Reister

Loose-Willy Dynamics

I didn’t know, of course, the real reason he wanted me to take a drive with him. How would I have known that he planned to kill me?

He had a loaded revolver with him. We stopped on some rural road and got out of the car – I guess to take a leak, though I don’t really recall. Then we got back into the car and returned to the college. Only later did you tell me about his intent to kill me, or the reason for it. He was in love with the girl at the college who wanted to marry me. I was not interested in her – not as a potential spouse, at any rate. She was a very nice person who would, I think, have made someone an excellent wife. But she was too conventional for me.

Why he decided not to kill me after all, I don’t know. Probably he didn’t know either.

Maybe he read an omen in the cloud formations. Maybe he realized it wasn’t worth destroying his whole life just to get the satisfaction. He, apparently, had his own inner “loose Willie’s” with all the unpredictability of Loose-Willy-dynamics. I could have been dead. It gives me a strange feeling to think of all the things that would not have happened had he followed through with his original intention.

Terry was short and a bit plump. Reminded me of Humpty Dumpty and Alice in Wonderland. He was definitely egg shaped – and a bit pompous.

Terry dressed in suit with a colorful vest, and he smoked a pipe. He had a collection of pipes of all shapes and sizes. His favorite was one that was shaped like Sherlock Holmes is portrayed as smoking. I didn’t much like his choice of tobacco.

Terry was the student pastor at Mountaintop Christian church – a very rural church a mile or so off the Skyline Drive – which wound it’s way through the mountain tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In order to get to the church we took a “shortcut” to the top of the mountain. This involved a road that went up the side of a steep slope using a series of hairpin curves. It was a gravel road barely more than a single line. Had we slid off this road I think very little would have stopped us from careening down the mountainside to our deaths.

I was assigned to be his assistant pastor. I had no real functions except to admire his work and be friendly to the people. I liked the simple and rugged mountain people who lived in the community the church served, so it was easy to be friendly with them. And Terry was an intelligent man with a flair for drama – so I did admire his work. His theology was even more progressive than mine. He didn’t believe in God, but believed in the teachings of Jesus. He told me this, but obviously would not have shared it with members of his church.

His talent for drama and storytelling expressed itself both in spellbinding sermons and occasional dramatic presentations. I remember one in which he had the church act out a Easter drama using a full sized cross that was dragged down the central aisle. Like many people skilled in drama, he had a narcissistic streak that made him reluctant to share the limelight with anyone. I’m not sure how well I would have performed anyhow. I was very conflicted about the possibility of being a minister. I did feel a calling of sorts to provide ordinary people with spiritual options that were compatible with a scientific (but not scientistic) worldview.

Eventually I got my own church. I was a student pastor to another rural Virginia church – but not one in the mountains. I conducted only a few services there a when I became involved in the “sit-in” to protest against racial segregation.

I assumed that the church people would not want a person who went against the mainstream public opinion on race issues, so I didn’t try to hook up with them again. (This was very irresponsible of me. I should have at least made some contact with them to nail down what was going to happen.)

To my surprise the elders of the church wrote me a letter saying that they wanted me to continue being their minister. I decided I was just too conflicted about the whole idea of coming a minister. (I remained so for my whole life.) But these people from that small rural church taught me to important lessons:

1.) Don’t assume you know what people are thinking and feeling without getting that information directly from them.

2.) Don’t underestimate people just because they are not well-educated.

I was very touched by their reaching out to me and sorry that I did not respond earlier in a more mature way.