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Isabel Rogers interviewed by Carol Lytch, June 1998, side 1.
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- speakerSure. It's picking up. Sure. Let's see if it's picking up.
- speakerCarol, as I thought back, in the light of your your question about
- speakeryou know what some significant things in my moderator year, I thought about two really values
- speakerin the Reformed tradition, which I kept,
- speakerI kept hearing people interested in and excited in and that was 10 years ago.
- speakerAnd excited about. and yearning to understand and grasp
- speakervalues, which I think are endangered species today.
- speakerTen years later. Let me let me describe them to you and talk a little bit about it and then
- speakerwhatever other questions you want to ask me or be OK. But, just these two. Yeah.
- speakerThat might be really in trouble today. One is I found
- speakerall the way through my year. a yearning to
- speakerunderstand and an excitement about understanding the Reformed tradition and Reformed Theology.
- speakerPeople were eager for that. I was trying to think of of episodes I thought of at that time in
- speakerChambersburg Pennsylvania. This was one of those meetings where
- speakereverybody in the presbytery is invited. It was in the college auditorium of Wilson College I guess.
- speakerAnd. I did a standard spiel of some kind. I haven't the faintest notion what I said, but I'm sure I
- speakertalked about the Reformed faith and that sort of thing. Afterwards in the question
- speakerperiod, one man stood up. And, he said, "Dr. Rogers.
- speakerTwo three times you mentioned the Reformed tradition in your comment.
- speakerCould you just take a couple of minutes and explain to me what you mean by that?" A
- speakercouple of minutes! But I did, I'm sure, a very eloquent job. . But
- speakerbut but what I remember is that afterwards at the
- speakerreception. We would have had some of the hot spice tea or something standing by a fire. And,
- speakera woman came up to me with stars in her eyes. And she said, she said, "I've never felt so
- speakerPresbyterian and all that." And she was excited to be a
- speakerPresbyterian and to be a part of this tradition. And I found. I found
- speakereverywhere folks want to know more and excited about about
- speakerbeing part of that. And I still find that. As a matter of fact the thing that. Carol, now
- speakerprobably I travel a lot of the weekend Presbytery events and that sort of thing.
- speakerThey still ask me probably more than anything else to do Reformed theology. People want to
- speakerknow this. And, they ask me honest questions. And, we really struggle with those,
- speakerso that's still there. But clearly and that's why I say that maybe it's sort of an
- speakerendangered species. Over against that, It seems to me that you know as well as
- speakerI do that that the feelings of our distinctiveness are certainly fading away
- speakerwhen we're with the figures about 50 percent at least of a church people have come
- speakerinto Presbyterian Church from other traditions, couldn't care less really about our
- speakerPresbyterian heritage. Folks are going to choose where they're going to worship by the
- speakercongregation, not because of the denomination. We know that that's the reality.
- speakerso that sense of distinctiveness, which is a profoundly
- speakerecumenical of course , to be Presbyterian is to be ecumenical. It's not that. but
- speakersimply that loss of interest in our heritage. That's over against what I still
- speakerfind there's an excitement. Those two work, work against each other.
- speakerSo I thought about in my in my travels I find it threatened today.
- speakerAnd yet still plenty of people want and want to understand a wanted to. And so I have a
- speakerdeep concern for this. I remember several years ago was
- speakerin a Presbytery in Eastern Michigan, I think. This was after I was moderator.
- speakerThey asked me to do one of these weekends on on the Reformed faith what, what makes, what makes it
- speakerdistinctive. And the title they gave to this. And this is eastern Michigan.
- speakerThe title they gave. See that.
- speakerThat's the title they gave to this was "Are
- speakerPresbyterians an endangered species?" And, I was fascinated with that. You know they
- speakerlfeel like snail daughters grew up here with all these Polish Catholics and aren't
- speakeran endangered species. And I told them that when I started that I said I can I don't know
- speakerwhat the church is going to be like in two oh five A.D., but.
