San Francisco and The Jesus People – III

Ralph and Shirley Manners were in their 60’s. Shirley was a large woman with a smile that would brighten just about anyone’s day and a laugh that could light up the city. She radiated exuberance. Ralph was shorter than Shirley, easy going, always dressed neatly, and, as is often the case with couples, was much quieter than his outgoing spouse.

I took to Ralph and Shirley as soon as I met them, spending time in their home and being treated like a family member. 

One weekend they asked if I wanted to visit Ralph’s mother, who lived in Oakland. Of course I did, so off we went.

“Momma" was in her advanced 80’s and lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a living room and eat-in kitchen. During the day we discovered that Momma had clothes that needed washing, so we put her laundry in a two-wheeled shopping cart, the kind folks used to use to wheel groceries home, and we headed off to the laundry mat, Ralph, Shirley, Mamma, and me.

I guess we must have been a sight in that Oakland neighborhood. Racial tensions were high in those days with the Black Panthers marching in front of the Oakland Courthouse (I saw them on another visit to Oakland) and here were three elderly black folks with a young white guy hauling laundry down the street.

Before we knew it the day had turned to night and we decided to stay with Momma and head home the next day. When the question of night clothes was raised Momma had the answer – old fashioned white sleeping robes, the kind with a hole for you to slip your head through and two slits for your arms. So Ralph, Shirley, and Bob each got a white sleeping robe for the night. We would have fit right in with a baptismal service.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast in our robes around the kitchen table, and then we got our Bibles out and read the book of Esther. Yep, we were still in our robes. Read the entire book we did, enjoyed the drama, enjoyed God’s goodness to Esther and Mordecai and all the Jewish folk, and enjoyed God’s goodness to us around the table.

I felt like an honored guest wearing Momma’s robe, no, actually I didn’t, I felt like family, I felt like loved and accepted family. Do you remember what I said in my last post about Pastor Radford singing The Love of God and It Is Well With My Soul, how I said no one could sing those songs like he could? Well, that’s the way I feel about the book of Esther and Momma, and Shirley, and Ralph; I’ll never read the book of Esther the way I read it with those fine people – I experienced the book of Esther that morning, I experienced the book because I experienced the love of God flowing through three elderly black folks to a young white man.

You might recall a few posts ago that I wrote about the gift of a can of fruit cocktail, and how that was one of the greatest gifts I ever received. Well, that robe of Momma’s was the finest piece of clothes I ever put on – I’ve never worn anything finer…and I doubt that anyone else has either.

The Scriptures tell us that a day will come when we’ll have white robes; when that day comes I’ll be looking for Ralph and Shirley, and of course for Momma.  

San Francisco and the Jesus People – II

The Anchor Rescue Mission was an outreach  to the homeless and down-and-outers, many of whom had drinking and drug problems. It was operated by Sister Josephine and her friend, Sister Yvonne. Then there was Pastor Redford, and Ralph and Shirley Manners. All of these folks were black, which I only mention in order for you to better visualize them.

Pastor Redford was around 5’10”, medium build, about 50 years old, with a chiseled face, not the kind that exhibits hardness, but rather one that lets you know the person has experienced life. His eyes were eyes that you probably didn’t want to look at if you were lying, those eyes were not only the window of Pastor Redford’s soul, they were taking the vital signs of your soul.

The pastor’s voice had a deep resonance and I loved listening to him. He could also sing, and when he sang “The Love of God,” …well, I’ve never heard anyone sing that song the way Pastor Redford could sing it. I can still hear him on the refrain:

Oh love of God, how rich and pure, how measureless and strong, it shall forever more endure, the saints and angels song.

On my last night at the Anchor Rescue Mission Pastor Redford asked me what song I’d like him to sing, my request was, “It Is Well With My Soul.” There again, I’ve never heard anyone sing that hymn like Pastor Redford – oh the range his voice had, he’d take you down into a cavern in which you were enveloped with reverberating bass notes, and then lift you higher than the clouds – you just didn’t want it to end.

Speaking of hymns, every evening at the worship service there would be a hymn request time. One of the regulars, Johnny, made the same request at least once a week, sometimes more frequently, it was “Yield Not To Temptation.”

