The Bungee Cord 5-16-22

The Bungee Cord 5-16-22

Hello,

I was driving on Interstate 80 to Davenport, Iowa to help my folks who now need a higher level of care in the nursing home that is now their home, when I came upon a later model SUV with “Just Married” written on their back window. When I saw it, it brought to mind the brown Plymouth Horizon that Kate and I were in on August 8, 1981 with the same writing on our back window on our way to our honeymoon in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It has been quite a ride that Kate and I have had over these nearly 41 years. It began with all of our earthly possessions involved in a fire in Rochester, Minnesota while we went off to get married in Pennsylvania. During the following years in our life in St. Paul we took our first steps in our vocations: me a pastor, Kate a physical therapist. We bought our first home, a yellow stucco house and began to fill it and our lives with our first two children. We tried having a dog, Shadrach, an Irish Setter that loved to wander off, and whom we would have to retrieve from some nice person who he had visited. As it turned out, two kids and a roaming dog did not work well together, so we gave him back to the person who bred him

As Kate’s parents were getting older, we decided we needed to move east, and so we did. Toledo, Ohio became our home. My church was in an inner city neighborhood and that led to a steep learning curve about dealing with people who have lost hope and also any purpose in life. Naïve and foolish at first, skeptical of peoples’ stories and much more streetwise by the time I left. Our youngest son was born there, and we took on a dog…a mutt, ”Newton”, who was a far better companion that Shadrach. It was there that I learned that people who see no value in their own lives, also see no value in other people’s lives. Shootings. Assaults. Protecting turf.

From there, we made our way to a small town in Ohio, Arlington. The first summer there, my youngest son and I went to the community pool on our bikes, and when we got there we were surprised that no one locked their bikes, but even more surprised to find out that after we swam our bikes were still there! It was a town where everybody knew each other and high school basketball and football games were the center of life. I was a member of the volunteer fire department, and a movie was even made about me (“Unstoppable”). I learned all about pigs, sheep and cows at the yearly county fair, and I began the practice of waving at cars that drove by the church on Sunday mornings. Waving is a vital part of small time life.

Next we moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota which is the final stop of civilization in the Northern Plains. The horizon is long and wide in the Dakotas, and winter is a mighty warrior. I worked in a very large downtown church, and then in two churches that stood among the cornfields and cattle. It is free range in South Dakota, so it wasn’t a rare sight to see a heard of cattle coming at you down the country roads. I got to see the struggles of the Native Americans who had several large reservations in the state. Of the problems that America deals with, the plight of the native Americans is certainly one of the most sever. We added Duncan, a Gordon Setter to our family, and I bought my first Mini Cooper to tool around in. While there, all three of my sons went to college, and when we left our family was down to Kate, Me and the dog.

Thankful to Kate for following me around for 30 years, I told her it was time for us to go where she wanted to live, so back to the curvy roads and colorful ridges of Pennsylvania we went. We undertook the adventure of building a house out in the country, an adventure that I discovered I knew little about. But we’ve lived here 10 years, and I have to say that I have gotten used to the elbow room of country living. My kids all live away from us: Denver, Charlotte, and Brooklyn. I had to put my dog Duncan down, a victim of cancer, but we got another Gordon Setter, McMahon, who makes sure life isn’t boring. In the last year, my first grandchild was born, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, one of Kate’s brothers died, my dad has been tackled by Alzheimer’s, and my mom has become a shell of who she used to be.

I plan to retire in August, and people ask me, “What are you going to do?” My primary answer is, “I don’t know.” And although I think I’ll be continuing to play Pickleball several times a week, walk my nine holes of golf for exercise, and occasionally preach when pastors take vacation, I am not sure what the main plan is for the rest of my life.

But as I sit here, many miles past those first miles in a car with a “Just Married” sign on it, I find myself saying the prayer that I said so many years ago, in that brown Plymouth Horizon, “Lord God, you call your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that you hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN” (Lutheran Book of Worship)

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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