- speakerI can make an educated guess that, if there were no Presbyterians around, somebody would have to reinvent
- speakerthem because I think we bring distinctive gifts to the to the larger
- speakerchurch. We don't claim that we have the whole truth but we have some emphases that the larger
- speakerchurch needs. And, and I rejoice in that. And then I went on that weekend to talk about
- speakerthose distinctive gifts. Well I'm concerned if we lose interest in those distinctive
- speakergifts. And. And so I spent a lot of time trying to help people
- speakerunderstand and particularly. What I've been doing lately in
- speakerweekend meeting now, is if you take seriously Reformed Theology then what
- speakerdoes that mean for our living in today's world? So it seems to me the relevance of it
- speakerfor the day is really important not just rejoicing in the past but seeing how this
- speakerinforms and illuminates obedience to God in today's world. So that's
- speakerone of the things that I most observed in my moderatorial year
- speakerand feel is in danger today. And yet there were those counter-force closely connected with
- speakerthat. Let me get these. And then I can go back and come back.
- speakerIt's great. A Second Reformed
- speakeravenue that I felt so strongly in
- speakerin that. I felt it all the time, but so it underlined again and again that year was that
- speakerstrong sense of the church, the broader connectional pattern,
- speakerof Presbyterianism. I felt that deeply as I
- speakertraveled around. Let me just tell you two very memorable events both of them had to do with
- speakerNative Americans. I was. I spoke. I addressed the
- speakerPresbytery of South Dakota. Cold October day was a bleak day
- speakereven in October it was called South Dakota. And, after I
- speakerfinished in and got a chance to talk to people then
- speakerthat somebody whisked me in and climbed into a pickup truck
- speakerand this fella took me out to a little Native American a Dakota church up.
- speakerOn a bleak, talking about a bleak hillside overlooking, I guess it was the Missouri
- speakerRiver. Little. White I think clabbered
- speakerchurch needed needed paint and there must have been 15 or 20 trucks pickup
- speakertrucks even a tractor or two parked around there. They were having a meeting with the moderator. It turned
- speakerout no they hadn't told me what to do. Turned out I was supposed to say a few words of course
- speakerbut we had a worship service in Dakota. And and in
- speakerEnglish and then I spoke in English and we sang hymns and bows. And, during the service,
- speakerI looked there must have been maybe 30 40 people there.
- speakerThat was the Friday morning and then all these people were there because it's almost
- speaker80 percent unemployment. Nothing for people to do. So come have a church service. Friday
- speakermorning. This was almost the whole congregation. But anyway
- speakermy visit my memory. Sitting against t
- speakerhe rear wall were three women.
- speakerVery impassive. There was no sign of response that I could see.
- speakerAnd I thought probably that either they didn't understand.
- speakerPerhaps didn't understand English very well or certainly southern,
- speakerbut it seemed there was no response. But afterwards one of those women came up to me
- speakerand she had tears in her eyes and she took both of my hands. And she said, "This is the first time our own
- speakermoderator has ever come to visit us." Well that's it. That just really did me in.
- speakerWhat she was saying was, she was saying, now we
- speakerknow we're not out here by ourselves. You know we belong, and our moderator has come to see us.
- speakerAnd I had a similar sort of, not of a person saying something but in
- speakerPhoenix. Hot and des. sert. couldn't have been
- speakermore different. And, I had a morning preaching at Sun City, and all the opulent things. Then they
- speakertook me out past Tempe to a little church
- speakerof the of the Pima Maricopa Indians.
- speakerThe Bapchule Vah Ki Church, V-a-h-K-i. i remember it so well. So will you travel on
- speakerit's poverty stricken desert area. How anybody? You couldn't grow anything. But as you drive up,
- speakeryou could see the little church. It is a cinder block church and as you turn out you turn off the main
- speakerroad onto a little dirt road. And then we turn.