Now I suppose Johnny had seen his share of temptation, and my guess is that he knew what it was to yield to temptation, but he kept requesting that song, week after week. He had a way of running his words together when requesting that particular hymn; he’d raise himself about halfway up from his chair, slightly bent over, and you’d hear, “Yieldnottatemptatshun”. Then he’d sit down and Sister Yvonne, who played the piano, and Pastor Redford, would be ready to lead us all in Johnny’s request.

I imagine an onlooker might be cynical about Johnny and his request, here’s a drinker asking for this song week after week. But I think there is a lot to be said about not giving up hope, about acknowledging our frailties, and just maybe that song gave some other folks there some hope too.

There is a line in the hymn, “dark passions subdue.” It takes a real man, or a real woman, to acknowledge that he or she has the capacity for dark passions. Johnny wasn’t putting on airs, he was just laying it out there. Of course today the idea of temptation is relegated to giving in and eating too much chocolate, we aren’t tempted to sin anymore because there isn’t anything called sin – everything has a diagnosis and we are no longer responsible for our actions. We live in a therapeutic society in which we all just want to feel good.  I don’t think Johnny was interested in feeling good, he was interested in getting out of the hell he was in. Johnny was looking for hope, and maybe every time he sang those words, with all of us around him, maybe just for the three verses of that hymn, Johnny could see beyond his search for the next drink and see the light of Christ shining into his heart.

I grew to like that hymn, and on my last night at the mission I was hoping that Johnny would request it, and he didn’t disappoint me.

Here’s the chorus of Johnny’s hymn:

Ask the Savior to help you. Comfort, strengthen, and keep you. He is willing to aid you. He will carry you through.

Not a bad piece of advice – thanks Johnny.

San Francisco and the Jesus People - I

A while back I was talking with a parishioner and mentioned the Jesus People, he didn’t have a clue to what I was referring. If you don’t either I’d suggest you Google “San Francisco Jesus People” either now or later and get some background. If you do read about the Jesus People in San Francisco chances are the names David Hoyt and Kent Philpott will come up.

Much like Miguel Diaz and George Will, David and Kent had an early influence on me. About a year ago I chatted with Kent on the phone after some email exchanges, and later I had a snail mail (yes – they still do happen!) exchange with David Hoyt – in both cases it had been over 40 years since I had contact with them. I believe that David is working on a book about his Jesus People days and if it comes out I look forward to reading it.

If you do Google about the Jesus People you’ll find more info about David and Kent than I could share on a blog, but I do want to share about my time with them, especially David, and about my time with other great people in San Francisco.

I suppose you could say that I had three spheres of relationships in San Francisco, the Jesus People, the black church community, and the hippie/revolutionary movement. Yep – no typos here. For a time I lived in Haight-Asbury (and again, if you don’t know about Haight-Asbury and the hippie movement go ahead and look it up). I also lived with David Hoyt at the Anchor Rescue Mission, and I can’t recall where it was, though it definitely served a different clientele than would be found in Haight-Asbury.

Now I need to adopt something here that I am a bit uncomfortable with, but I see no way around it – other than David and Kent I’m going to have to supply names for people whose names I can’t remember. If I do remember an actual name I’ll point that out, otherwise I’m afraid that I’ll be supplying names as I go along – I think you’d get tired of reading about “Mrs. so-and-so whose name I can’t remember.” Fair enough? Thanks.

The Spanish-speaking community of New York City taught me hospitality, a love for missions, and a love for those in need. The Jesus People introduced me to the functioning Body of Christ. Up until my encounter with The Jesus People my paradigm of church was traditional, the preacher/pastor did the work and everyone else basically watched. My idea of “ministry” was individualistic, ministry centered on the preacher/pastor, and these preacher/pastors were focused on developing their ministries – as opposed to developing people. (By this time I had probably read Watchman Nee’s The Normal Christian Church Life, now I think republished under another title, but I must not have understood it. Nor must I have understood Bonheoffer's discussion of community in The Cost of Discipleship. What we see is so much more powerful than what we read – I guess I needed to actually “see” a functioning body before I could relate to writings about a functioning body.

If you’ve never seen a VW micro-bus with Jesus- People art painted all over it, rolling down the highway with the driver and inhabitants singing Jesus songs, you’ve missed a sweet part of both Americana and church history. Some folks might want to celebrate Woodstock, I’ll celebrate The Jesus People. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad testimony – to have people call you Jesus People.

“…and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.”      Acts 11:26