A FORGOTTEN NOTE
Robert Meyers

It is a cold, rainy night as I write these words and I have been doing the minister’s equivalent of that old game of going through the trunks in the attic. Snug in my office I have dug out an old stack of church bulletins and found, in one of them, a forgotten note that touched my heart.

It came to my house, addressed to my ten-year-old son, and it was signed by a busy man of whom my son had heard much: a man who was editor, professor of philosophy, publisher, religious lecturer, and father. He had taken time to write a note to my son, Robin, simply because he had seen in our church bulletin that Robin had volunteered to fill the communion trays each Sunday as part of his service to the church.

If the writer could have seen Robin’s face when he read his letter from the professor who had bothered to commend him, he would have been amply repaid for his trouble. But then, he was not looking for pay, anyway. Men who do such things have long ago stopped caring about reward. They simply know the immense value a kindly word may have, and that is enough.

But tonight, some fifteen years later, I wonder if even the professor editor knows how significant his kindly deed may have been. He will have forgotten it until reminded by this note, as I myself had forgotten it. Yet it touched deeply a child’s heart, and became part of a child’s mind, and among all the things that entered into that child’s grownup choice of a profession, who knows that it may not have been a first cause?

Just a few weeks ago my son Robin knelt in church, with the hands of prayerful believers resting on his head, and was recognized in a moving ceremony as one set aside for a pulpit ministry to the church. It was my honor to deliver the charge myself, as he and I rose to stand face to face, and for both of us in that moment the congregation and all the world dropped away, and we were alone in a most solemn and joyous event.

This year he entered Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey to pursue a doctoral degree in ministry. Thank you, Leroy Garrett, for a forgotten note of love which became a part of my son’s road to choosing.