Walking Back In Time

This is posted one day late… Did you know that 100+ year old houses are not real good with having an internet connection. But – oh the quietness… too beautiful for words.
~ ML ~

As I begin typing this morning it is very early. The emotions and excitement of this weekend wouldn’t allow me to stay in bed any longer. I have walked back in time to the earliest days of my ministry… to the roots and place where I began working with people. What an unbelievable rush this has been…. Yet ‘Rush’ is not the right word for the experience that is unfolding around me at this time.

I am sitting in a small room that is an “office” for the owner of the home. However when the house was built way over one hundred years ago this would have been storage or a small bedroom.

The clock in the parlour down stairs has just chimed out 6:00 AM. The other clock in the small office is softly ticking the seconds minutes away. It is most fitting that I sit in this stillness and listen to time move around me.

One Billion, One Hundred and Three Million, Seven Hundred and Sixty Thousand seconds ago I came into this place for the very first time. I was a very young and excited pastor. I was the father to two little girls – one in school and the other anxious to go to school.

We moved into our first house experience during the first Thirty One Million, Five Hundred and Thirty Six Thousand seconds in this community. It was so much fun and so liberating to live in a house for the first time. For the years before in our early married life we had lived in an apartment setting except for one short stay in a very old farm house. The house was the church parsonage and was situated right next door to the hundred year old church building on that corner lot. I was the brand new pastor of this dynamic little church in a very old community called Walkerton, Ontario.

The old farm house stay that we have been treated to is north of town. Directly outside my window I can hear the snowplough running its route down this quiet country road. Then there is stillness.

The white field beside the house is open and flashes of memories pour back again. In this field Rev. Maury Blair and myself, both younger ministers at the time, nearly died when the snow-mobile we were riding on caught a strong piece of barbed wire lying below the surface of the deep snow and snapped at his throat and my head throwing us both from the flying machine. What a story that was to tell the church and the people Maury was working with at the time.

As we drove out to this farm, crossing a bridge over the river, and then down hill for a ways… more memories flooded my being. My daughter Dana was learning to ride her bicycle. We came to this quiet road so she could practice. However Dad had not yet taught her where the brakes were and how they were so important. Dana flew past me and into that bush at the side of the road.

Yesterday, before we came to the road leading to the farm we had driven around the town. New stores mixed with the old stores populate the main street. What a rush. Over there in front of that store was where I flew through the air as a young minister with all my finery on, having slipped in the ice, falling flat on my back. What a mess that was. I quickly stood up and looked to see if anyone had seen me. No one around Thank Goodness… It was at a funeral a few weeks later that a group of older ladies asked me how I was doing. Puzzled I asked why. “Well you took that nasty fall downtown a few weeks ago. Many people have wondered at how you are doing. We all thought that you were hurt quite badly. Are you okay?”

Flash back… everyone in this town knew everything that you were doing – all the time.

There was the old house that we lived in. There is the driveway that I had my car sitting with all its wheels off that day. The brakes were all worn out. The wheel bearings were in need of replacement. The car was in terrible shape. And I was sitting there wishing that something could be done… but I had no idea what. I couldn’t get to the store to buy the parts as the car was disabled entirely with its wheels off. Our salary was $105 per week and there was nothing left to fix the car with. We were always broke as the poor minister at the Pentecostal Church on Colbourne Street.

My wife called me from the house. Someone was on the phone for me. The conversation went as follows…
“Hello…”
“Hi – are you Rev. Murray Lincoln at the Pentecostal Church?”
“Yes…”
“Do you have your car up on blocks now and are you trying to repair you car right now?”
“Yes…..?”
“I cannot tell you why or who has asked me to do this… but if you will put the car back together again… then drive it to our dealership… we are going to repair it for you… at no cost to you. Are you able to put it back together now and bring it over?”
“Yes….? No problem… I can do that… I took it apart and will have it together in an hour… is that okay? But who is doing this for us?”
“That is the only thing that I cannot tell you… they want to remain anonymous… if that is okay with you?”
“I’ll be there in a heart beat…”

That was Walkerton for you. Gentle and quiet, stubborn and ornery, all mixed together with love. When you least expected it someone would come forward and give their best to you so that you never need to worry. The salary of $105 per week was likely more like $500 adding up all that we were blessed with… meat… milk… bread… desserts… vegetables… fish… Talk about flash backs – wow!

Up on the book shelf of this old farm house is a Wine/Burgundy coloured Hymn Book from church. Oh did that ever bring back memories!

Hymn Book Flash back…
The church struggled with money in those years. It also struggled with decision making. No more was that more evident than with the Hymn Books that we used in those early years. In the Pew Rack there were two books when we arrived as the new Pastor. One was Blue and the other was Red. A song service would include songs from each book – which meant that you closed one and opened another. It was the resolve to a problem of the past when a new hymn book was needed and the congregation couldn’t decide on which one they wanted… actually wanting both… so they got both. In actual fact I never did find out why there were two books – I only knew there was tension over the books and we needed to use BOTH.

A new young couple started attending the church. He and his brother worked together in our community. It was a blessing that they were part of our growing congregation. The young man’s name was Ken.

A month or so after he started attending he came to the church mid week. He and his brother walked in with about four boxes of new hymn books and dropped them on the floor. He said… “I am sick of singing from two books. These are the newest books and I like them. I bought them for the church.”

I was stunned. As I pulled the old books from the Pew Racks and replaced them with the new books, I struggled with the thoughts of how I would explain this to the congregation on Sunday Morning. Someone or ‘someones’ would not be happy that this had happened.

Sunday Morning came. People were puzzled but over all happy with new books. They were a little puzzled that someone gave the books free of charge. They missed the old books a little but the new ones were not taped and repaired like the old ones had been. This was something to be proud of. THANK YOU so much to the anonymous donor!

Weeks went by… we sang heartily. The books were a lift and it was a new day.

Ken and his family left the church for some reason.

Then the call came from the former minister that ran the Bible Book Store in the next town. His question was blunt, “When is the church going to pay for the Hymn Books? Get that Board of yours over here to pay this unpaid bill… it is too much for me to carry on my books! When will it happen?!?”

Oh Boy… I was in a mess. The church would flip out on this one. I had taken away there old books that they loved… replaced them with new ones… that cost a fortune… and now I find out that they were not paid for… Holy Cow – what would I do?

In the next hour I went to the bank and took out a personal loan for nearly three times what I made in a week…. Then took the money over to the other retired minister and paid the debt of the Hymn Books. I pushed the money over the counter to the minister and said – “Paid in FULL and don’t ever let me hear about this again!”

That Wine/Burgundy coloured book is one of the ones that I bought.

Oh… there is so much more… so many flash backs… so many wonderful memories of the One Billion, One Hundred and Three Million, Seven Hundred and Sixty Thousand seconds ago!

~ Murray Lincoln ~