Wonder Clearing

Prologue

Requiem Mass

Light from an early new day pierced through the cracks of the venetian blinds. From the pillow to my left came the definite melody of my wife’s voice. Unmistakably she spoke my formal given name Robert. When Julia called me Robert, it meant one of two things. Either I had disappointed and provoked her or she was softly emotional about me, us, or a situation.

Julia had argued vehemently with me just before we went to bed. She remembered too well the pain of just three years ago. That had been far more than a disagreement between clergy. It had been a downright hostile, misunderstanding fueled by jealousy. Julia had taken the lead in defusing the religious atom bomb set to destroy my friend Al and me. But there were still important people in the Diocese who were not pleased at all with the outcome of that supposedly salacious situation.

When she called my name, I looked at her concerned face and her pleading eyes. The anger and upset were gone. While I did not want others calling me Bobby, that name had been a loving pet name spoken in privacy romantically and often seductively by Julia. Robert had been spoken with concern and care. When she changed to Bobby her words of concern for me felt protective like a young child might feel in the comfort of his mother’s arms.

After we made our way from the bedroom to the kitchen, she continued expressing her concern for me. She embraced me. Her hands caressed my back. Her breasts were tight to my chest. Somehow in that embrace and our kiss, she spoke both passion and compassion. Beautiful in body and character Julia was my soulmate. We had been married for nearly forty years. She was privy to my most personal secrets. She even knew about my almost fifty year relationship with Al. Julia did not want me to go by myself into a possibly hostile environment. Resolutely I absolutely insisted on going alone.

So here I was sitting in a pew of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, Pa. Just three years ago I had met my friend Al at his Archdiocesan office. Al was by then Monsignor Alfonso Basilone. We had taken that brief walk from his office to the Cathedral. When we entered the sanctuary, silent wonder came upon me. The vaulted ceiling seemed almost to reach the heavens. In this vast space, I was rapt with an indescribable sense of smallness.

Until two years ago Al had served as the Director of Social ministries. The Cardinal had finally agreed to let him follow his heart to a mission church in Philadelphia. Just two weeks ago I had met Al at that church. Today his cold lifeless body lay in that pall covered basket of death. Cardinal Knepp was celebrating the Mass—Al’s Requiem Mass. Once more I found myself overwhelmed. But this time it was not the vaulted ceilings and the huge space that awed me. The single pall covered casket before the altar clothed me thinly with a disturbing, fearful sense of smallness and loneliness.

Long ago Al and I had together experienced a wonder, a marvel. We could never be the same. We were changed and somehow bonded. That bond for us meant that our calling was about more than living our personal creeds. It was a boyhood call to be in awe at the mystery of the God of many names. It was a summons to stand resolutely against hate and misunderstanding. Monsignor Alfonso Basilone had answered that summons both with his life and with his death.

There is an eerie sense of strangeness today at the Basilica. Only distantly do I hear the Cardinal intoning the words of the Mass. My mind has entered the twilight of daydream. I am somewhere between now and long-ago yesterdays. I am remembering every moment of my times with Alfonso.

Those moments were some of the most precious in my life. Our meetings were often clandestine—too short but filled with strong emotion and closeness. As the casket had moved up the aisle, I remembered a promise that we had made to each other. The one who survived was to tell the story—the story of the sometimes tormented, often troubled, but finally faithful journey of two people one to become a Methodist minister, the other a Catholic cleric.

Looking back others may ask the reason we kept our secret for so long. It was a secret known only by us and a few others. Those few others held our secret in the confidentiality of the confessional and for me in the sacred trust of marriage. Our reasons for keeping our secret were both personal and religious, both individual and political.

Our story would certainly reveal early reasons for secrecy: religious bias and animosity. From our teen years on our friendship was no secret. That in itself in our town and later in our adult life was problematic enough. Very carefully we preserved the secret of how and why we were friends. What we knew seemed just too precious to risk revelation.

When the casket had been blessed with Holy Water, my mind had come temporarily back to the Cathedral. But in a split second, my mind saw my boyhood friend Al, drenched in dirty water and covered with mud. Then I knew. Telling the story would resurrect memories. I would be able once again to walk in memory through our well–hiked trails; I would be able to relive both our raging arguments and our intense sense of oneness.

We did not harmonize our well learned doctrines and firmly held precepts. But we had together experienced epiphany—an epiphany that happened when we were only twelve years old. Through all our years, that sudden and unexpected experience of wonder and mystery would influence our personal lives, our relationship, and our ministries.

