got less done than Betty O's group, but I was not that interested in the material progress of the project. I was, and am, most vitally interested in convening and nurturing community.
At the Ritz task force I got well acquainted with Dort and Bob Pohlman, Kathy Franklin and her brother, Tom Brown, and Larry Mead. I had attracted these folks to the Ritz, and we were becoming community!
I was most surprised that Larry Mead was interested in my task force and in me as a friend. He showed up with the other volunteers, and we soon developed a creative relationship. A PhD from Harvard in Political Science, Larry wrote speeches for Henry Kissinger, at that time Secretary of State. After a couple of years at that he went to work for the Urban Institute, the same research firm where our friend Bob McGillivray worked.
Larry was soon in Gateway with us, and in 1975, shortly before the New Land came into existence, Gateway became a mission group, and Larry was one of the first intern members. Larry was brilliant and (for me) exotic. (At C of S, for the first time in my life I had intimate exposure to quite a crop of PhD's. Few of them were 'stuffed shirts', which had alays been my stereotype of a PhD.)
Larry came from an upper middle class family on Long Island; his father was an aeronautical engineer. Larry had gone to Amherst College, and then graduate school at Harvard. When I met him, he was pretty fresh out of school; he seemed to feel moderately humiliated that he wasn't chosen to continue on the staff at Harvard. Much against his will he had come to Washington for job opportunities, and found a job writing speeches for Kissinger, the Secy of State.
Larry was an egghead of course, but he had some real social gifts as well. He was able to show you your good side in a commending way without really flattering; in other words he had a real gift of affirmation. I basked in his approval, and reciprocated it. He more or less cast me in the role of the 'wise old man'.
(One of the most memorable compliments I ever received came from Larry when he was visiting us in Winston-Salem. Although quite athletic Larry was not an extra good tennis player, so we were able to impress him with our game down at Hanes Park. He was especially impressed with Ellie's game, and he said that we were "just a couple of jocks".)
At a deeper level he had some serious psychological deficiencies. He seemed to be quite addicted to a game which Eric Berne, a pop psychologist of the sixties, called "Now I've Got You, You Son of a Bitch" (NIGYYSB). The oldest of four brothers, he was utterly convinced that his parents had shorted him badly in favor of his brothers, and actually loved them more. (My attempt to wrestle with this neurotic pattern led eventually to the breakup of our friendship.)
On one occasion Larry had Ellie and me to his apartment and fed us with the largest lamb chops I've ever seen. (I suppose I had told him that I liked lamb.) On another occasion Larry, who was quite a small boat sailer, took us down to South River, an estuary of Chesapeake Bay, and for a nice cruise on his sailing cruiser.
That was lovely; but a storm was coming up, plainly visible in the west. We decided we had better make for port. We didn't quite get in when the storm hit, but close. Larry made Ellie and me go below while he rode out the storm; it only lasted 15 minutes or so, actually a squall line that had passed over with violent wind and rain for a few minutes. An exciting experience.
Over a period of two years Larry and I had an intense spiritual relationship through the Gateway Mission Group. I was spiritual director of the group and received everyone's report once a week. Larry made quite a thing out of this and seemed to be working hard at his spiritual and psychological problems. For a year I think he must have been 'prior' of the group, because I also reported to him. After a couple of years Larry fell out with me and the close relationship more or less terminated, although he did visit us in Arlington after he had left Washington. (More on this in the Sixth Day.)
So many of those friendships terminated after a certain period; maybe I was playing Larry's game, too. I guess we both had our share of self-righteousness. Anyway the C of S was pretty much of a hot-house for close relationships. Many or most of us were still working on primitive psychic disabilities we had incurred in early childhood. The Mission Group was very much of a primary group for many people who had been more or less alone since early childhood.
At times it seemed like many of them over-committed themselves to the power and intimacy of the mission group with unfortunate side effects on the rest of their lives--such as marriages, jobs, etc. Some of the radical changes were no doubt creative, some destructive. Who am I to judge!
In 1975 the church was scattering to the New Land. In a way it was like musical chairs. A few of us were not ready to leave Headquarters, at the risk of being the old maid. Gateway had just become a mission group through the help of Sherry Stryker, who became the required second full member. The Shepherd's group was another holdout, and the Threshhold group, who had special responsibilities connected with the morning service. I had brought Phil Warner into our group as an intern member (he had spent a good 15 years on the periphery of the church).
(Of all the members of Gateway Phil Warner is the only one who maintained a close relationship with us after we left the church. 20 years later he is still a special friend, writes regularly and visits every winter. Phil had suffered two unsuccessful marriages and had some unhappy experiences of various sorts, but he also had a beautiful character. We had offered him affirmation at an important time in his life, and he has been a true friend ever since.)
Betsey Groomes, a lovely unmarried woman, had been in the forefront of the church's ministry (perhaps in Jubilee), but backed off, as so many did, feeling that the disciplines were too much for her at the moment. She was ready to get involved again, and she joined our group. I think she saw a chance to be of service to us, for it must have been largely through her initiative that Gateway eventually established its unique place as an ecumenical mission group.
Working out our identity we had a vision of Gateway, Shepherd's, the old group which had run the School of Christian Living, and Threshhold combining to form another community. She and I went to see Russ Anders, prior to Gateway getting together with them. Russ wouldn't hear of it; he simply wasn't ready to give up what he had. (Ironically within a year his wife Mary was in our group, and he was dead of stomach cancer.)
