ALONGSIDE LAKE GUNTERSVILLE

At this writing I am ensconced in a comfortable little cabin alongside beautiful Lake Guntersville in North Alabama. The Redstone Arsenal, where they make the spaceships for Glenn and Carpenter, is only 25 miles away. The thousands of acres of waters that run through these many hills, which from an airplane must look like spilled blue ink upon a carpet of green, is part of the TVA system. The Guntersville dam, one of a dozen or so, is just around the bend from our cabin.

This is the first real vacation I have ever given my family. The four of us enjoy swimming, boating, hiking, picnicking, sunbathing, and even skiing. The last activity is presently, however, restricted to me. The others make gallant efforts to ride the waves, but have not succeeded as yet. Phoebe takes to water like a duck, and if she had her way, which is often the case, she’d be in the lake all the time. Little Benjy has had his third birthday while we are here; he too likes the water so long as he can hold to a firm hand.

Let’s call this a working vacation. Along with writing an issue of Restoration Review, I have been in a study and gospel meeting at Grassy congregation near Arab. My many friends in these parts are of long standing. I started 14 years ago in Christian work in Marshall county, and I suppose I have had 20 different assignments since then, including upward of a dozen tent meetings in all corners of the county. The beloved G. A. Dunn introduced me to this area. Some of the experiences through the years have been stormy, including some rather lively debates with ministers of several persuasions. I once had my life threatened, but we’ll not go into that.

This part of the South is not only close to my heart because of the experiences I have had here, including the cherished memories of immersing scores of believers in these warm waters of Lake Guntersville and ponds all over the county, but also because my dear old Dad had experiences here when he was a boy. I remember him telling me how he once shot a panther on nearby Sand Mountain. For years a picture of that mountain hung on a wall in my parents’ home with an arrow penciled in by my father, marking the place where the panther fell dead. My paternal grandmother was from these parts. She was a Berry, and I notice that the Berrys are as thick as the berries in these old hills. So, you see, I am kin to these folk!

I have of course done some changing (or growing?) in these 14 years, which the good Lord knows was needed. Many people think I still have a lot of changing to do, or else just crawl off somewhere and die, and they might be right. Some of my friends have become more liberal along with me; many have not. Congregations where I once held meetings will not now even announce my services elsewhere. One brother asked the leaders of his congregation to announce my study at Grassy, explaining that “Brother Garrett brought Christ to my family, so maybe he can do the same for someone else.” But the request could not be granted. I no longer belong to the party. We get a few indirect solicitations when the preachers will tell their members not to attend. One visiting evangelist at a nearby rural congregation where I have conducted meetings has for years been unduly sensitive about Leroy Garrett. Years ago I thought he was going to whip me, and I do mean literally, because of my opposition to our clerical system. My years as an editor has added to his list of grievances against me. He was a disturbed man over my being in the same county with him. Our mutual friends tell me that his temper was so violent even in the pulpit, partly because I was in the neighborhood, that they cannot afford to have him again even if he is orthodox.

One Lord’s day at Grassy a visiting minister with an obscure background, whom I had neither met nor heard of, shared the platform with me as one of the speakers. After two hours of joyous Christian fellowship with all who had gathered to worship the King, the brother remarked to an old friend of mine, “Well, I’d never heard anything good about that man. . . “ Then added, “Why, I had heard he was a digressive!” My friend took him to mean that things were not quite the way he had been told.

Needless to say that Grassy is marked as a digressive church. Though they still have loyal, orthodox ministers from time to time, they are nonetheless apostate from the faith for having digressives like me. But God has blessed them with a gracious, sweet Christian spirit due to their search for truth and freedom. They will listen to anyone. It is one of the few churches I know where anyone can speak so long as he is decent, and I think they are not too particular about their standard of decency!

Well, life is a joyful experience. My world extends all the way from the university classroom, faculty meetings, and educational conferences to the editor’s desk, the farmer’s humble home, and the country church. I thank God for every hour of it.

As for my brethren, some of whom are old friends, who do not understand me and who feel they must oppose my work, I no longer think of this as a problem. It once bothered me, but not so any longer. I see it as St. Francis once prayed: “Lord, help me to realize that it is more important to love than to be loved, and more important to understand than to be understood.”

BACK TO TEXAS!

In June of this year I moved my family back to our native state after an absence of five years. It was with reluctance that I resigned my position at Bethany College to accept a post at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, for the experiences we were all having at Bethany were so very enriching. Bethany will always be a kind of shrine to me, for many great and good men who have lived there were fearless to move boldly into the world of religious ideas. It has always been a very small village, but some of the things that have happened there are as vast as the universe itself. While it is among the smallest of the thousands of (West) Virginia, it nestled and nurtured the Restoration Movement, which to my mind is the greatest thing that ever happened to our beloved country.

I must admit that it is difficult for me to stay away from Bethany. So many worthwhile things have transpired there, it seems that many more should be in the offing. Surely Bethany College is “a gem” among the small colleges of America. It has been an honor to have shared in its great history. I hope the very best for President Gresham and his fine faculty, and I especially appreciate the fact that the president is doing his best to make Bethany a college for all the heirs of the Restoration Movement rather than one particular segment. The college will always stand in the lengthened shadows of Alexander Campbell, and for that reason alone we should all be interested in its welfare.

Texas is of course home. Denton is a university city of 30,000 citizens and 12,000 students and is located on the fringe of the Dallas-Ft. Worth complex. We are happy to be back once more with our families and many friends. At T. W. U. I will be in business as usual, teaching philosophy to many of the 3,000 beautiful women that grace that spacious campus. Part of my assignment will be to lecture on psychological and philosophical principles to 300 student nurses. We will spend the year studying the question What Is Man? And all that without a man in sight except the professor! Maybe something important will happen.

I will also for the sixth year conduct a pilot course in high school philosophy under the sponsorship of Lilly Endowment and MacMurray College. Denton High School, one of the finest in the state, is the new home for this experimental project.

We are at home in a wonderful little city at 1201 Windsor Dr., not far from the T. W. U. campus. Y’all come!