1

Hooded White Gown

Al and I grew up in Steepleton. Steepleton is a small town tucked into a valley in the hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania. In the young years of our lives about four thousand people lived in Steepleton. As I learned one day in my Grandmother’s attic, Steepleton belonged more in heart and attitude to the Alabama of the old South than to the Pennsylvania of the 1950 ’s.

Earlier I wrote that my name is Robert. In my college years I began introducing myself as Rob. My last name is Berger. I have a strong Germanic heritage. But on that rainy day when Grandma allowed me to root in the boxes and chests in her attic, I learned more about allegiances to segregation and anti–Catholicism than about my strong Evangelical German tradition.

Grandma died when I was sixteen years old. In my growing up years she was the one person I could count on. By the time I was eleven, Grandma and I had formed an allegiance of respect and admiration. Despite my continuing boyhood problems, she was the only adult in my life who seemed completely sold on me.

That spring day was particularly dismal and stormy. I was to stay at Grandma’s house all day while Mother worked at the hospital and Dad was at his school for a teacher’s in–service day. If the rain had stopped, I would likely never have hunted for treasure farther than the first few boxes in front of that old wooden travel chest. The chest was way back under the eaves of the roof well hidden behind large stacks of old boxes.

In her high heels Grandma was five feet five inches tall. She would fondly look up at me and say: Bobby, you are an eleven year old in a sixteen year old’s body. I stood head and shoulders above the other boys of my age. In six months’ time I had added six inches to my height and thirty pounds to my heft. I was large but not obese. I was six feet tall and weighed one hundred and ninety pounds. My father remembered similar growth spurts when he was my age.

The problem was that with my growth spurts dexterity and grace did not keep pace. I loved playing baseball with the other boys. But I had a tough time hitting, throwing, and for that matter catching the ball. So I was often the last one picked for pick up baseball games.

With my growth spurts, I ate more and was in constant motion more. Mother was a nurse. That did not make her more patient with my perpetual activity. My father was a high school English teacher. He studied psychology in college. But to him I was a fast moving enigma.

To be fair to my parents, they faced a lot of challenges in raising my sister and me. Dad, Theodore or Ted Berger, was ten years older than my mother, Helen. Mother was thirty when they married. I was born two years later. My sister came just two years after that.

Molly was born with Down syndrome. My parents had been told by the doctor when Molly was born that she belonged in an institution. My mother in her training had toured a large facility for children who were intellectually disabled. She wanted no part of warehousing for her child.

My parents did develop a plan to deal with my constant activity, my constant getting into things, upsetting things, disturbing my sister and them. The plan was simple. It did not come out of one of Dad’s psychology books or Mother’s nursing classes. It came out of their sheer need to survive. When they would be at work or just simply for a time out for them, they sent me to Grandma’s house. Molly, of course, usually went along with me.

Grandma did not have a lot of formal schooling. She had stopped school when she was fifteen to help her mother with the other children and to work on the family farm. Her main education was from the school of hard knocks. Her father was more than a typical stern German Vater. He harshly enforced absolute immediate obedience from every one of the eleven children and his wife. At the least instigation and without one he would use whatever was near, whip, harness, stick, or pitch fork to punish his children.

One day he almost killed his four year old son. My grandmother, his oldest daughter, called for an ambulance and the police. By the time they arrived at the farm, her brother was unconscious and bleeding profusely. There was an unwritten rule in those hills of rural Pennsylvania; the man of the house was in charge. The rule had a footnote: physical discipline of children and wives was not only permitted but also necessary. The unconscious boy bleeding from head, arms, and legs vetoed the unwritten rule. Her father was arrested. Several months after the boy was injured, my great Grandpa Huber suffered a stroke in prison and died.

Obviously I did not learn about my great grandfather until many years later. But what I did know as a child was that my boyish antics and constant movement seemed very little challenge to my Grandmother. She had dealt with far greater challenges in her youth.

So, on that very rainy day in the spring time just before my twelfth birthday, Grandma decided I was worth more than boxes emptied and contents scattered on her attic floor. All morning I worked on messing up her attic. But even after lunch the rain was pouring from the skies. So, at her bidding, I went back to work on her attic.

Midway through the afternoon I found that old antique travel chest. I pried the lid open with my pocket knife. The first thing I found was pure white material. It was a robe with a hood. At first I thought years ago Grandma had made a ghost outfit for Halloween for one of her children. That is when I noticed an old cigar box in the chest. When I opened it, I saw yellowed newspaper clippings and what looked like old religious tracts.