- speakerInto. A fence say a gate in the fence and right there at the entrance
- speakerway was a big placard, a big sign,
- speakersaying. Vah Ki Church. And there was the seal of the Presbyterian
- speakerChurch, Presbyterian Church USA. Right.
- speakerRight up there in the desert, that big sign, Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Then, I went to the church and there
- speakerwas a big blue banner on the wall. Right. Presbyterian. Vah Ki Church.
- speakerPresbyterian Church U.S.A. I'm getting gooseflesh thinking about it. Don't you see, they were
- speakersaying ], "We're not out here all by ourselves. We belong to something bigger. We're
- speakerwe're we're part of something--the church, the Presbyterian Church.
- speakerAnd I think that's so crucial and that's been such an important element seems to me in our whole Presbyterian pattern.
- speakerBut, I saw. I think.
- speakerThe presence of the moderator helps people to feel that. Not
- speakerjust to understand it, but to feel that. And if. And, as I saw that
- speakerquite often during the end people said it to me because many people can say I'm Presbyterian
- speakerYeah.
- speakerBut when the moderator comes to you.
- speakerThat's right. That's right. That's. I'm part of this. I'm part of this larger larger
- speakerchurch. And so I saw that so often that year. But,
- speakerof course all of us know that that connectionalism is pulling
- speakerapart. It's Then I come in before people people join a
- speakerchurch because of the congregation not because of the denomination and it's the congregation
- speakernow that is our focus of giving and a mission and that's good. People say.
- speakerIf it's not local it's not really you and the congregation of course its mission has
- speakerto be in this day and time of course it's true. But to affirm that at the cost
- speakerof that larger. Sense of belonging this to
- speakersuch an extent that. What happens to the teacher to what happens to those folks in that
- speakerlittle church in South Dakota who if they don't feel that they're part of something big if that
- speakerbegins to where we've lost something I think I think extremely important. So much so that
- speakerso often and I think the present till the moderator help us sort of trigger that. All around the
- speakerchurch. And. That's one of the. One of the endangered species now. And.
- speakerIn our churches today those are the two things that those people that I want to speak to and. I felt
- speakerso strongly that that year and I don't think I've learned anything
- speakerif that's what your question is. I knew that ours was a connection in church and then of the
- speakerreform tradition I've been teaching in all these years. But I.
- speakerHave found your travels abroad. Where did you go? And that might have been
- speakersomething different for you or maybe both.
- speakerDefinitely. I didn't get to travel abroad. They kept saying the budget was very limited and they
- speakerdidn't do. They let me have one trip. They wouldn't even let me go to the Church of Scotland that year. I was
- speakerinvited to address the General Assembly. No they wouldn't. They wouldn't let me do that. But I was
- speakersent to the Presbyterian church of Southern Africa. I've never been to the continent of Africa
- speakerbefore. And, this was a learning for me.
- speakerI often interpret the Reformed tradition. And, of course,
- speakerone of the places I visited was a federated theological seminary. I can't remember.
- speakerIt's not just near Durban. It's a Methodist and Presbyterian
- speakerand maybe Lutheran. I can't. I forget. it's an independent seminary. Bu
- speakert most of the students were in and out of the reform tradition.
- speakerAnd I talked about the Reformed tradition, but of course, the Reformed tradition was
- speakerthe Afrikaners. This was but this was when apartheid was still. See, Calvinism for them meant,
- speakerthat meant apartheid. And I learned the coldness with
- speakerwhich I was saying we share this, that we share this, tradition you and I are cousins in the
- speakerfaith. They wanted none of that. And I had out. I knew
- speakerintellectually but again I felt it very deeply what some of my Reformed
- speakerforebears and my cousins have done to unjust the world. And in the
- speakerchurch the injustice that we have wrought.
