My Trip To Grace Lutheran

Grace Luthern Church was the church my Aunt Helen, my dad (her brother) and her two older sisters were raised in. The church was built in 1909, the same year as Helen's birth. As Paster Verkouw mentions in the Video, Aunt Helen was baptized in the church in the beautiful baptismal fount that is as old as Aunt Helen herself.

Grace Lutheran Church was the center of Helen's life for many years before she moved to Bloomington, Indiana to be closer to son John at age 95. She attended church every Sunday and was active there throughout the week. She spoke highly of every minister who graced her life over the years. But Father Verkouw held a special place in her heart. He was there when her husband Jack died and helped make that transition seamless and inspired.

My dad was the youngest in the family. Strangely enough, he barely mentioned Grace Lutheran Church as I was growing up. Dad married a rebel, my mother Kitty Loving, who was wounded by the Roman Catholic Church. My dad figured he wasn't a strong proponent of organized religion in general, so they both became Unitarian Universalists sometime in the 1940's.

My Aunt Mary died when she was 93. She was married to Bishop Earl Honoman, an Episcopalian, whom my mother loved to continuously debate: she was a liberal Democrat, he, a Conservative Republican, and bridge partner of Dwight D. Eisenhower during WW2.

Aunt Helen, Aunt Mary and Frank, my dad, were close in their later years. They'd sit together at every family get together and have cozy discussions about the past, and about the present moment, how the food tasted, and the weather.

Aunt Helen's oldest sister, Dorothy, died in her late 50's from complications of a childhood bout of Rheumatic Fever. She was married to "The Champ," a wonderfully enthusiastic man who was an American Indian. She was the frailest of her 3 siblings, but she managed to hold her own.

Dot and the Champ went to Grace Lutheran Church, too.

Aunt Dot's the one who gave me my violin.

My family spans at least three centuries here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. My siblings left. Even Aunt Helen left. Aunt Mary's son Fred and wife Eleanor, and I are still here.

My dad did the Shenk family genealogy and traced the family back to the mid 1600's. He always said that he could not find the immigrant who made the journey from Germany to America.

Our family roots are Mennonite. Lancaster County is famous for the Amish, but Amish blood does not run in my family.

Mennonites are also a strict anabaptist religion, famous for their stand against war. The Mennonite Central Committee is located here in Lancaster County.

I rarely think of my Mennonite roots, but today, I am reflecting on this. Aunt Helen's parents were not Mennonite, but but her Great-Great Grandparents were. They were farmers and lived out on the rolling hills that Lancaster County is famous for.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The oldest inland city in the United States and the best non-irrigated farmland in the world.

In 1909, when Aunt Helen was born, modern automobiles had been invented by Karl Benz in 1885, and the Oldsmobile was the first mass-produced automobile in 1901, but had not yet reached Lancaster. Aunt Helen's family lived in a house which now is part of Lancaster City but then was the last house bordering farmland. The streets were dirt and horses were the only form of transportation.

Think of everything she has seen in her 100 hears of life. She is witness to a century. She observed more change than any generation in history.

What does she have to say about these changes? What does she attribute to her longevity?

We can learn from a life that has seen these changes. We can learn to simplify our own lives, to be more in synch with the seasons, and more in tune with the beautiful gentle dream surrounding us everywhere in Nature.