A couple of ghost stories

Rick Richards had three co-workers, in different settings, with whom he had become close friends. Each one eventually moved away, though they returned to the area occasionally, which Rick would find out after that fact. They made no effort to get in touch with him when they did.

Two continued to send a Christmas card each year. One of those was a friend as part of a group of close friends. When he’d be back for a day or two, he’d get together with one, sometimes two members of the group, but never Rick, even though Rick had known him longer than any of the others.

The other card-sender once was going to a local event that Rick might have been likely to attend. It would have made sense for the former colleague to email and ask, “Are you going to be there?” and maybe meet up for a brief face-to-face, but there was no such attempt.

The third had been a coworker in a service organization. This person never even sent Christmas cards, though Rick felt they had been even closer than he was with the two who did. When this person was back in the area, he also made no attempt to contact Rick. A couple of those visits, however, did include being at the same place at the same time as Rick. Both times, he greeted Rick like a long-lost brother but otherwise made no contact at all.

Carl Carlton had a close friendship that began when he was in college. He and this person seemed to click immediately. They not only had mutual interests, but they also brought complementary characteristics into the relationship that helped both grow.

They stayed in close touch for many years. Carl and his wife invited the friend and spouse for visits around events all enjoyed. The Carltons also arranged to stop by and see these friends a few times when traveling near their town.

Carl didn’t give it any further thought when one of those visits couldn’t happen because of the friend’s busy schedule. But later when Carl and family showed up for a scheduled visit the other couple had forgotten about, it gave him pause. In time, the other couple was too busy to visit Carl, no matter how appealing the itinerary might seem.

Communication had mostly been by phone to arrange to get together. When email came along, Carl was not able to get an address for them.

___________

The antagonists in my childhood nightmares were not ghosts. To me, ghosts were fanciful creatures, subjects of entertaining, even amusing stories. They were nothing like the ghosts many of us have come to know, and be haunted by, as adults.

These “ghosts” are people who suddenly disappear from your life. This definition of “ghost” officially entered the Merriam-Webster dictionary in 2017, though the term can be found in use as far back as the 1990s.
Here’s another ghost story:
___________

Bill Williamson was, for many years, very close to someone in his extended family. There were letters and phone calls, then also emails and, in time, conversations on Facebook around something one or the other had posted. Bill and friend visited each other’s homes, despite the miles in between. No invitation needed.

There was a family event every two years near where the relative lived. For many years, Bill and his wife would spend a couple of days at her house before or after. One year, though, the friend had other things going on and would not be able to have Bill and wife visit. Bill chalked it up to unavoidable scheduling. When the same thing happened two years later, Bill chose not to read anything in to it then, though eventually he would look back on it as the beginning of the end.

During this time, the two friends gained vacation homes, which were an easy day trip apart. There was vague talk about getting together, but nothing definite until a time when each would be at these homes and Bill said, we’ll be at our place on these dates and can come to yours on this day.

There was agreement, though Bill sensed some reluctance on the part of the other. Then just before the time arrived, he got a message with a lengthy list of all the reasons his friend couldn’t host him at that time.

It wasn’t simply saying “something’s come up” or “we’re overloaded,” maybe giving a brief example or two. It was too much like begging the question. As the list went on, the more tangential the excuses became.

The friend said maybe they could meet somewhere when things settled down a bit. (Meet “somewhere” – i.e., “not in my home.”) She said she’d be back in touch about it. Never happened. Rather abruptly, Facebook interactions stopped. The other person’s posts stopped showing up on Bill’s newsfeed, unless they were “public,” such as a new profile photo. Comments and “likes” from her on Bill’s posts went from frequent to none. Bill was still listed as a friend but wondered if he had been unfollowed.

__________

Individuals may naturally drift apart and mutually turn attention and affections elsewhere over time. Yet when the relationship, for whatever reason, ceases to work for one, though apparently not the other, the one who wants out may resort to what has come to be called “ghosting” — i.e., ceasing to communicate without any warning.

