My recollection of Dallas Willard

On May 8, 2013 a very fine man, theologian and prolific writer, died. Scholar and professor emeritus at UCLA, I met Dr. Dallas Willard in Chicago a few years ago.

The group I was with, a senior leadership group from a church, were at Trinity International Seminary for a leadership conference. We had struggled to put together a purpose statement for our congregation in Ohio and had taken the trip to Chicago to let that work mull around in our heads and simmer into a great stew.

In our self-elevated status of big-time church leaders, we were still uncertain that we had nailed down the purpose of this particular church. Because of our insecurity on the one hand and great confidence on the other, we decided we should ask Dr. Willard, who was a presenter at the conference, to meet with us and get his reaction to our work.

Somehow I was appointed spokesperson to go find Dr. Willard and ask him to meet with us.

Around lunch time on one of the conference days I saw him making his way across campus. I waited for him on the cafeteria steps. He came closer to the building, not hurried, seeming to be in conversation, or in deep listening mode, to an unseen friend.  As he came to the steps of the cafeteria doors I addressed him, "Dr. Willard?" not wanting to interrupt his thought process.

He looked up at me with great expectation and a smile, like I was the very person in all the people on the whole earth, that he was waiting to visit with. I asked him to meet with our staff and he said he looked forward to that the next day. So easy.

The next day I was surprised at the level of expectation that abounded within the staff. The very respected, educated, sought after theologian, whose writings were looked forward to with great expectation in the Christian world, was coming to meet with us. US! Like we were real people. Well, we all felt like we had arrived...somewhere...and were pretty proud of ourselves for having scored an interview with the great doctor.

And so, after breakfast the next day,  our senior guy laid out our purpose statement for the church and the rationale behind it to Dr. Willard, who asked that we call him Dallas. Our guy was eloquent but, I could tell, nervous. 

After the short presentation, we waited in hushed expectation for Dr. Willard to react. Would he help us tweak the statement? Add something to it? Tell us we really should start fresh? After a few moments of silent reflection Dr. Willard looked at each of us and said, "I think you've got it." Nothing more.

Here's the life lessons I took away from this encounter:
-the really great person will not have to justify his/her greatness by telling you what you need to change.
-the really humble person will not have to elevate him/herself by words upon words.
-the really memorable person will be the one who gently comes into your life and leaves a wisp of a trail when he/she leaves.
-the really extraordinary person will make you feel like you are special, worthy and competent.

I want to be like Dr. Willard. Not dead, of course, but a person who leaves positive footprints on the hearts of those I encounter. And that's what I think about it.

At the YMCA - including my new pet peeve

Three years ago our health insurance provided for free membership at most local fitness spots. I chose the YMCA because it was near-by and I liked what they stood for. And I didn't think I would be bombarded at every turn by skinny women and muscular men clad in the latest in workout clothes. And that is how it happened that I became a member.

The first year I went probably 20 times total starting with the grand tour and quick description and usage of the machines. I walked a little but got discouraged when lapped on the indoor track by an 80-year old using a walker.

My insurance was not impressed although they tried to put a positive spin on my visits to the Y by texting me, "Way to go. Here it is August and you've worked out 12 times. They never asked, nor did I volunteer, whether I worked out or, as it mostly turned out, sat in the lobby drinking the free coffee commiserating with sweaty folks about how good this was doing us.

Now we are in the fourth month of year three. 

I can't even give you a reasonable explanation of why the following has happened, however, I have been to the Y already this year a total of 75 times. Yes, you read that right. I'm sure the health insurer thinks I'm sharing the membership card with several fit friends but if they knew me they would know I am not that generous. All these visits are mine.

It started at Christmas when, for some totally still unknown and bizarre reason, I asked my husband for a personal trainer for a gift. Not one that would live with us, but one that would meet with me regularly and plan a personalized program just for me. My gift's name is Laura.