- speakerBut I saw that so so so clearly. It must have hurt. The pain to
- speakercome there with the Reformed tradition, which is so
- speakerilluminating in the wolrd,
- speakerIs something you cherish and something we cherish. And, to find it mis-appropriated. Which
- speakeris and, and which calls us to work for justice in the world and to find it being
- speakerused to defend injustice, as we have done it in our in the American
- speakerchurch. Then I went on to Budapest, Hungary, and spoke as they were dedicating a new
- speakerbuilding at the Reformed seminary there. And, I
- speakerThat was interesting to. I'd speak speak a sentence and then they translate it
- speakersounded like two paragraphs. I didn't know what those people were hearing. I talked about the American
- speakerchurch But, to find the strength of the
- speakerReformed Church. At that time it was still communist country. It was
- speaker1987. They were suffering for the Reformed. Yeah. But these two very
- speakerstrong seminaries. And. To find these people strongly affirming
- speakerthe Reformed faith. And, I could share with them and they have that
- speakerwhat I found of course they had more freedom to express their faith in Hungary than they had in
- speakerSouth Africa. That was and that was a learning that believed in me. And then the other
- speakerthing that again relates to this was an experience. I went on to Geneva. Of course, since I was on the continent of
- speakerEurope and when.
- speakerBob Lodwick [Lodwick, Robert C.] was our man. Is he still there still? and I he was our
- speakersort of our sponsor. I don't think he is there any longer. Yeah. But he was focused in Geneva.
- speakerHe was my host there. He had been my host in Hungary too. Bob took me to the cathedral, St.
- speakerPeter's. Calvin's cathedral. And, at that time they were replacing,
- speakerreplacing the pillars that supported the great
- speakerfoundational pillars down go down that hill there and replacing them with steel,
- speakersome steel beams and. Rock that was chipping off from the medieval
- speakercathedral, I guess. The enterprising Genevans had made into
- speakersouvenirs. Bob gave me a souvenir from Calvin's cathedral. I had this rock
- speakerand that same that same day. That's the that was no the day before that I'd spent
- speakerthe World Council of Churches, praying with them, had lunch with them, and we did some
- speakerBible study together, had also visited the World Alliance. It's right there in the same building.
- speakerBut the juxtaposition of of being there at Calvin's cathedral and feeling like
- speakerI'm touching home base. Here's, here is where my roots are. This is
- speakerhome for me. Here's here's how I came to where I came to be who I am
- speakeras a Presbyterian. But, at the same time in the context of the world
- speakerchurch the day before. The juxtaposition of those two was powerful. And it's that
- speakersame notion that I felt there in Michigan.
- speakerWe've got something good. This rock symbolizes to me from Calvin's cathedral. And,
- speakerwe've got these distinctive gifts. And, we need not be ashamed of them, but we see it in the context of the
- speakerlarger of the larger church of many cultures and many many traditions. And so
- speakerthere was a continuity in my experiences that year, as I reflect on it. It's
- speakervery interesting.
- speakerDo you have a sense of being called to be the
- speakermoderator at a certain time? Were you called? Is it
- speakera kairos moment?
- speakerI think God works in that way probably. I didn't know at the time. Something. but I'm
- speakerclearly a teacher and when people have characterized
- speakerwhat different moderators have done from year to year, they said mine was. I was teaching the Reformed faith. And,
- speakerit may have been that was a time when that was particularly needed. As far as I say I found a hunger for it at
- speakerthat time. But that hunger is not abated, it's still there. But, that may have been a
- speakertime for a teacher who's a
- speakersocial activist, of course. But primarily, my task is to try to help
- speakerpeople to understand and to challenge them to make up their own minds.
- speakerAnd, that's that's my instinct as a teacher. As you think about the
- speakerchurch and what was going on in the church. It was Biloxi.
- speakerAnd they were choosing the site of the headquarters of the
- speakerdenomination. And as you think about other issues
- speakerin Biloxi, did you have to interpret those issues
- speakerthroughout your year?
