IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

No one knows for sure what kind of fish swallowed Jonah, it must have been a whopper. He had a distinct aversion for the Ninevites verging on hatred and racism. When God called him to go and proclaim a message of repentance to the Nivevites he took the first public transportation the opposite direction and thought that was the end of it. God’s sense of humor is only rivaled by God’s sovereignty. Though a series of adventures culminating in his expulsion from public transportation, he landed in the belly of a fish and was regurgitated on the outskirts of Nineveh. He must have made a spectacular sight. Bleached like Clorox, whiter than white. Half decomposed strings of skin falling off of his extremities, fish odor and God only knows what other kinds of fish smells. It must have resembled a Norwegian/Swedish Holiday Party with lutefisk and Grog. God gave him a clear message to walk the entire length of the city calling the Ninevites to turn from their sinful ways and embrace the hope of the one true God. Jonah was less than enthusiastic, but with all that he had gone through the last few weeks, he went ahead and obeyed, not expecting, nor particularly wanting much of a positive response. God’s compassions go so far beyond our capacity to love or care. Here were hundreds of thousands of people who didn’t know their left hand from their right and God loved them in spite of it, maybe because of it.

Of course Jonah goes out and sits under a tree and pouts because of his tremendous success as an evangelist. Frederick Buechner notes that “envy is the overwhelming desire to have everyone else as unsuccessful as you are.” God doesn’t seem to condemn Jonah for his callousness of heart. It’s hard to overcome generations of prejudice and begin to see people as God sees them. Now it’s time for Jonah to repent and it was the greater miracle to change that one heart than the thousands of Ninevite hearts.

I have latent prejudices towards cities. It was here, beginning in 7th grade that my father left our ancestral home and went to work for Boeing Aircraft Company. He vowed to come home every weekend to visit us, but one weekend turned into two and then three. One a month was good enough over the winter months when the roads were dangerous between Seattle and Wapato. The money was essential and my parents seemed to get along better apart than together at that stage of their lives. They drifted apart and created friendships and support groups and mutual interests that didn’t include one another. It was inevitable that it would put a fatal strain on their relationship and they just drifted apart. It was a prolonged and nasty divorce. Both sides trying to gain the allegiance of the 11 living children any way they could. Kriss and I and our children were caught in the middle since we had moved Mom back from Vancouver, BC where she had also attended Regent College, quite successfully.

By this time the Wapato Community Presbyterian Church was phasing out of one pastoral relationship and seeking a permanent ordained/installed pastor. The Presbytery of Central WA took me under care as a Licentiate, which category no longer exists, and so I was able to fill the pulpit, administer the sacraments, moderate the session and even qualify to accept the position as ordained/installed pastor with 2/3 vote of the Presbytery after having finished a Master of Divinity Degree from an accredited institution. We moved out of the Blue House on the Ranch and moved into the parsonage belonging to the church in Wapato. I continued teaching French at Yakima Valley Community College and also took German on the side. Hanna had been such a compliant and perfect baby that we thought we had the parenting thing pretty much figured out! What a miscalculation that is on the part of any parent. Each child is wholly unique unto themselves and you have to start from scratch and just know that you have no idea what is going to be in each of their best interests. I guess that’s how God has to deal with each of us, as well. I learned how to be a pastor during those two years in Wapato, the best and the worst of it. We took a mission team to Southeast Alaska for three weeks and saw many lives changed mostly those in our group. Amos was born August 6, 1977 and six weeks later we arrived at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. How little did we know that we would have been followed by one of the most renowned Serial Killers in the history of American criminal annals.

PASADENA, CA, FALL OF 1977

Fuller Theological Seminary took great pride in considering itself the Princeton Theological Seminary of the West Coast. It wasn’t, except in expenses and a self-inflated set of its own California mystique. Having already received two advanced Theological degrees from truly world class international theologians, I was in no way intimidated when they paraded “super-star” Southern California Mega Church Pastors in front of us as if to say: “ this is what you could become, with our guidance and training.” Horse-pucky. Who would want to be chauffeured around in a luxury automobile to avoid having to drive yourself on the freeway system? You would be amazed how many of those mega-stars went down in flames of public disgrace and humiliation. Jesus calls us to a life of servant hood, not rock star status. I wrote scathing critiques to the professors, but not a single response from any of them. Their Assistants did all the reading of papers and the professors were too busy going out to lunch with the superstars and their Hollywood clientele. It was a valuable lesson to learn in idolatry both within and without the church. In Canada, you could enroll full time as a student and take as many classes as time allowed. At FTS, they nickel and dimed you out of every credit you took and after registering the first day, I had to go home and tell Kriss that all our money was practically gone and only God knew how we could survive the next 9 months. Pollution was at its worst in early September, the kids were not adapting well to their environment and Kriss began to develop a series of bouts with strep-throat that would plague her the rest of the year. And then Anthony Bono showed up on the streets of Pasadena.