George Creswell, a young doctor, was one of the handful of second generation members. He had recently married Caroline Banker, a western heiress, and they were for a time much in Gordon's inner circle. Then Carolina had a serious illness, and they felt like they had been abruptly dropped. They came to one meeting we had about becoming a faith community, but didn't go for it.
We had several meetings at the home of Jedd and Sydney Johnson. They were very much a part of Gordon's inner circle, and it was probably due to their interest and commitment that Gordon allowed us to become (not another faith community) but an ecumenical mission group. We eventually inherited the functions of the old Threshhold Group, arranging the chairs, getting someone to take up the offering, ushering, etc.
Frank and Dorothy Creswell were the originals, who with Gordon, his wife and his sister-in-law, had founded the church in 1947. They had another child Diane, who became a doctor and who married a Jewish doctor. She became a part of our group for a while, but drifted away.
Jedd and Sydney also gave up Gateway after a year or so. I'm afraid that my argumentative spirit probably antagonized one or more of these people. I suspect that I have often come over as too heavy and offensive to a lot of people.
Louise Baker remained in the group for a while, then retired to Macon. Louise and I had worked closely together and built a valuable and meaningful program, meeting the needs of numbers of people who were "falling through the cracks" of C of S. Without Gateway they would have been marginal at best. But after some months of this I did something that Louise could never forgive: I convened a small group of the more responsible people in Gateway (plus some other personal friends) and started meeting with them on another night of the week.
Although these people for the most part continued to be active in Gateway, Louise, rightly or wrongly, felt that I was skimming off the cream of Gateway and 'including her out'. I'm sure she had some justice for her feelings, but I never regretted what I had done. Gateway required no commitment whatever; we simply provided hospitality for whoever chose to come on a given night. I soon wanted to go further with some of the more responsible ones. I knew people who I felt needed and wanted more than Gateway could offer, so we began the Second Step.
Russ Woodgate, Janet Mallone, Bob McGillivray, Kathy Franklin, Alice Benson were the primary members of the Second Step besides Ellie and me. Larry Mead was tempted to become a part of this effort, but he somehow never quite brought himself to it. This group must have begun sometime in 1975, but my recollections of it largely concerned the 'sixth day', after March 7, 1976.
There were many other interesting and fascinating men and women at C of S, with whom I had personal friendships during the first two years I was there. I could write many pages describing them, their gifts, their foibles, their adventures. In all I probably lived more intensely for a sustained period than ever before or since. In a way it was my reward for the hard years with probationers and a fallen court system, to be surrounded for two years with beautiful people who recognized my gifts and allowed me to minister to them in various ways. Hurrah.
Becoming a Member
As the fifth day ran out, I was approaching the point of membership. I had taken all the required courses at the School of Christian Living. I had been an intern member for a couple of years, served as spiritual director. I had jumped though all the loops and over all the obstacles set in the path. I had worked with a sponsor (a young man named Al Rose from Birmingham who had been a special friend), and was on the point of seeking membership.)
At the same time I was in a parlous state re my relationship to the Methodist church. After being appointed by the bishop as a probation officer for ten years (at my request) I received in 1975 appointment to the Church of the Saviour (without salary of course). But in 1976 I heard nothing and began to get edgy. It was an addition to a heavy load of stress and pressure, and I wrote a nasty letter to the bishop. I wasn't foolish enough to send it, but, perhaps worse, I sent a copy of it to Gordon, who had been instrumental in getting the first year's appointment.
It was a serious lapse of consciousness and had dire consequences. I got a phone call from Bill Price, one of Gordon's close confederates advising me to withdraw my request for membership. Gordon had problems with it, and he, Bill, would oppose my membership if I insisted on going through with it. This was the second emphatic and fundamental disaffirmation I had received from Gordon. It was a bitter pill, but I had enough maturity by now not to let it distress me too much.
I also had some outstanding support from a few close friends. Sherry Stryker heard about it, and immediately came over to our new house (we had just purchased the house in Arlington) with extravagant sympathy and support. Larry Mead also, though not a member, extended strong support, and in fact was instrumental in getting the problem worked out. He and Bill Price more or less mediated the problem between Gordon and me and convinced Gordon that I was worthy of membership. And I became a member. (I know a number of people who, I believe, had similar experiences, and walked away from the church.)
I read my spiritual autobiography before a gathering of church members and others, and then I was received into the membership. However Gordon indirectly indicated to the whole congregation that I was someone to be watched; he "hoped that a 'root of bitterness' would not grow." He more or less negated the possibility of me ever providing significant leadership in the church. In a private conversation he accused me of having an 'authority problem', and I replied "Of course I do, and so do you!"
I became fundamentally convinced that Gordon had spent his life reenacting the Gideon story. He could easily have had a church of 5000 members, but he seemed to make a continuous effort to discourage all but the most radically committed. This radical commitment began as a most attractive feature, but eventually seemed to me overblown. It wasn't entirely on the basis of my own experience that I reached this conclusion: I could name quite a number of bright and beautiful men who had apparently suffered a fundamental rebuff re their attempts at membership.
About the time of my 50th birthday I took possession of the house in Arlington. I will always remember the relief I felt when I walked in that house to live there in the future, after two years of residence in the inner city. I had not been aware of the level of stress involved, but now I felt much like a soldier leaving the battlefront. I had been mugged once, had car windows broken twice, and things stolen, including a battery out of my car. Arlington in contrast seemed so peaceful, so 'middle-American', and there were three police cars parked habitually in the neighborhood. I guess Daniel Boone felt that watchfulness his first two years in Kentucky, and some relief back in N.C
END OF FIFTH DAY
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