- speakerWell, let me back up. One of the painful things for me about Biloxi was
- speakerthe reason they had it there was to affirm the maybe 50 percent of the
- speakerPresbyterian denomination who had remained loyal. In Mississippi. And Mississippi
- speakerafter article 13. There were no. Well the already back.
- speakerBefore the reunion. Of the course of the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] was formed, and 50 percent of Mississippi
- speakercongregations left the Southern church when we began ordaining women. And, it is out of that about that
- speakertime, for many issues, that the Presbyterian Church in America was formed. It was painful to
- speakerme to get. There were no P.C.U.S.A. churches in Biloxi. We. The
- speakervolunteers, the local committee, were people from all over Mississippi came there to run. That
- speakerwas painful for me as a Southern Presbyterian because I knew I knew what that meant. And that,
- speakerit was the absence there that we we agonized.
- speakerYes. It was. One of my first trips.
- speakerIn the in this after the summer was over when I started to, the regular full time traveling
- speakerin September was to Missouri. And, I was in Kansas City
- speakerPresbytery. And there was hostility. I met with real hostility ther, as though
- speakerI had I'd been the one to, you know, to allow, allowed this to
- speakerhappen, as if the moderator can prevent things from happening. So I had to try
- speakerto interpret that as a regretful that.
- speakerThey were regretful.
- speakerNo I think they were just angry that churches had pulled out? No, no,
- speakerKansas City after the cat after the Louisville decision. That's what this was. Oh, excuse me. That is what it was. I
- speakerjust it shifted issues. Kansas City was the recommendation. That was the committee's recommendation. And, Louisville came
- speakerin with their own request for this. And, it
- speakerwas Louisville that won out for many different reasons. But by the time I got to Kansas City
- speakerI was sort of the focus because you happened to be the moderator. Because I happened to be the moderator.
- speakerThat's right. That's your fault so. That's right. Well we'll that night
- speaker1:30 the next morning actually after that vote, the mayor of Kansas City called me long distance to
- speakerask what had happened and how come I let this happen. And I tried to explain
- speakerPresbyterian policy at 1:30 in the morning that the moderator has no power the moderator only
- speakerkeeps the discussion going. That was something else! And, he said that he and
- speakerthe governor were going to fly down the next day and wanted us to reconsider. And, we didn't have time to. and I had
- speakertalked with him about this. So yes I did some interpretation of that because it was a surprise
- speakerto everybody. As a matter of fact,
- speakerthe, the committee didn't really do a lot. The committee that had proposed it didn't do a lot of
- speakerpresentation because they, the recommendation was overwhelming. So it really was
- speakera surprise, the Louisville. And who knows how God works.
- speakerRight. But I got the brunt of some of the hostility from that particular city. In
- speakerKansas City. It was it was it was and that was hard for me. I mean we really like
- speakerto be liked and approved of. That would really be difficult. And that was my
- speakerfirst just about my first major trip. Wow. The first
- speakerthing to do. Yeah. Well I knew you know you know you're
- speakera. The rule is to whom much is given of them will require a new things. I knew
- speakerthis. And, how about some of the other places out around the country? Did they
- speakerraise issues with you about the church? Anything coming out of the General Assembly?
- speakerand those times? The major things came
- speakerout of that General Assembly was that they
- speakersaid to the Moderator establish. You know, we'd argued about abortion. We'd argued about
- speakerhomosexuality. And they. So the General Assembly said. Let's
- speakerback off from this, take a sabbatical. Let's let's have the moderator appoint a
- speakerblue ribbon committee to study sexuality in general and say here's the
- speakercontext within which we'll make any of these decisions, abortion or whatever. And
- speakerso, getting the best advice I could, I appointed experts in different
- speakerfields. I did not ask ideological questions at all. That wasn't the point of it. The point was to get
- speakernew testament experts and old testament and psychology. So I did. You
- speakerknow best I could appoint an excellent committee [Special Task Force to Study Human Sexuality]. But that was.
- speakerOf course understood to be stacked in favor of certain points of view.
