by Al Poppen
edited by Bob Terwilliger, fall 2022
On the morning of my 90th birthday, the first “new mail” I opened was that day’s scripture and prayer from Plough, a publication of the Bruderhof. Keenly aware that this birthday was well beyond the “three score and ten,” but hopeful for still more, what I read was “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
But maybe not just yet.
Bob’s invitation to write for In Touch led me to reflect on the variety of roles I’ve assumed since I formally retired twenty-three years ago. A year as “consulting minister” for the Classis of New Brunswick was followed by two more as Executive Minister for the Classis of Greater Palisades. After I was ordained as an elder at the Pompton Reformed Church, my years of resourcing pastoral search committees prompted the request to lead one. When my wife Gerry’s health declined, I was called to a new vocation as care-giver. We moved to a 55-plus community in south central Pennsylvania. There I organized an “Aging in Place” initiative, which resulted in an appointment to Pennsylvania’s Study Commission on Services to the Aging. I agreed to chair the Committee on Ministry for the Mercersburg Association of the United Church of Christ as a layman, since I did not transfer my ordination, but still provided pulpit supply in local congregations.
Then, in 2008, Gerry died. After 53 years of marriage, widower was a role I did not enjoy. I met Carol V. R. George after some correspondence about her book God’s Salesman, a biography of Norman Vincent Peale and his impact on American religion. She had recently retired from the history department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and was the widow of an Episcopal priest who had once been an RCA minister in Syracuse and Passaic. When Carol and I married, she was living in Skaneateles, NY, but also owned a condo in Sarasota, where she spent winters and worshiped at St. Boniface Episcopal Church on Siesta Key. A specialist in African-American studies, she was doing research on the struggle for racial justice in Neshoba County, Mississippi, tracing the experience of families in Mt. Zion Methodist Church from the days of Reconstruction to the present. In 1964, Mt. Zion had been selected to be a Freedom School by civil rights workers Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney. Klansmen, with the help of local law enforcement, had burned down the church and then murdered the three young men.
We sold the Pennsylvania house, moved to Sarasota, and the early years of our marriage were focused on “the book,” eventually published by Oxford University Press in 2015 with the title One Mississippi, Two Mississippi. My own role in the project was to listen, make suggestions, read multiple drafts, and serve as photographer. I learned a lot about racism, and probably more than I wanted to know about Methodists. Meanwhile, we both grew in our appreciation for the worship and friendships we made at St. Boniface.
We had also built a lovely house in Skaneateles and wisely, while we were still able, enjoyed three river cruises in Europe. Having summer and winter residences somewhat limited engagement with both communities, and the good times came to an end when I was diagnosed with colon cancer and Carol required knee, hip, and back surgery. Then mold infestation and costly remediation afflicted the Florida property on two successive summers. Aware that our support system would be limited whenever either of us would be left alone, we explored continuing care retirement communities and settled on Kendal at Ithaca, near to Carol’s three children. Some years earlier, I had taken on the role of editor for In Touch, which I helped launch before I retired. It was now time to pass that baton on to someone else. The rewards of continuing engagement with old friends had been significant, for as another of our vintage put it to me, “You can’t make old friends.”
So many of those old friends are now gone, their loss deeply felt. Memories of when I could regard the Reformed Church as my extended family, that connected body the apostle Paul described so well, bring a mixture of nostalgia and gratitude. Whatever our differences, we were a “people who belonged,” to Christ and to one another. I was never so aware of that as when the necrology report was read at General Synod. During the thirty-three synods I attended in one capacity or another, those moments became more important with each passing year. “For all the saints…O blest communion, fellowship divine,” and with that mighty choir of synod in full voice, my tears could flow freely and without notice. Alleluia!
Looking back, I realize that what has always been most important to me are simple human relationships. Policy papers, task forces, project teams, reports, programs – so few remain relevant now, but the friendships shared in their production, and the people who met to consider all those largely forgotten agendas, retain a value which can never be taken away. Maybe as good Calvinists we needed to invent “important work” to justify our togetherness. How thankful I am that we did.
Thanks to each of you who shared yourself with me.
Al grew up on a farm near Sioux Center, Iowa. He earned a BA from Central College, BD from New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and an STM from Union Theological Seminary. He did additional study in Church History at Princeton Seminary, and in Personnel and Psychology at Columbia University. He served as Associate Minister at Glen Rock (NJ) Community Church, the Board of World Missions in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and as Minister of the Clover Hill Reformed Church in Flemington, NJ. From 1969 to 1999 he was a member of the RCA denominational staff, first as Coordinator of Human Resources and then as Director of the Office of Ministry and Personnel Services (same job, different title). Central College recognized his service with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1996. Al has two daughters and four grandchildren. ajpoppen@aol.com
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