Honey from the Rock

By James Morin

The author has published two other books: My Father's Son and Jesus Priceless Treasure. He is a lifelong Hoosier Methodist Minister having served large and small congregations throughout Indiana for more than sixty years. He is still involved in pastoral care and continues to write everyday including many poems. Considers himself a "progressive" theologian

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469144375

James Morin

”Jim Morin has a unique sense of the dynamics that are the making of an effective and dedicated pastor. His love of persons and his commitment to Jesus Christ combined with his honest and clarity about those dynamics make this a great read. Jim has a sense of the ironies of life and ministry that will invite you to grow in your understanding of your own faith as you follow the developments in this novel. Thank you Jim for being you and being honest.” Dean Stuckey

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by James Morin.

ISBN:                   Softcover                         978-1-4691-4436-8

ISBN:                   Ebook                             978-1-4691-4437-5

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

The Person Who Is Jonathan Petri

The Making of a Minister

Treasure in Earthly Vessels

Is It Possible to Live the Jesus Way?

Free Will and Intrusions

Trivializing What Is Sacred

A Candle in the Wind

Time and Eternity

The Reality of Sin

Symbolic Beliefs

He Felt So Safe With Them

People Say Anything and Everything, Without Authority

Be Aware. Things Are Happening

God in Motion

The Queen of Sciences

Personal Demons and Lesser Gods

The Genius of the Man

Purgatories

The Transcendent Dimension

Gaining Authority

It Isn’t Just in the Seed

For Those Who Live But Have No Life

Peace

The Peace Maker

The Incarnating Principle

Leadership

The Halls of St. Mary’s

Honey from a Rock

Cutting Some Slack

Oracles of Delphi

God Can Sometimes Ruin a Good Life

Physician Heal Thyself

A World of His Own

Is Orthodoxy Possible or Safe?

Ministry in Surprise and Disruption

There Are Many Christs

The Constraints of Love

There Is No Way. There Are Only People

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A lot of people figure to have had some influence on clergymen in the life they live and the work they do among the parishes they serve. A lot of people were helping me while I was writing this short novel. It could have been much longer. There were many events and happenings during this life. I have left out interesting people and fascinating events.

I would like to thank members of my family who were involved in the writing of the novel. A few friends helped me with the story. My book agent Eileen worked hard and effectively. I was helped by advice from Nancy Baxter. I presented some of the novel to a study group I lead. They encouraged me greatly.

I would thank my ministerial colleagues who taught me many things I never learned in seminary. But I would like to thank a professor who told me the novel was the most powerful tool ministers have neglected. People still remember novels long after they have forgotten sermons. My friends have given me everything which is written in Honey From The Rock.

I am indebted to Robert Butz, who is one of my greatest encouragers and who helped with the art work. I am deeply grateful to Jane Nichols who did the drawings.

I am grateful for those invisible springs which brought me living water, and for a Holy Spirit who seemed to say good when things were going well, and stop when they weren’t

To think I could write this book when I was eighty eight fills me with dismay and disbelief. Here it is for any of you who would enjoy a sermons about a prophet.

INTRODUCTION

I am about to undertake the job of writing about a minister who is fictional, but who bears a similarity to a lot of people who have been known as ministers of the gospel. He certainly is known to me. Our protagonist is named Jonathan Petri. He is now retired these several years. He leaves behind a life which was lived through some of the most threatening, some of the most promising, and some of the most revolutionary times in human history.

At this juncture of his life, he is aware that for most of his life he was carried along on powerful historical currents. He is aware that his life was not made up of stories comprising living history so much as he was a mere character caught up in the occurrences which shaped his life with and without his will. He passed through events which were totally beyond his ability to shape or even influence, and for a long time were beyond his ability to understand. Still, he is left with a consciousness, and that consciousness is part of the reason why Jonathan became a minister at long last.

Like a lot of teens and other youthful types, Jonathan, when he was young, thought in terms of breaking out into a life of his own. During his childhood and youth, he foresaw that he would be leaving many of the parental and institutional controls behind him in the adult world in which he was raised. He would become a self-determining being. He would decide for himself who he was and what he wanted to do with his life.

But at nineteen, he had no concept of how new feelings involving someone else who wanted to be a part of his schedule in his thoughts and affections represented such a powerful presence in his total awareness. Jonathan’s first love even wanted to make decisions about his life, as did his father and mother before her. She wanted to be a part of the social structure which determined what kind of life Jonathan would live with her as a featured attraction. Jonathan soon came to know that a sweet and pretty young thing could complicate his life quite as much as had his father and his mother.

Soon there came something even more powerful and controlling in Jonathan’s life. It was the war, and more specifically it was the draft board of his area which sent him notice that he was to report to Fort Benjamin Harrison where he would be assigned to Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas where he would take his basic training. After that he would be taken to some foreign spot in the world where he would live among actions of violence and destruction all with people who were strangers to him. So much for freedom from outside influences and controls, he thought. Jonathan found himself both disillusioned and depressed.

