My grandfather on my mother’s side said when I was a young child that I had the makings of a church minister. He probably said that because I was  totally useless on the farm, and I did get good grades at school.

Burr Oak Lutheran Church

My father didn’t have much use for church. He would only go to church on Christmas and Easter, for weddings and funerals. That was it for him. But my mother tried her best to bring us three boys up as upstanding members of her family church in Burr Oak, Wisconsin. On Sunday morning she would try to herd us boys together to get us all to Sunday school. But we were our father’s sons, and we balked at eating breakfast, dressing up for church. Precious time passed. My mother was truly a wonderful woman, but she did tend to get hysterical in impossible situations. By the time she finally got us in the car we would be at least five minutes late even if she drove fast, and she would be screaming and crying.

By the time we finally did make it to the church, we would have to straggle in late to Sunday School classes which had already started. The sons and daughters of the church elders, the church Ladies Auxiliary, and the choir would already be settled in their seats, dressed in their full suit and tie or in proper dresses. Did these regular Sunday School members look at us with disdain or was that just my imagination? Of course, we’d show up in our plastic windbreaker jackets, no tie, and in my case, probably with one or both shoes untied.

Our Sunday school teacher would pause in mid-sentence whatever beneficent lesson she was teaching to allow us late-comers to get seated. She over-compensated for her irritation by treating us too kindly you could tell

Despite all this, some of the religion I got as a child apparently stuck to me as an adult, because several times as an adult I’ve started attending a church only to wind up going erratically or not at all.

Probably the closest I’ve come to becoming a regular church member occurred when I first got married at age 27. My new wife got me to attend her family church in Madison, and surprisingly I was happy to go. Since I can’t sing and am no good doing any of the handy work every church needs, I was rather a useless appendage, but I did attend regularly. I became on speaking terms with all six ministers on the staff of this quite large church. For two and one-half years I attended church regularly, promptly. Then my wife went into the hospital to have our first baby. The baby, a baby girl, was delivered fine, and they sent me off to the baby room with the baby. As I was going back, a nurse came out of the delivery room to tell me that my wife had had an aneurysm of the brain toward the end of the delivery. My wife died less than two days later.

I heard that the minister at our church had put our specific situation in the  sermon that week. He came to visit me several times during those first weeks while I was still numb. He didn’t say much, what can you really say in that situation? But I did develop a true appreciation for ministers who must deal with circumstances like these often.

Many years later now, I’ve reverted back to my usual habit of going to church infrequently or not at all.