About forty–five minutes later I heard the attic steps creak. Grandma had been baking. While cookies baked, she had also been reading to Molly. She had become alarmed when she no longer heard me rummaging through her things. She found me on the attic floor absolutely still and staring at tracts and news clippings.

There was a tract against the Roman Catholic Church. The tract said that Catholics were not loyal to America but only to the Pope. Furthermore the tract concluded that the Pope was the Anti–Christ. I had an idea what anti–Christ meant but I did not know at all what the tract author meant by the whore of Babylon. I did know that it was not a compliment to the Catholic Church.

Long before Grandma’s hurried steps came toward me, I had read other tracts against Italian immigrants and people of color. I had viewed with horror news clippings of lynchings in the South of blacks and Italian immigrants. Brought back to the moment by my Grandmother’s close footsteps I looked up from the clippings, the tracts, and the gown into the deeply troubled face of my Grandmother. With her soft gentle voice she simply said: I made chocolate chip cookies. Then she turned to go and added: Come get them while they are warm!

It was over milk and chocolate chip cookies that I learned more about my heritage and my town. Grandpa had owned the town’s hardware store. Grandpa suddenly died from a massive heart attack when I was nine years old. I remember the long lines of people who gathered at the funeral home and at the church to pay honor to his memory. Many spoke of their debt—emotional and monetary—to Grandpa Wagner. The minister’s eulogy spoke of his faithful walk with the Lord.

Grandma wanted me to remember that Grandpa. She knew that even young children like me knew of the KKK for its lynchings and hate speech. But she also knew that the Ku Klux Klan had been more than that. She calmly told me that prominent clergy and lay people had invited Grandpa to join the KKK.

Not many people of the Evangelical Church were invited. Even the KKK looked down on the German speaking holy rollers of Grandpa’s church. But Grandfather was a prominent and respected merchant. He had a strong work ethic. They were sure that he would agree with their tenets.

They shared with him their concerns. The communists and the Catholic Church threatened freedom and prosperity in America. People of color were undisciplined and violent. The community must be protected.

After about my tenth cookie, Grandma looked into my eyes and said: Long before you were born Grandpa learned from those news accounts that the KKK was more than the upstanding organization that he hoped it was. One day he came home from work, took his robe from the closet and put it into that old chest with the tracts and clippings. He took the chest to the attic and never again attended any of the Klan’s meetings.

She looked at me with her tender now teary eyes. Grandpa, she said, went to the altar rail the next Sunday morning knelt and prayed and prayed. He cried and cried. He repented for being part of such a hate filled group of people.

After Grandma’s private talk with me, I started to spend time at the local library on Saturdays to find out more about discrimination and prejudice in Steepleton. Innately I knew that I could not ask the librarian for assistance. She certainly did take notice of me. Both the librarian and others in the library were not a little bothered by the sound of my shoe rhythmically tapping the floor incessantly.

She rushed silently over to me. She pointed to my foot. In a very small voice almost without sound, she said: Please be quiet. I did find some revealing news articles and letters to the editor from the Steepleton Daily. I copied excerpts from what I read. The articles were caustic and derogatory of people of other races, nationalities, and creeds.

When I had a chance in history class in my senior year in high school to write a research paper, I knew my topic exactly. The History of Segregation and Discrimination in Steepleton landed with a thud on my teacher’s desk. Mr. Benson was not just any history teacher. He taught history with zeal from the perspective of what he thought should have been. Years later I realized that what he taught was really coded speech for siding with the South on issues of school segregation and separation of the races.

My parents were invited to the school for a parent teacher conference. Years later my father told me that he confronted Mr. Benson about fairness. Dad told him: Grade Bobby on his research and how he wrote the paper—not on his conclusions. My experience with Mr. Benson did not end happily. He did not see the D he gave me for my paper as anything but deserved. After the debacle with Mr. Benson and for as long as I lived in Steepleton, I was careful about what I said. While living there, I never again publicly wrote about my town.

That research paper did do something for me. It confirmed all that my Grandma had said and more. As late as 1800 a number of leading men of Steepleton proudly owned slaves. They had vociferously objected to their State’s 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Just before the Civil War, it was a politician from Steepleton who introduced unsuccessfully a Bill for Pennsylvania to join the South in Secession from the Union. The KKK had indeed been very active in and around Steepleton in the 1930’s and 1940’s and remained active right up to the day I wrote that paper in the fall of 1961.

Still in my growing up years, the Chamber of Commerce and town