I’ve written before about “Ma,” my grandmother, and how close we were when I was growing up. In later years, when she and I discussed our church, she usually worked in a reference to the way things used to be, often mentioning the pastor in the context.
As I think back, I seem to remember that whenever she did this, her voice took on a quieter, softer, wistful quality. Is it memory or imagination that I mentally picture her looking away from me and off into the distance whenever she talked about him? In those growing-up years I paid little attention to such things.
I’ve also written before about how one of the pastor’s sons, Walter (who later died as a member of the World War II Monuments Men), who was my father’s closest boyhood friend, and how they had to part when Walter’s father accepted a calling to a far away church in Perry, Oklahoma.
Now why in the world would anyone want to leave the beautiful and green Pacific Northwest to move to a small town in eastern Oklahoma. Perry’s only claim to fame is as the birthplace of Will Rogers. One reason for the move may have been that Perry was where he had served before he accepted the call to Tacoma’s church, so he was familiar with it, and likely would be welcomed back.
Somewhere along the line I remembered something — a common practice among churches of all faiths that I can think of — that if the pastor is suspected of having a romantic relationship with one of the flock he was usually offered two choices: He had to resign the ministry if he chose to stay in the community, or he could accept a calling to a place as far away as possible from the original temptation. Perry, Oklahoma, sure fits that latter condition all right.
But not my grandmother, for goodness sakes! Not Ma! Grandmothers aren’t supposed to have affairs, they’re supposed to bake cookies, crochet doilies and make coffee at the Ladies Aid meetings. Grandparents aren’t allowed to, as Shakespeare’s Othello put it, “Have loved, not wisely, but too well.”
The temptation was likely there, though; the two families were quite close. My grandfather, Chris, was a successful contractor and large contributor to the church. The two families met frequently. And, it’s not unheard of for a member of a congregation to fall in love with the pastor. Henry Kissinger once said, “The greatest aphrodisiac is power,” and he should know; he was seldom seen in public without a lovely and famous woman on his arm.
Now then, if you simply replace that word “power” with “authority,” you can understand what the attraction is, what almost every pastor has to deal with at one point or another in his or her career. Most resist and rise above it. A few don’t. I wonder if seminaries have a course dealing with just such situations, or if it’s something that church leaders don’t even want to discuss. They certainly should.
I remember a local rumor years ago that was spread about just such a scenario. I’m not going to mention anything more, but, if true, it certainly displayed an unchristian attitude for any parishioner to take. True rumor or not, he moved.
Here’s another fact which may mean nothing, but it’s certainly curious. My grandfather died first, and my grandmother is not buried next to him, nor was there room for her name to be placed later on his headstone.
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Bill Moeller is a former entertainer, mayor, bookstore owner, city council member, paratrooper and pilot living in Centralia. He can be reached at bookmaven321@comcast.net.