After getting started with Laura, I enrolled in a swim class that meets three times a week. So I would go to the Y, work out Ala Laura and then work out in the pool.  That's what I was doing just before sitting down to write this blog.

Now to my pet peeve.

The machines at the YMCA get a lot of use, have a lot of turn-over. In the space of an hour, ten or more people could cycle through on one machine. That's why we are provided with hand towels. That is why there are bottles of spray disinfectant attached to nearly every other machine. We are to spray down the machines after each use.

But alas, some of those bottles of disinfectant are as full at the end of the day as they were at the beginning.

Why, you ask?

Because some people think 1) their mothers will follow them around cleaning up after them, 2) because they are staff or personal trainers they are exempt, 3) because they are not very sweaty they are exempt, 4) because they are just to darn important to mess with cleaning up after themselves and the Y should be grateful for their membership money, 5) no one told them, 6) no one demonstrated, 7) everyone knows their sweat is not full of germs like everyone else's and the list could go on.

The Y is one of the dirtiest places I go to voluntarily, and that includes some restaurants I frequent, but don't get me started.

And so I have had email conversations with Y personnel. They agreed it is a problem. They promised prompt action. I'll let you know the end of this story. In the meantime I will simply act as a mother and spray down the machines before, and after, I use them. I will warn those who start to use a machine if it has not been cleaned. I will clean off machines that I am not using if I see they have been abandoned germy.

And that's what I think about it. 

Painesville, Ohio...and my life there

After grade school, about which I wrote in my last posting, I attended Riverside High School. This stately school educated grades 7-12. We were carefully separated by grade so the seventh graders were not exposed to the more mature, and therefore worldly, juniors and seniors. I spent six years in this building.

The football field was in the back and every Friday night I either marched with the band on the field here or boarded the band bus for away games. Band buses have a reputation all their own. Within the band, each section of the band has its own reputation. The percussionists, or drummers, were the bad boys of the group. the woodwinds were the goody-goodies.

A few miles to the east nestled the village of Perry, Ohio. That's where my mother grew up and my grand parents lived until their deaths. In this house. I remember the front walk being longer and the side yard wider filled with hollyhocks and flowering bushes. In the back my grandfather had a stump with two nails hammered into it about an inch apart. One axe blow and we were well on our way to chicken dinner.

Beyond the back yard on either side of a pathway were chicken coops, one for the hens and the other for...well, I don't remember what the second one was for. It had chickens in it too but we only got the eggs from the coop on the left. Perhaps those chickens in the right side coop were dinner in the making.

Beyond the coops was the corn field and beyond that the railroad tracks that marked the boundary of my grand parents' land.

Grandpa Means was Mayor of Perry, Ohio for as long as I could remember growing up but in reality only for nine years. It seems no one would run against him in which case he would have gladly given up the post to farm and write poetry. When he wasn't mayor he was a village councilman. His weekly column for the local paper consisted of one of his poems. He liked Edgar Guest and Will Rogers, Jr. who never met a man he didn't like. I think my grandfather might have been like that as long as you were in the same political party as he was. Here is the first verse of his poem titled Perry Village:

Just a quiet little village
Beside the railroad track,
Just a quiet little village
That has what cities lack.
A friendly peaceful village
With pleasant shady streets,
Where any time from morn till night
Friendly people you will meet. 

Down the dirt lane from my grand parents' grave site is my parents'. My sister and I were surprised to see a marker placed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars for World War II in front of my father's name for he never served. If memory is correct, after Pearl Harbor in 1941, he tried to enlist. I was two months old. I had three older siblings. Dad worked in a factory that was needed for the war effort. He was rejected for service. I think he must have been very disappointed, more so especially since his brother and three brothers-in-law did serve in various branches of the military.The next summer he was reclassified to an upper grade. Still he sat out the war on the home front.

 












An interesting, to me, sidenote: on the "Notice of Classification" card my dad signed his name, two years after I was born as Laurie John Wilpakka.  I wonder what my real last name was.