To heighten Jonathan’s sense of uncertainty, he and his true love had decided to try to soften their loneliness by getting married before they parted for the duration. Mostly it heightened the senses of abandonment and existential tension. More than anything else their marriage heightened the sense of separation and loneliness. The same thing was true for his wife Greta. At the end of the war, they had to get reacquainted. Jonathan came home to discover that Greta had become different. She noted how he had changed.

By the time the war was over, Jonathan had been put into a cauldron of violent ways for settling human matters, and he was devoid of any relationship to anyone who was not a GI and was not involved in any kind of activity which was not violent and disruptive. Sleeping next to a One Fifty howitzer is not the most restful way to sleep in the world. Patrolling every day deliberately looking for the enemy is not the happiest life one could imagine. Living without houses in open fields and forests and eating out of a mess kit cradled in one’s lap does not make for civilized and gracious living. Jonathan lived for two and a half years in a completely dominated male company. When female entertainers came around from time to time to entertain the troops, the only time that people like Jonathan saw them was on the stage. The rest of the time, the officers seemed to have them all to themselves.

Still, Jonathan managed to live with the strength that his vision of Greta gave to him. He imagined that she was waiting at home for him. He could at least wait by his own cot for her. He wrote her every day and thought about her all the time. There was enough difficulty in staying alive and alert which took most of his time and energy, so it was not hard for Jonathan to keep his word.

PROLOGUE

Perspectives of Age Are Susceptible

Jonathan Petri is now ninety years old and has come to live in a retirement village. Living in a world of septuagenarians and octogenarians is a long way from the noisy, busy, and sometimes chaotic life he has lived elsewhere. He is now living among people who are famous for not buying new cars and green bananas. It is not the kind of environment in which he naturally feels comfortable. He knows he is old, but he does not feel or think old. He reads the obituary page each morning, not expecting to see his own name written there but to see whom among his living friends might be listed. It gives him the feeling of how fragile one gets after eighty. Jonathan is a person of reserved friendships with a strong sense of needing solitude. In fact, he is an anomaly among his ministerial friends, who for the most part are gregarious and outreaching extroverts. Jonathan acknowledges that it is a divine gift that enables him to be open and approachable. He has such a strong sense of needing to relate personally as well as a pastor for giving the impression that he is there for others. Petri acknowledges that something outside himself gives him his impetus for his rich friendliness and outreach to others.

Jonathan is living in College Corners, which is an upbeat retirement village that caters to people who are still active, to those who need considerable assistance to remain in apartment living, and to those whose frailties demand nursing and personal care. College Corners prides itself on being a five star facility, which means excellence of facilities, excellence in personal care, as well as excellent dining. A well ordered and well-trained staff keeps the apartments clean and comfortable. Visiting clergy and nurses guarantee special attention to those little quirks and weaknesses that old flesh is heir to. College Corners residents are arthritic and neuropathic. They suffer all sorts of heart and breathing disorders, and most of them see doctors on a regular basis. They are also quite energetic and attach to lots of groups and activities which keep them busy and happy. It is also true that they enjoy a rich social life within the facilities. Many of them still read books, attend concerts, go to special events in the city, and some still go on long and arduous vacation trips. The residents of College Corners are a diverse, cosmopolitan community.

The style of architecture of College Corners is classical Middle English. There is a lot of stained wood and Ohio rubble used in the construction of the buildings. The roof lines are fairly steep in pitch with chimneys for fire places showing in the over-all shape. One can easily imagine he is living in romantic England in the eighteenth century rather than in College Corners in the twenty first century. There are long expanses of lawns around with lots of cement walkways to make it easy for residents to walk and exercise. Shrubbery is inserted around the whole expanse of the sizeable buildings giving the ground line a lovely silhouette of irregular bushes which take the edge off the ever-circling ground meeting the solid stones of the walls.

Inside the suggestion of an English motif in decoration continues with the heavily wooded paneled walls as chair rail and wall paper above. The hall ceilings are high, and the upper walls have classical, floral, and abstract art objects. There are all sorts of meeting rooms with lovely fire places which gave an ambience of hospitality in timelessness.

The dining room is spacious and cheerful. Windows line all the outer walls giving light and brilliance through most of the year In the winter months, the vast landscape of snow greet the diners as they take their well planned and seasoned foods in a lovely semi-darkness.

There is a nice exercise room for the residents to insure they will continue to enjoy the bounties of the residence. There are planned group exercise times and a lot of the residents benefit from the effort. All sorts of board games are planned and played. A rather nice and spacious library holds volumes of classic and timely books for recreational and research reading. There is a pastoral care person who leavens the community atmosphere with the notion that there is a transcendence presence in College Corners.

