The Peripatetic Preacher
I know, I know! I should have my head examined. Can’t I read a weather report? Do I never watch the Weather Channel? It is still summer—second week in September, and it remains hot in Phoenix, AZ, as it always is this time of year. Please understand that I know perfectly well that it is hot there now. I was raised in the city after all! From 1953-1964, when I headed to college in Iowa and its delightful snow, I endured 12 Phoenix summers. I even played baseball in those summers, catching (yes, chest protector, mask, and shin guards and all!) in 115 degrees, on occasion even a doubleheader! Believe me, I know the heat of Phoenix. I am always amused when people who do not know what they are talking about reply to the broiling Phoenix anvil by saying, “well, at least it is a dry heat.” If you enjoy thrusting your head into an open oven, Phoenix is the place for you.
Why then am I going now? Could I not wait for a few months until the place becomes tolerable? Well, in a word, no, I cannot. You see, my older brother, Bob, and his wife Pat will be there, and my wife Diana and I have agreed to meet them. It is only about 300 miles from LA, and although there is a fair bit of broiling desert between here and there, the trip is not a long one. But, you may ask, why has this demented brother chosen the summer to visit his two sons, assorted grandchildren, his and my twin younger brothers? There is a fair menagerie of Holberts peopling the valley of the sun, and it is rare for all of us to find ourselves in the same place. But the summer?
On September 11, my brother will be 77 years old. His health is currently quite good, but 77 is 77. His wife has been through a long siege of difficult health challenges, too many to understand and enumerate here. Bob said to me before he and Pat began this long driving journey from their Georgia home that this trip, “could well be the last one they ever take west.” And since they love to head off on a long, long drive, that got my attention; it seemed only the right and proper thing to do to go to Phoenix now. We are going, the temperature be damned; to say that Phoenix is hotter than Hell is fully appropriate!
In this blog some months ago I lauded my brother for the wonderful support and love he gave and continues to give to his ailing wife. I said then and I repeat now that that loving gift of himself was an inspiration to me, the preacher, purveyor of things theological. I have spent much of my preaching ministry speaking of the responsibility to love one another as God has loved us, and in my older brother I have found a living example of what I have talked about. So, yes, I am going to Phoenix in the heat of the summer to see him and his wife and to experience the care he demonstrates, the love he showers on his spouse.
This very morning my wife was chiding me because I have long neglected my two younger brothers, though they live in Phoenix and have for nearly their entire lives. I have on numerous occasions visited Phoenix over the past years, albeit in the cooler months, and have rarely contacted these brothers of mine. Why? Since that sounds cruel and difficult to understand, I should say that I have never been close to these twin brothers. They are six years younger than I, and when I was devouring books, they were playing outside. When I eagerly went off to college, they dragged reluctantly through high school, and could not wait to be finished. As Bob and I pursued PhD’s, they entered the work force, one starting and staying for more than three decades at an auto parts store at a Ford dealership, and the other working at a grocery store and then driving a snack truck. Our lives diverged in multiple ways; they always thought I was “weird,” their favorite adjective to describe me, and I simply could not get my head around their love of trucks and Las Vegas, both of which are not high on my interest list. I did perform the wedding of one of them in a Church of Christ, but neither of them have anything to do with church now.
Could I now learn something important from them? After all, this is a time of deep divisions in our culture, divisions that are echoed in my family. I do not know whether or not they voted for Donald Trump, but it would not surprise me if they did. I would sooner have voted for Attila the Hun than vote for Mr. Trump, so that is another measure of our deeply separate lives. It could well be that if I opened up my elitist mind a bit wider, and if I was able to listen a bit more seriously, I could learn some things from them. I do know it is far easier to talk with Bob, who shares my political leanings, than it is to communicate with Larry and Gary, my younger brothers, who plainly live a far different life than Bob and I do.
Yet, they are husbands and fathers and grandfathers, as are Bob and I. They have joys and sorrows, and hopes and dreams as we do. They share the same parents as we do, though both of our parents are now long deceased. We do have much common ground and that ground can serve all of us as bridges for genuine conversation if I can be open to it.
I readily admit that I am going to the harsh desert of Phoenix to see Bob and Pat, but it may well be that a meeting with Larry and Gary could be as important for me to pursue. God offers me many opportunities to expand my view of the world, and perhaps a fresh encounter with my own younger brothers is one of those opportunities. I will let you know when I have completed my trip. Believe me, I am packing only shorts and light clothing for the journey, but I hope my memories will not simply be of the heat but the conversations the four of us brothers have as we meet, and truly encounter one another, again.
(Two unknown boys)
(Images from Wikimedia Commons)
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