Pilgrimage of Joy …

LIFE BEGINS AT 40
W. Carl Ketcherside

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his Journal in 1847: “We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork, now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.” A calendar consists of twelve pages and every four weeks one of them is torn off and wadded up and tossed in the wastebasket. Each of these discarded pages represents a segment of existence, but what has happened to one during its tenure cannot be carelessly discarded seeing that it has been woven into the warp and woof of the pattern of memory by the slamming batten of experience on the loom of life.

Every year that passes accumulates its own assortment of pleasure and pain, of tears and laughter. The ship of life cannot sail for fifty-two weeks in perpetual sunshine. It was that way with 1948 during which I reached my fortieth birthday. The year began as usual with a packed house in Saint Louis on New Year’s Eve. It was a time of spiritual enrichment, of the manifestation of a fellowship so precious that when the stroke of midnight signalled the beginning of a new year ushered in with prayer many were reluctant to leave. We clung to one another as a huddle of strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land. The songs we sung were hymns about a home none of us had ever seen, but the tolling of the bells at midnight told us that we were nearer to it than we had ever been before.

In March I went to California for a meeting of three weeks’ duration in the new meetinghouse at Compton. I took advantage of the opportunity to speak two nights in Oakland where the saints met in the home of George Robinson, which was surrounded by the campus of the great university. I also spent one night each with the saints in Pomona, Riverside, and West Riverside. I was especially anxious to visit the latter place for several reasons. While there were a few others in the little group of brethren, the majority were members of the Stone and Fiscus families. The latter family had worked its way westward from Indiana, but the Stone family migrated from the Missouri Ozarks. They had purchased a small “ranch” which’ was well irrigated and all of the married children erected their homes in a small domain over which the aged father and mother exercised a kind of patriarchal sway. It was always a blessing to be associated with them in their kind of isolated splendor. But I was just as eager to meet the little colony of Armenian refugees, a good many of whom I had baptized on a previous visit.

During World War I the Turks, encouraged by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Armenia due to the Bolshevik Revolution, began a reign of terror in Armenia which shocked the world. Whole cities and villages were literally destroyed. The men were murdered, the women raped, and the houses reduced to smoking ruins and heaps of ashes. Before it was all over 800,000 corpses littered the land, most of them shot down or decapitated with the sword, although many perished from hunger and privation. Some of them froze to death in thickets, their bodies becoming food for wild animals,

Those who finally made their way to Riverside, California, had formerly lived in the village of Boethos, near Musa Dagh (the mount of Moses) and when word reached them of the approach of the Turks they fled to the mountains taking with them only what they could hastily tie into a bundle and carry on their backs. After many days and nights when they held the children close to their bodies to keep them from freezing, their supply of food began to run out and they were forced to become scavengers of the forest, eating bark and roots. When it appeared that all hope was gone and they were composing themselves for death they saw a French ship steaming into the disputed waters and they were rescued. In a frenzy of weeping they threw themselves onto the deck and kissed the planks in gratitude.

For some reason, during my meeting at West Riverside, a number of the Armenians began to attend. Since the older ones could not understand English, those who could asked if I would hold a special meeting with an interpreter for the elderly after the close of the regular meeting each night. Rose Phillian, a devout Christian, stood by my side and interpreted. Soon several of the Armenian families expressed a desire to be baptized, but the greatest joy came when Grandfather and Grandmother Egarian reached the decision. It was these two, now grown old, who had kept the little band together and given them heart when they wanted to take their lives rather than fall into the hands of the Turks.

When the aged patriarch stood before the members ofthe Armenian colony and their friends, I said to Rose, “Ask him if he truly believes that Jesus is the one of whom the prophets spoke, and God’s Son.” In reply he faced his neighbors and spoke at some length in Armenian. I was anxious to know what he was saying, and I can remember the words of the translator as if I had heard them this morning. “He say, I believe Jesus Son of God, that born of virgin, that he die on cross for his sin, and that he buried and raised again third day. He also say Jesus is coming again, and he will see him, and Jesus will take him and he will be with Jesus.” When I led the aged man into the water the interpreter stood close and told him what I said, I think I have never seen before or since such weeping for joy as when all surged forward to embrace the old brother and his companion.

It was a great experience to see the Armenian saints again and to eat shish kebab made of lamb and other ingredients. They went all out with their cuisine and I ate a lot of things I could neither spell nor describe. The one thing that really interested me was to talk with them about their traditions related to Noah’s ark which had landed on a mountain not too far from where they had been born and grew up.

Some interesting things happened at Compton where I baptized twenty persons, one of whom was Robert T. Hartmann. Bob was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times who later became head of the Times bureau in Rome and finally chief of the Washington Bureau. It was here he became acquainted with Senator Gerald Ford from Michigan and when the latter became president of the United States, Bob became his favorite speech writer. He married Roberta Sankey with whose parents I was staying in North Long Beach and I came to know him well.

When I baptized him he agreed to become a writer for Mission Messenger. His articles were both powerful and provocative. The first one titled “The Essence of Faith” appeared in the issue for May 1948. It was followed by such pieces as “Suffer Little Children” and “Words to Live By.” Finally, after eight months of such varied productions it was decided he would do a regular column called “Views of the News.” It began in January 1949 with a story of how Sohn Ryang Won, a Korean Christian, adopted into his family the 24-year-old Communist leader who had slain his two sons. The story went on to tell how Sohn converted the young murderer and his whole family to Christ.

For two years Brother Hartmann furnished an article each month until his promotion and transfer increased his responsibilities. His final article bore the title “Was Peter in Rome?” I got a bang out of his articles. He had not grown up in the background of our party and he wrote what he thought with a kind of fearless disregard for criticism or consequences. He had a kind of journalistic honesty not too characteristic of a lot of the brethren.

