Father’s Day/40^th Anniversary Renewal of Vows June 21^st, 2009 “Think On These Things” Reverend Michael D. Powell Philippians 4:4-9

            I mostly preach the lectionary, but the assigned text for this morning was Jesus calming the storm.  I seriously thought about how I could tie that into Anni and I celebrating our 40th anniversary, but wisdom prevailed and I asked Anni what her favorite scripture was.  She said Philippians 4, which admonishes us to lay down our worries, cast all our cares on God, and to set our minds on the things that are honorable, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise.  Our mind is always thinking, but we do have a choice in what we think about.  In Philippians 4 we are encouraged to think on these things, and the God of peace will be with us.

            It’s also Father’s Day, and I became a father at the age of 17.  No, not a biological father, that wouldn’t happen until I was 35 years old, but in 1963 I became president of my local MYF group, and one of the kids referred to our youth group as a family, with me as the daddy.  I liked that.  It was an idealized image of spiritual leadership that has inspired me throughout my ministry.  Both Anni and I were MYFers.  In the early and mid 60’s Methodist Youth Fellowship groups were strong and vital, the center of teen age life for Christian kids.  My most powerful spiritual experiences and memories are of camps like Loon Lake, Magruder, Suttle Lake and the Old Leewood camp that has become the Alton L. Collins retreat center.  One of the first clues that I would become a pastor came when I was a freshman in high school.  My local church held a speech contest and I won, talking about the bright sparks of a Magruder campfire rising up through the darkness to heaven. 

            Anni’s life was likewise centered in her faith.  When her dad had been the pastor in Coos Bay he was instrumental in acquiring the land that became our Loon Lake camp.  Anni and I met each other at Loon Lake, the summer between our 8th grade and freshman year.  I threw her in the lake and the rest, as they say, is history. 

            Although Anni and I grew up on opposite sides of town, we always kept track of each other after that summer.  MYF groups and summer camps kept bringing us together.  Those were the days of the beatniks, and one year at Magruder Anni dressed all in black and did a dramatic reading that was soft, mystical and esoteric.  It sucked you in with its quiet intensity, so that everyone was leaning forward to hear, and then she ended it abruptly by letting out a blood curdling scream.  Man, I was hooked!  Not only was she beautiful and spiritual, she was a mystical beatnik, everything I ever dreamed about.  I think every other girl I ever dated was in some half conscious way compared to Anni. She was my ideal. 

            But the sixties being what they were, we drifted apart and went our separate ways.  Beatniks morphed into hippies, and I quit college to go to San Francisco, like a moth being drawn to a flame.  Little did I know at the time that God had me even then by the scruff of the neck.  John Wesley talks about prevenient grace, how God is watching over us, searching after us, guiding and protecting us, even when we’re not aware of it.  I ended up at Glide Memorial, a large downtown Methodist church on the edge of the notorious Tenderloin district, known as the “Meat rack.” Glide was heavily involved in a street ministry to the gay community, and I became a street worker.  One night I was sitting with my supervisor in a gay coffee house, called “Hospitality House.”  There, with drag queens, prostitutes and transvestites dancing around us, we sat and talked about Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. He was from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, doing an intern year with Glide and at the end of the evening he said, “You ought to go to seminary, and you ought to go to my seminary, in New York.” 

            A few months later I was back in Portland, visiting with an old girlfriend that I’d met at that same Loon Lake Methodist camp where I met Anni, and she casually said, “Did you know that Anni was back in town?”  I hadn’t known it, but when I’d gone to San Francisco, Anni had gone to New York, and later to Alaska.  I’m afraid I was rude to my old girlfriend.  I left immediately and drove to downtown Portland to where she’d told me Anni was living.  I hadn’t seen her in years and had no idea of the changes she’d gone through.  I found her flat, a second story walk up in a dingy apartment building that was the forerunner of what we’d call a Crack House today.  Nobody was home, but on her door, in tiny script, was her name, “anni,” all in small lower case letters.  I fell in love with her handwriting.  I climbed out on the fire escape and leaned over to look in her apartment window and all I could see was a woven God’s eye hanging over the table.  I fell in love with her God’s eye!