Although College Corners is populated with many religious people, there are those of Roman, Protestant, and Orthodox representatives of the Holy Catholic Church. College Corners maintains its purely ecumenical character. No symbols or artifacts pertaining to special groups are seen in rooms or hall ways. Jews are present in the residential make up, and race is no barrier to entrance. It is only a token thing to mention that Jonathan appreciates the diversity which College Corners provides. He thrives in that atmosphere.

Some of the residents know they are bound to College Corners, because it is the place that gives their needs the best service possible. Life elsewhere has become too demanding. Having lost mates and mobility, a lot of them find it easier to move where service is available rather than trying to acquire help by their own efforts. They need refuge for fragile bodies and aching bones. They need domestic help and healthy diets which would be difficult for them to provide on their own. Moreover, they have advantages in being around other people of similar situations. They develop social and religious support groups, which abound in College Corners.

Jonathan wanted to remain independent for awhile longer. However, he realized that in the consideration of them as a couple when they turned eighty eight, the nearly ideal place as they pondered their needs for the next few years was College Corners. The village provides Greta an in-house touch with lots of other people. In the same building are all sorts of social contact and recreational opportunities. There is an exercise room director and a visiting nurse. There are card games, knitting groups, dance lessons, and book reading. The community provides Jonathan a quiet place with more time to pursue a recently acquired interest in writing. Often times in the past Jonathan dreamed of becoming a literary person. It never developed until a few years ago when Jonathan decided not to be an active minister any longer. He decided to take up the pen. He felt the pull for starting a new life interest.

One of the things Jonathan wanted to investigate was why the present generation of adult children think their aged parents ought to be in retirement villages, rather than develop support systems of visiting helpers by which their parents can remain independent for a longer time. He is also interested in how social contacts developed in places like College Corners. He wonders how newcomers can find entry points among the old time residents who already have their support systems established. It is true that there are no long term inhabitants in places like College Corners. Residents are dying with families needing community support in their grief. Could management promote a social atmosphere where anyone can feel free to associate with everyone else knowing all the while that residence is conditionally short? He thinks there is a way.

There is always some kind of pecking order in a community. He has learned that to be true in the church and in any kind of association where people seek companionship and a sense of belonging. He and his wife Greta know how strong it is in the church, where most of the more obviously notable offices are filled with those who are the most visible and often the most gifted and most ambitious.

Jonathan and his family owned and enjoyed a cabin for more than a quarter of a century. They found a pecking order vested in those denizens of the lake who issued the social invitations and those who received them. Those on top of the pecking orders said, Come and see us. Those who were lower on the list always said, We will come. It took a long time before any Johnny come lately could say, Come and see us. Some of the more dominating social types represented more than one generation on the lake.

Of course there are always those who want to foster a pecking order where they are the recognized leaders, but at College Corners, if there is a pecking order, it is so subtle as to remain largely unnoticed. The residents are mostly happy in their daily associations. Being an old man, Jonathan wonders, now that all his ministerial disciplines have been removed, whether he can fashion for himself a life satisfied with not much to do, or whether he can find energy and interest to develop a kind of life-ending fulfillment. It never occurred to him that he could ever live a life of indolence. He always finds something to occupy his talents and his attention. Barring that he has a plan to wind up his life in other ways.

Jonathan had a dramatic experience with one of his parishioners years ago. His charge was ninety six years old, and in her younger days she had been an amateur golf champion in her country club. She had been busy and did her share of good things for the advancement of her fellow humans. Then she became old and spacey. She lived alone, but her living could at best been deemed a survival activity. But still she managed.

One day Nettie left a burner on her kitchen range on all night long, and her daughters decided that was the stopper. It was time for action. They packed Nettie’s personal things and took off for places far away. Nettie was terribly confused, and she never showed any interest in anything ever again. Jonathan had wondered on that occasion, "Why could Nettie not be left at home with a bit of home service people help? What was wrong with the idea of finding some old person dead at home? It was obvious to Jonathan that Nettie was not a good candidate for a nursing home. Was the solution that Nettie’s daughters made the best one for all concerned? Jonathan was never sure. He certainly would not consider that a good solution for himself. He was convinced that retirement places were not perfect answers for the aging process. He wondered if after thinking about these things for more than fifty years would anyone give a damn what he thought or how he felt about what had happened to him? He probably would die before anyone would bother to consult him. After all, in College Corners they have professionals to determine these things. Jonathan snorted when he thought about it. Nevertheless, he yielded himself to the process one day. After thinking about Nettie for some time, Jonathan came to the conclusion that her daughters had chosen a retirement place for their own convenience rather than Nettie’s personal happiness. The transition could have been much better.