Almost a year before I went to Compton, James Lovell, editor of West Coast Christian wrote me that, in spite of our differences he thought I would be glad to see him at one of my meetings. We engaged in a brief period of correspondence and discussed some areas of divergency. Neither of us conceded an inch, but it was all in good humor. There was no way of making him angry. When J arrived in Southern California I called him and invited him to visit my meeting and he countered by asking me to a top level conference at Pepperdine College. J invited J. B. Ruth, one of the elders, to accompany me. When we arrived at the Administration Building we met with Hugh Tiner, the president; Ralph Wilburn of the Bible Department; Wade Ruby of the English Department; Dean Pullias and Jimmie Lovell.

In spite of the criticism I had leveled at the school and its policies, our meeting was conducted with proper decorum. I think George Pepperdine would have approved of the nature of our confrontation. We were reared in the same partisan background and I knew him when he went to Denver from Parsons, Kansas, where I preached for several years with members of his family always in the audience.

I suggested that, in the interest of better relationships, Brother Lovell print three articles in his paper presenting my point of view, while I would present the same number of articles written by one of the faculty members in Mission Messenger. It was agreed this would be a good thing but it never came to pass. Instead, a shake-up occurred, and before too long the president, dean and head of the Bible Department were all gone. Ralph G. Wilburn, who was probably the only real theologian in the group, in the classical sense, went with the Disciples of Christ, where he began teaching at Lexington Theological Seminary. He was selected as a member of the Panel of Scholars which contributed to the restructure program of the Disciples, and gravitated to the Department of Higher Education in Chapman College at Orange, California.

On September 5,1948, I began a series of meetings in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, which lasted for two weeks. It was an especially pleasurable experience since most of the members were from Scotland and England and I had visited their home congregations abroad. There were two elders —Adam Bruce from the Slamannan District of Scotland, and William Horrocks from Albert Street congregation in Wigan, England. I stayed with the latter and it was an unforgettable experience. My work opened up a period of endeavors which lasted over a period of several years and resulted in some unique experiences as well as in some outstanding friendships.

One day before I went to Canada I was visited in Saint Louis by the three principal instructors of Midwestern School of Evangelism, located in Ottumwa, Iowa. Donald G. Hunt, Burton W. Barber and James McMorrow drove all the way to deliver to me a personal challenge to debate Burton Barber on the subject of instrumental music at the school. I felt no particular inclination to take time out from a busy life for such a discussion but they were insistent. Hershel Ottwell accompanied me to Ottumwa, and we debated at the school on the nights of October 11, 12, 13. On the final night, after the discussion ended, the five of us met in an upper room and prayed that God would overcome our differences and use even our mistakes to His glory. The debate had been serious and pointed, but without a single untoward incident or expression of partisan hostility.

Tragedy struck for us shortly afterwards. Nell’s father and mother were returning from an evening meeting at Fredericktown, Missouri, when their automobile was hit by a man who was intoxicated. Her mother was thrown from the car by the impact and her body dragged along until the car turned over. She was taken to the hospital at Bonne Terre where the skill of the physicians and surgeons saved her and started her on the long, slow road to recovery. On the afternoon of December 13 she was in good spirits when a well-meaning nurse massaged her arm because of soreness. A blood clot was loosened and found its way to the heart. In a few minutes she was gone.

I was at Carrollton, Missouri, in a meeting, when Nell called and relayed to me the sad news. As soon as I finished the meeting that night I started home. On the third day following I conducted the service of memorial before a large audience. My “second mother” was beloved by hundreds. Nell’s father was mayor of the city, to which he was elected for several terms, and the family had earned the respect of the whole community. But it came home to me then what a difference there is in a home when the wife and mother is gone. The Christmas season which had always been one of joy and brightness became a kind of weary experience through which we stumbled with our eyes more often filled with tears than with stars.

In the year that was hastening to a close Brother Zerr had completed the second volume of his commentary which we published. Because we had not disposed of enough of the first one to pay for the second, the cumulative effect of the costs became too much and it appeared that we might have to delay work on the third volume until the other two were paid for. Fortunately for the Cause, F.R. Bailey of Chillicothe, Missouri agreed to guarantee the cost of production to the printers so we could proceed on schedule. Eventually we brought out three thousand sets containing six books each, a total of 18,000 volumes, at a cost of about $35,000, not including packaging and postal charges. We sold all of the books.

It was during this year my book A Clean Church was published. I had been thinking about it by day and dreaming about it by night until one afternoon I could no longer stifle the urge to write. I sat down at the dining-table and started. I wrote all afternoon, all night, and until almost noon the next day, driven by an inner compulsion which would not allow me to stop. I was afraid that if I slept the fountain might be turned off and not flow again. When I arose from my chair I could hardly walk, but before me lay a stack of pages representing a complete book. I do not recall making any changes when I typed it up. I learned that brain children are like physical children. They must be conceived before they are brought to the delivery room, but once the time has come, they will be born. I suspect that having the first child is most difficult. I never again wrote another major book as I did that one.

In 1948 we also began an outreach program. Brother Leonard Bilyeu opened up his lovely home in the Florissant Valley for a weekly study of the Word. I n three months 55 different persons representing all varieties of religious thought had participated. Encouraged by this I secured the conference room of the public library at Kirkwood and launched a study which was surprisingly well attended. I was not alone in this endeavor, for many brethren, old and young, were catching the vision that the post-war world was seeking for a spiritual foundation. As the year drew to a close I wrote, “The quickest way to lose your life is to try and hold it: the best way to gain your life is to lose it for Jesus’ sake.”