- speakerA teacher doesn't do that. A teacher wants all points of view to be represented. But that
- speakerinterpretive task became more difficult through the years, of course, that was not that did not
- speakerend at that moderatorial year.
- speakerRight. Because the controversy wouldn't
- speakerhave been there yet in this form. Not until the report.
- speakerRight. Rumors of the report began to come out. And, that was four, five years later. It followed
- speakerme because I had made the first appointments then the next, Ken Hall [Hall, C. Kenneth] made the next appointment.
- speakerAnd. But but but the criticism followed me because because of the
- speakerreading of the personnel of the committee. And I simply tried to appoint a good, a bunch of experts
- speakerto do a good job. But that's the way. You know. You recognize that.
- speakerAnd. But that continued interpretation that followed me to well after , well after my
- speakermoderatorial year. Become a way of life? Yeah. Yea, it did. And
- speakerthen.
- speakerKen Hall added members to the committee. Yes, because a criticism arose early
- speakerthat this was a stacked committee and there weren't enough conservatives. So they asked. The next General
- speakerAssembly then asked Ken as their that moderator to appoint some more members to it.
- speakerTwo people had resigned from the committee by that time. So they enlarged the
- speakersize of the committee. Asked him to appoint maybe five more people or something. So he did. And, he tried
- speakeragain to do what I had done to give, to find experts who would, who would do a good job.
- speakerHow
- speakerabout some of the events leading up to your offering yourself as a moderatorial
- speakercandidate.
- speakerHow did you feel moved to? It never occurred to me. The president of my
- speakerschool had traveled a lot. And, he'd been in General Assemblies and
- speakerall. and And, he called me in the spring before. It must have been
- speaker1996 spring of 96. To say it, to
- speakerpropose this to me. He said you've been for years you've been teaching around the church. And the way he put it was, he said you've
- speakerbeen building a constituency.
- speakerI said you know I guess I've been teaching the Bible. I haven't been building
- speakera constituency but doing my work.
- speakerBut he said but that's been happening. And so he said I think the time has come and these and many
- speakerpeople have said to me when is Izzie going to be a candidate for moderator? And so he urged me to
- speakerconsider it. Well I said you got rocks in your head. that he was young, he was the president. I had taught him
- speakerwhen he was a student there. So I could tell. So I really thought it was pretty
- speakerabsurd, but said, of course I'll have to consider this seriously. And I think
- speakerthat really got more and more agonizing because, Carol, I'd never been to a full General Assembly.
- speakerI had been to the old Southern Assembly a couple of times to participate in reports from
- speakercommittees but I'd never seen it in action. Never seen the election of a
- speakermoderator or anything. So. I agonized over that and finally decided. Well,
- speakerI'll do. I'll be a candidate and I don't think there's much chance,
- speakerbut if I should be elected, well God empowers us. I mean I
- speakerhave that faith. And so the presbytery [Presbytery of the James] was very eager and they, of course,
- speakersupported me. And, the school [Presbyterian School of Christian Education] said Well.
- speakerWe better send you to the Minneapolis Assembly so you can see some of what it looks like. So the
- speakerschool sent me out there for about three or four days. And, that's all the experience of an assembly I'd seen.
- speakerNow I had been moderator of a presbytery. Old hat of a presbytery.and of course I'd done parliamentary
- speakerprocedure and that was frankly that was a harder job for me than being moderator
- speakermoderating the actual meeting of the Assembly. That was hard because that was my first try
- speakerbut. So I went out there and watched it and found it to be very exciting. And
- speakerthen was not really there. I was there for most of the committee times, but then I had to get on back to
- speakerwork. So you didn't see much of the plenary? I didn't see the plenary session. That was that was what would have been crucial.
- speakerBut I was willing. And after that that that was a
- speakertime before they had electronic voting. And, so they had these endless ballots that had to be
- speakercounted and they had us sequestered. They didn't let us see the numbers. They just let us
- speakersee. Well, maybe they'll let us see the numbers. But they had four ballots in
- speakerwhich every case another candidate was two votes ahead of me.
