Our second year in Chapel Hill was easy compared to the first. The birth of Andrew Martin Howell occurred on July 6,1970 at Duke University Hospital nine months after Katherine’s death. That summer following my graduation we departed for the Washington area where I had landed a job working for a UNC professor who was studying the low income white, working class population in the United States. The three of us settled in Mt Rainier, Maryland, a Washington suburb, in an old house on what I called “Clay Street” in the book I wrote, Hard Living on Clay Street. My job as a “participant observer” was to hang out and get to know people and then write up my experiences. We were still in our self-imposed exile from attending church though as part of my job as a participant observer I attended every church in the community at least once–Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal and Pentecostal. We had lived in the Clay Street community for only a few months when Andrew developed what we thought was a routine eye infection, but when we took him to a pediatrician, she immediately called the hospital and told us to rush him to the emergency room. It turned out to be a serious staph infection. We rushed Andrew to Holy Cross Hospital where he remained in the ICU for three days. The doctors at the hospital threw every antibiotic that they had at him to no avail. Embry and I traded off sitting in the waiting room, waiting for news. On the third day a glum doctor appeared to inform me that things did not look good. Embry was off duty at home resting. I could not believe it. Here we go again, I thought. This would be too much–especially for Embry. The timing was very close to the one year anniversary of Katherine’s death. If situations like this do not get you praying, nothing will.
I decided it was best not to convey this news to Embry and to wait, praying that the anticipated horrific news would not happen. The door to the waiting room opened several hours later. I held my breath and braced for the worst. Two physicians entered, this time smiling. Andrew’s fever had started to subside. He was going to pull through! I phoned Embry with the news. We both cried. And we both offered prayers of thanksgiving.
Now life on the Planet Earth is hard. It is hard for everyone at one time or another and especially hard for people who get dealt tough hands to play–poor parenting, poverty, mental and physical illness. The list is long. We humans slog through life as best we can. And we all die. That is just the way it is, not just for us Homo sapiens but for every living plant and animal on the planet. And how God fits into the picture is not as easy as the UNC chaplain would like people like me to believe.
We returned to Chapel Hill after our year on Clay Street. Embry got a masters in biostatistics and I wrote Hard Living on Clay Street. Then we moved back to the Washington area where we bought our first (and only) house in Cleveland Park, a fabulous neighborhood in DC between the National Zoo and the National Cathedral, where we lived for 42 years. We both were able to get entry level jobs and had fulfilling careers. We could not have been more fortunate. I had several jobs (in real estate research, then the development of affordable and seniors housing) all but one located in Washington’s central business district. I routinely walked to work almost every day. Embry and I bought our first sailboat in 1974, which started me on a passionate life pursuit of sailing–both cruising and racing. I also began the routine of serious running during lunch hours, usually with a guy who has remained a lifelong friend and also a fellow sailor.
Jessica was born four years after Andrew in 1974 (several weeks prematurely but she came through fine). We had a live-in babysitter, a young woman from India, Punam, who stayed with us until our children were well into high school and remains a part of our extended family along with her two now grown daughters and their families. Both our children attended neighborhood schools permitting them to walk to school all the way through high school.
Life was good.
In 1972 when we were starting to look around for churches following our self-imposed exile in the wilderness, we heard about an Episcopal Church which had the reputation of being a leader in progressive thought, action and theology. A dear friend and former classmate at planning school was visiting us at the time and was curious about what Christianity was like. She had been brought up as a secular Jew in an intellectual family which always had a Christmas tree during the holidays. She was curious as to what that all meant. We decided to take her to this church, which we had not attended ourselves, but thought would be a good opportunity also for us to see what it was like. The dynamic former rector had departed a year before, but we assumed that his replacement would probably follow in his footsteps. The church was located at the edge of a low income, Black neighborhood, and the spring morning when we attended was chilly. As we entered the aging building, I noticed that many panes were missing in the stained glass windows causing the temperature inside to be about the same inside as it was outside. There were not that many people present. Not exactly what we had anticipated but sadly probably not that unusual for the times we were in.
The big surprise came in the middle of the sermon, which I had not been paying much attention to. The substitute preacher suddenly stopped in mid sermon and declared that the congregation of no more than 50 or 60 people would now split up into groups and discuss the passage “Man cannot live by bread alone, but only by the very word of God.”
What?
Our friend wanted to see what a typical Christian church service was like, but I had never experienced anything like this.
She had no problem, however, and assumed that this is just what happened in Episcopal church services. Our group included eight or nine people, all middle aged and white, and all with overcoats on and shivering. Embry was assigned to another group. Someone turned to our friend and asked her to start off the discussion. She perked up and jumped right in with an enthusiastic explanation that made absolutely no sense. The other people had puzzled looks on their faces, and then the guy next to me stopped her in a gruff voice proclaiming she did not know what she was talking about and that someone else should speak. Everyone else nodded. Our friend was crestfallen.
I was next. I was embarrassed for our friend. My heart was pounding. This was not the way that typical Episcopal church services were supposed to work.
I gathered myself together and responded with what I felt was the most compelling and most profound explanation of the meaning of Christianity that I had ever expressed. My Union Seminary education had finally paid off. I dug deep. I was authentic. I was compelling. Though I did notice puzzled looks on a few people’s faces as I finished my inspiring remarks, I sat back in the pew with a satisfied smile.
The guy next to me, who had insulted my friend, frowned and replied, “Is that it? Is that what you believe?”
I nodded with confidence.
“Well, if that is what you believe, if that is what you think Christianity is all about, I suggest you join the Democratic Party. There is no place for you in this church or any Christian church. In fact, you are exactly the kind of person we are trying to drum out of here!”
By this time there was no time left for anyone else to speak and the preacher called us back to our seats to finish his incomprehensible sermon.
After the service was over and we walked out of the chilly building, I apologized to our friend for the experience and assured her it was not typical. I was especially sorry for the terrible way she had been treated.
She smiled and replied, “Oh that, don’t worry about that, but did you hear what they said when going to communion, ‘Eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus.’ Oh my God, these people are cannibals!”
It was another couple of years before Embry and I got up the courage to darken the door of another church but eventually found a good one, another Episcopal church, not far away with a charismatic and kind rector who became a good friend and later went on to become the Bishop of California. I think that our primary motivation then was that we now had two young children. We wanted to have them baptized and we could not imagine having them not being exposed to the Christian faith and being part of a warm and loving community. We switched to the National Cathedral several years later when our son sang in the Choir of Men and Boys from the fifth grade all the way through high school; and when he went off to college, we joined our neighborhood church, All Souls Episcopal, where our daughter served as acolyte for several years before she headed off to college.
Both children went to good colleges, and both have made us proud–wonderful spouses, terrific children (boy/girl each) and successful, meaningful careers. As the saying goes, we have been blessed. The neighborhood church was a struggling congregation at the time. Embry had responded to an ad in the Post recruiting choir members. But we have hung in there and have been loyal members through good times and bad since the mid 1980s. I have served on several church vestries and have been a senior warden twice. Embry has always sung in the church choir, served on vestries, and is currently senior warden. You could say we have paid our dues. But that does not mean that we do not struggle with faith and belief as do many people. Afterall, we are mere humans.
In Part 6, the final entry, I describe my “Universalist Episcopal” theology that got me into so much trouble at that chilly church in 1972 and occasionally at other times.