Barry Moser: I Knew I was Home, Part 1

Guest post by Barry Moser

The following post is adapted from a talk given at the 2014 Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Ten years ago, Greg Wolfe asked me to teach drawing out here at Glen West. I was an admirer of Image journal but I nevertheless looked into the Glen West workshops before accepting the invitation. And while I found nothing remotely off-putting, I was, nevertheless, shall I say, hesitant.

I spent the better part of three years as a fundamentalist Methodist preacher—licensed, not ordained—while I was in college. I was a resolute Biblical inerrantist when it came to the Bible (King James, of course), and I was certain that I was right, by God, and anybody who did not believe the way I did was gonna suffer in the eternal fires of Hell.

That juggernaut was going along well enough when a girl in my youth group got pregnant.

And you know what happened?

That entire church community turned their collective back on her and her boyfriend. The only place those two youngsters were welcome was in my Sunday school class, and even then some of their classmates boycotted.

Not long after, I was dismissed from my position of Assistant Minister and Youth Director.

The pastor, a good Christian man, did nothing to deflate a growing rumor which implied that I was the father of the child.

Nor did he, or any members of the church hierarchy, do anything to quell the growing imputation among the good parishioners that her getting knocked up must have happened on my watch at a summer youth retreat out in the woods of Prentice Cooper State Park, and was, therefore, my fault. Never mind that counting to nine backwards came up wrong by a few months, and that she admitted freely that her boyfriend was the daddy of her baby, and later married him—though I don’t believe, in that church.

That started the ball of my apostasy rolling.

But the reaction by the Hixson community to that young girl’s pregnancy, and the apartheid mentality of most of the racist church-goers that I knew and preached to, impugned my respect for the organized Church for all time to come.

So the last thing I wanted to do when I was invited here ten years ago was to be trapped on a small college campus in the middle of the high desert with a bunch of Jesus freaks who want nothing more than to save my apostate and reprobate soul from the fiery pits of bottomless perdition.

But Greg had invited the poet Paul Mariani, and Mariani had accepted the invitation. I knew that because Paul is one of my closest friends. We talk regularly. Paul, a devout Catholic, assured me that this would not be a proselytizing affair, and even if it were, I would have him to hide behind if things got sticky.

So I accepted Greg’s invitation to teach life drawing at the 2004 Glen West.

Simply put, the week went wonderfully well.

On the last evening there was a concert in this very room by a group called Over the Rhine.

I’d never heard of them and assumed they were going to perform some kind of up-beat, corny, and sappy Jesus-loves-me Christian tunes.

Paul and I arrived early. The only other person in the room was this drop-dead, good-looking blond woman playing a big concert grand piano down here at this end of the hall. And I tell you—as a life-long connoisseur of classical music, especially the piano—she was playing it stunningly well.

So I look at Paul. Paul looks at me. And we amble on down, all casual-like, to the front row and sit not five feet from her as she continued to play without noticing us.

Then out from the windows over there, comes this tall, good-looking guy in a western-style shirt. He walks over, leans down, and whispers something to her. She stopped playing, got up, and started walking away with him.

I wanted to kick his lanky ass, but instead I whimpered to her, “Where’re you going?”

She said, “I’ll be back.”

And indeed she was.

The Great Hall was full. Lanky guy was now at the piano. The blond was at the microphone. Then she wound up and belted out this song that began:

Will a man called Jesus ever take me in his arms?
I lack grace and I lack charm.
This is cause for no alarm,
if a man called Jesus ever takes me in his arms.

Friends, I knew I was home. For sure and for certain.

And, as it is said, the rest is history. Karin Berquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine and I have been in constant contact for ten years.

We’ve shared tears of joy and grief over the deaths of our old dogs and the advents of good young pups and older adoptees.

We’ve been on hand for each other through surgeries and illnesses—both minor and major.

We laugh and cry together.

And bless their sweet, crooked hearts, they traveled half way across the country in 2010 to help celebrate my seventieth birthday.

The friendship that we—my wife, Emily, and I and Karin and Linford—have is one of many gifts resulting from my accepting Greg Wolfe’s invitation ten years ago.

To be continued tomorrow.

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Barry Moser is an artist, engraver, illustrator, essayist, typographer, and educator. His work can be found in numerous collections and libraries around the world, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vatican Library, and the Israel Museum. His books of engraved illustrations include the King James Bible, Moby-Dick, and The Divine Comedy.

Art by Barry Moser.