Jonathan has managed to live most of his life rather independently. As a child and as a youth, he had created an independent existence in his interior. He lived with imaginary playmates. He talked to imaginary friends and sassed imaginary teachers. He was not close to his parents and siblings. He was not close to friends. As a junior in high school, he was elected class president, not because he was known and liked, but because he was a mystery. The class would be challenged to have a mystery, not a person as class president. Besides, Jonathan was nerdy, and he was the only nerd in the class. He could not play basketball or date any girls he wanted. He was elected president of the class because he was a nerd. He had felt that he had come to maturity by not touching life on floor, ceiling or touching either side, but by hurtling through time and space without getting close to anyone, without finding much deep personal feelings of satisfaction in living, and without accumulating anything which would make him any one of note. It took him a long time to grow up.

It had been good for Jonathan to have his war experience. He learned in the war that no one thought about what he was or what he did as very important. In fact, the overwhelming feeling among most GIs was, Will I ever make it home again? Nobody really cared if he was important. A lot of GIs remained neutral about friendships. This experience at best was over quickly. The sense of loss of life or sense of self was not so much, since he hadn’t gained very much life to lose. He was a kind of drifter. He had no record of good living. He was a product of a severe depression which robbed lots of other people of their essential reality. Sad to say, Jonathan was a rather large capacity but of small substance.

However, it was fortunate for Jonathan that at the end of hostilities he had not accrued enough points to qualify for going home early, so he was forced into reassignment. He had been transferred to an anti-aircraft battalion with an active grade of Sergeant Major. As a major non commissioned officer in the battalion, Petri related to lots of commissioned personnel. For the first time in his life, he lived among those who would go home and be leaders in the rebuilding of a world much damaged by a vicious war. It was the first time he had ever began to think of himself as one who had anything much to offer beyond delivering milk bottles from house to house. He was as smart as his commanding officer. He just had not been trained to do anything of note. That would change with the GI Bill of Rights. Jonathan Petri was going to become a man of letters.

His major association during those days was with Pastor Clarence Landover. Landover was a Methodist from the State of Washington who had been led to join the Chaplains Corps because he had for much of his life been lonely. He felt the GIs could use a loving and generous presence in their rather pressured lives as combatants.

Jonathan and Landover had a conversation one day, and Petri asked the padre some questions about the life of a minister. The two became fast friends, and Jonathan became the assistant chaplain in the battalion. For the next year with Landover’s kindness and insights, Jonathan formed a strong commitment to the idea that he would become a Methodist minister after the war.

The chaplain was a round and rosy faced man of much good cheer. He was not an intellectual, but he had great pastoral strengths. He was non-judgmental and easy to talk with. The troops heard his simple homilies of how in time of war and other hard times one can really have a strong sense of the Almighty’s presence.

Jonathan liked Landover. He was a man who had good stories. One of his stories related how his father was a dairyman back in Washington, and in his younger days was a vain and profane man who often swore at his cows. When his father was converted in middle-age, Landover said he had a major turnabout in his behavior. He never again swore. He sang hymns to his cows. They gave more milk, he said. Landover was a simple but devout man, and Jonathan found him a living fountain of good will and wonderful stories. Jonathan learned a great deal.

The trip from Manila to San Francisco was delayed by a returning sick solider aboard the SS Marine Panther. The soldier had somehow become infected by the polio virus and was confined and quarantined on the ship. Well, of course, all on board were quarantined. The captain of the ship radioed the naval base at Honolulu and was informed that he should take the ship immediately to Tokyo and moor the vessel in the harbor while the armed forces would fly an iron lung from the states to Tokyo.

The stay in Tokyo harbor was for ten days, and everyone was frustrated. Imagine being in the harbor of the one of the world’s great cities and unable to go ashore. Daily boatloads of young women circled the stricken ship with flowers and offers of companionship. As the song had it, We were young then.

While moored in the Tokyo Harbor, Jonathan began going to the Episcopal service of Morning Prayer. Chaplain Harry Lovington was the ship’s chaplain, and a lot of the GIs liked his company. He was friendly and engaging and seemed awfully happy rubbing elbows with the troops and kibitzing with them during the day offering an ear if they needed it. He was a different person than Clarence Landover. Whereas Landover was also friendly, he was of a Free Church disposition. He had little use for lots of liturgy and religious services which were not rich in the freedom of speech inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit in lieu of too much written word.

For Harry Lovington, the service was the word. Morning and evening prayer were by the book, of the book, and for the book. Nevertheless, Harry was a great soul, and Jonathan grew to respect him and to appreciate both the Free Church and the settled liturgy usage of the Episcopalians.

One night when the Marine Panther was under way again, after evening prayer, Jonathan mentioned to Father Lovington that he was feeling poorly. He had a deep chest cold. The chaplain replied, Get thee to thy bed Jonathan, and I will bring you a hot toddy.

Jonathan was almost totally unaware of the benefits of wine