- speakerSo by the time we got to the fifth ballot, I thought I'm safe. I don't have to
- speakerdo this. I can just sit back, you know, and go back to my work which I'm very happy doing.
- speakerAnd I don't have to wear skirts for a whole year. That's what I was thinking about.
- speakerAnd then it was almost as though lightning struck me. And, they came in after the fifth ballot. And the things had shifted and I
- speakerwon by two votes.
- speakerSo I thought. Well, get on the old skirt. Start being respectable for a year.
- speakerBut obviously I don't think anybody seeks it. I can't imagine that you would that you
- speakerwould think of yourself as moderator material but, when somebody else does then you have to.
- speakerYou have to consider. And, he had great trust in me and support prescript very supportive.
- speakerAnd that's how it happened. And so. Calvinist as I am,I assumed God has called me to
- speakerthis. But, I judged from the event that God wanted me to do this
- speakerand would empower me and God did indeed. And. Oh, it was glorious, a glorious
- speakeryear, the greatest year of my life. I don't like. I like familiar
- speakerroutines. I like being around familiar people, but traveling all that
- speakertime and being with strange people three and four times everyday. I loved it. It was is just
- speakermagnificent because I saw these things. I saw the strength of the church. I saw the
- speakercontinuity with the past. I saw the hope for the future. I saw all of that,
- speakerand I was heartened about and was proud to be
- speakera Presbyterian. One of the things that astonishes. I've told some people about,
- speakerthat I spoke to my connectionism I was a spoke.
- speakerAct a. Addressed actually addressed 65 presbytery meetings. Now I was in a
- speakerlot more presbyteries than that. But I addressed 65 presbytery meetings.
- speakerI loved it. It was fascinating. I found moderators
- speakerto be very able by and large. There were some duds, but by and large very able. They had that
- speakersense of humor. There was affection. Teasing back and forth between
- speakermoderators and the people out there and clerks. The people who were there were knowledgeable. T
- speakerhey had done their homework. Most often that was civil.
- speakerIt was decent and orderly and it was. That was just a great experience for me.
- speakerSee I grew up in the old Southern church [Presbyterian Church in the United States] where women weren't even elders. Not until.
- speakerI was. 24 from 1972. I was ordained in
- speaker1972. I was 40 some years old before I
- speakerhad ever had the chance to be in on the governing of the church. And so I saw I haven't see the whole
- speakerpanorama that year. It was just it was glorious. That was. That was. That was one of the things
- speakerI learned was that able leadership that we have. It bumbles,
- speakersure it does.
- speakerBut I was I was heartened by what I saw. The conscientiousness and civility of most of the
- speakerleadership and of the participation in Presbyterian meetings.
- speakerSo, that was a learning. That is a learning. Right.
- speakerHow about the meeting itself. What was said to me. Yeah you say
- speakerit was easier to moderate that than to moderate the presbytery. But what was the
- speakerspirit of the meeting that year?
- speakerOh we had a good time. We laughed a lot so much that that we were
- speakerpushed to get the agenda finished. When the governor threatened to come from Missiouri.
- speakerBut there was a. We developed. People have said that we developed a bond.
- speakerThat I developed a bond with the people out there. And, we had, we had an affectionate humor.
- speakerAnd so I had a good time. I really really enjoyed it. I remember there. I was in Biloxi. Oh, you were there?
- speakerOK.
- speakerAnd there were issues about the funding for the church and
- speakerquestions about finance and how the church made
- speakerdecisions about funding. Am
- speakerI
- speakerremembering correctly? One of the interesting things to me is that a moderator misses a lot of the content
- speakerbecause you're so concerned with the process.
- speakerRight. To call on both sides of the room.
- speakerExactly. Go from one microphone to another that you can't follow the continuity of the
- speakerdiscussion.