            It was snowing that night and I hung out for about an hour on the corner near her apartment.  I was tossing snowballs under the streetlight when I saw her walking up the sidewalk, all bundled up and carrying a bag of groceries.  I walked toward her and, in my best Big Bopper voice I said, “Baby, I think I love you.”  I scared her half to death.  She’d never seen me with a beard before and turned abruptly and half ran up the steps, when I called out, “Anni, it’s me!”  And, again, the rest is history.  Obviously we got together, and this time we stayed together.  I knew I wanted to see her again, so I took her kazoo.  A few days later I got a postcard, in that same wonderful, tiny, lowercase handwriting.  All it said was, “You stole my kazoo.” 

            That summer I moved to Portland and, on the back of a parked motorcycle outside the pawn shop, I gave her a ring and we moved in together.  In a spiritual sense, today is actually our 41st anniversary.  I worked for the Greater Portland Council of Churches that summer, supervising a small group of street workers in ministry to runaway kids.  Anni was friends with a paraplegic named Art Honeyman, and I hired him as one of my street workers.

            We were married on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice of 1969, right here in Salem at First UMC. Anni’s father walked her down the aisle then, as he liked to describe it, jumped over the communion rail and officiated. Anni made the candles herself, and we shared in communion.  We had strawberry shortcake and passed out polished rocks at the reception.  I cried at my own wedding.  Partly it was just the emotion of the event, but it didn’t help that Anni misspoke on her vows, saying that she’d love me “whether we were wealthy or rich!”  Anni, we are fundamentally rich!

            I did go to Union Theological Seminary, and Anni and I moved to New York City.  We did an intern year in southwest Georgia1971, living and working “across the tracks,” on the Black side of town where, in those days, white folks just didn’t go. 

            There are a thousand stories I could tell about our forty years together, but that’s for another time.  The real point is our spiritual connection and how we’ve grown together.  When we first got together Anni was already a nature mystic, but she was orderly, disciplined, the one who kept us on track.  I was the spontaneous, open ended one and it used to drive her crazy.  Now, after forty years, we’ve each grown and changed.  I’ve become more disciplined and orderly and Anni has relaxed into a more spontaneous, open ended approach to life.  I’ve gotta tell you, sometimes it drives me crazy!

            Through it all, we have been a team, and our life purpose has always been to serve our God and our church.  For years we led weeklong backpacks into the Sawtooth Mountains with junior high kids.  Anni has always worked with youth groups and done music.  I’ve focused on preaching and camp ministry. 

            Anni’s faith and devotional practice has always been an inspiration to me.  She has the kind of gentle and sensitive, sincere personality that causes folks to love her.  Our esteemed District Superintendent, Kate, who is known to occasionally lapse into hyperbole, used to tell people that I was the spiritual center of the universe.  But that’s changed lately.  As she’s gotten to know Anni better she now introduces me by saying, “This is Michael, he’s married to God.”

            As many of you know, Anni is a gift giver.  And, without a doubt, the greatest gift she has ever given me is the gift of Fatherhood.  I talked in my last sermon about how when I was a glass blower I continually worked to create the perfect chalice, a vessel of God’s Spirit.  On May 27th of 1981, Anni and I created the perfect Chalice together.  We baptized Chalice with a circle of friends gathered around a tide pool on the Oregon coast.  I held her up and gave her to God, and God has blessed and anointed her. 

            When Chalice fell in love with Shawn, who is a very, very good man, we knew that God was still guiding, still protecting, still blessing.  And now, together, Chalice and Shawn have given Anni and me the greatest gift they could ever give, in the beautiful person of our grandson, Morgan.  When they stood in front of this congregation, Morgan in arms, and sang together, “Lucky to be in love with my best friend,” well, as Anni always says, “It just doesn’t get any better than this.” 

            If there is anything true, honorable, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise, think on these things, and the God of peace will be with you.  We are blessed.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.