These pictures are my attempt to get one shot of my sister, my niece and myself in one frame. Failing miserably, I'll just put them all here and you can kind of squint your eyes together until they all blend into one.

       

Later, after I had moved away, the Federal Government built a nuclear plant in Perry, Ohio. That's when the big bucks rolled in and the school got upgraded and relocated. The locals, including my parents, were somewhat leery about what would happen in a nuclear accident like Three Mile Island. The populous did not want a nuclear plant in their backyard and a hue and cry went up. The government countered in two ways: first, they encouraged locals to tour the nuclear plant, carefully guided by employees of the plant who assured us that they themselves lived, with their families, within a few miles of the plant. The second reassuring thing was that each household was given a specific-to-them evacuation plan. My parents' included the site where they should go immediately upon hearing of an accident at the plant. There they would be picked up and evacuated from the area. It was perfect. Their pick up point was the bowling alley they were already at two or three days a week. We all felt better. 

Why do some of these things that happened so very long ago seem like they happened last year? That's what I'm thinking about.

On the Street Where I Lived

This is the street I grew up on in Painesville Township, Ohio. I'm guessing the road is three miles long from Route 20 to Madison Avenue. I recently had the opportunity to visit my sister who lives in the area and we drove around finding remnants of my youth.

Here is the house about a half mile from Route 20 on Bowhall Road that I grew up in.

The house is painted now. It was plain weathered boards as I remember. One beautiful catalpa and one flowing mulberry tree have been removed from the side yard and the blackberry bushes removed from the other side. Huge eight foot white spirea bushes as well have been dug out and taken away.

The front porch has been enclosed. It used to have a swing on it and front steps that were shaky and held one only if one trod carefully up, or down, one side of the steps. If you look closely you can see the coal chute leading into the basement. Once you've heard the sound of coal being funneled into your basement, it's a sound you can still hear in your ear's memories.

One thing remains the same. The dirt driveway has the same ruts in it that it did so many decades ago, still catching the rain and making puddles to delight the young at heart.

Thanks to modern health regulations I imagine the house now has indoor plumbing and hot and cold running water.

Regularly, trains ran on a track only six houses from ours. Loose window panes gently rattled as trains regularly ran. As kids, we would put pennies on the tracks because we had been told that a penny on a track could derail a train. It never happened, thank goodness, and we had no thoughts about the consequences of our little experiment had it worked.

Beside the track, around some neighborhood houses, was what we called the gravel pit. At the time it was a steep descent into a flat dirt bottom that abutted the tracks. From the gravel pit we could see no houses and could hear nothing of the real world. When a train was heard coming down the track we scrambled to the top of the steep dirt cliff to get out of the way. Of what, we were not sure.

Today the gravel pit has been filled in. When my sister and I drove by the steep dirt cliff was no higher than ten grassy feet, sloping gentle to a grassy plain. Major disappointment.

Across a side street from our house was a cement block garage that my dad and his brother built. It, along with everything I saw that day, is much smaller than I remember.

For six years I went to this school. The flagpole you see in the front became the May Pole every Spring. I remember that only sixth graders could dance the May Pole dance which I did as a sixth grader. Pastel dresses were a must and mine was a pink organza one with tiny white dots. Dancing a May Pole dance requires weaving the streamers in and out until braided ribbons cover the pole. On one pass, I lost my white flat shoe. On the way back around I stepped into it and kept on dancing. Story of my life.

My memories of grade school are very positive. Spelling bee success, vocal music success, winning at jacks during recess, these were good years.  I remember one huge frustration, attempting to make a paper mache giraffe. The paper kept breaking apart. I never finished that project and have stayed away from major art projects since.

There was one not-so-positive time, though, when I got into a fight with another girl on the playground and we both ended up in the Principal's office. He said that if we didn't straighten up and become friends...yes, he said that...he would make us stand in front of the whole school with our arms around each other. With that hanging over us, we became good friends.

Funny what one remembers.  And that's what I think about it.