Most, if not all of us have done it — reached a point in some relationship where we chose, for whatever reason, just to let it drop. In a casual relationship, this ending may not be particularly troublesome for either party. In many cases, acquaintanceships come and go naturally. Yet the more you’re invested in a relationship, the more painful it can be when circumstances bring it to a close. And it can be bewildering when a two-way street becomes a one-way street that becomes a dead end.

An internet search quickly turns up a lot of material on ghosting, written by psychologists, relationship experts and others. Much of the discussion of ghosting focuses on romantic relationships, but it happens in friendships as well. There’s agreement that ghosting reflects more on the ghost than the one being ghosted. They choose an easy way to remove themselves from an uncomfortable situation. It’s not the most emotionally mature choice.

Experts also suggest that we don’t try to reconnect with someone who has ghosted us. If we do, there’s usually no response from them. It’s important to remember, however, that a lack of a tangible response is, in fact, a response.

Sometimes, the ghosting is a gradual process, starting with “soft ghosting.” They minimize contact progressively over time. Fewer and fewer emails, texts or calls. Bailing out more and more on plans to get together.

Many of us may identify with elements of the tales presented above. Ultimately, we can’t do anything about being ghosted. We can just move on from extinct relationships. We can also try not to ghost other people.

If you are ghosted, try not to take it personally. It’s their pattern of behavior. It’s not helpful for you to try to think up excuses for why they follow this pattern. We can’t control another’s actions. We do, however, control our own. Take time to be sad but then move on. Devote your energy and attention to people who value you.

What it’s like to be a radio personality — for a short time

There was a time when you could hear me on the radio, if you wanted to. And if you were in the same town and had an AM radio. I backed into the experience and rode it as long as it lasted.

My “career” in radio comprised two programs in two different states in which I mixed music and discussion. The first was just for a summer, the second for about two-and-a-half years.

The first was on a small radio station in Orange MA. I say “small” to refer to the size of the staff and building, as well as the reach of its broadcast signal. It was AM, as most stations were back then.

I was in town for that summer, as I had been for the previous one, to run a youth ministry supported by five local churches. For the radio station I checked two boxes: trying to appeal to younger listeners and providing some community-service programming.

As part of the attempt to reach community youth, the Saturday afternoon format was called, at least by the program director, “Rap and Records.” In those days “rap” was slang for “to converse” as a verb or “conversation” as a noun. My shift was referred to as “The United Youth Ministry Portion of Rap and Records.” A friend had a slot in which he played and talked about jazz.

My program aired live for an hour. I had one or two guests. The engineer played a recording of a meaningful rock song I had chosen, and my guests and I discussed it. Listeners could call in and join the conversation, though few did.

I enjoyed hanging around the radio station, getting to know some members of the staff and maybe learning a few things.

The one person on duty during my gig was a high school student who had landed a part-time job there. He used an on-air name that was more Anglo-Saxon than his real name. In time, I learned that another high school student I knew had wanted that job. I had the second guy as a panelist on my show one week. At one point, the student employee called in from another line in the adjacent studio, as if he were a listener at home. During the call, I was aware of some subtle digs between the two, though it’s likely listeners didn’t notice.

At some point, I saw a memo from the program director to the limited number of DJs, who apparently programmed their own music. Selections during the day were to be from the vanilla section of popular tunes — my wording, not his. After sundown, however, “rock out, as long as the towers don’t fall down.” These were his words. The music after dark though, was still pretty vanilla.

One evening I did hear something with a little more zip to it. I don’t remember what it was, but it wasn’t the Carpenters. On the other hand, it wasn’t Black Sabbath either. The D.J. quipped, “I hope the towers don’t fall down,” a reference one could get only if they’d seen the memo.

This same DJ also took credit for the urban legend that Jerry Mathers, TV’s Beaver Cleaver, had been killed in Viet Nam. He told me he and some fellow students had floated the notion on their Westcoast college radio station and it had caught on.

One of the few times my show did get a caller, he had a lot to say about that day’s topic. It was a good interchange, but as the top of the hour approached, I kept trying to end it tactfully. Not only was my segment supposed to end on the hour, but there was also the station identification requirement, about which I somehow was aware. The FCC has loosened up some since then, but in those days, you had to give the station call letters on the hour. There were only two minutes’ grace before you were in trouble.

The clock moved to 2:00 as the guy continued to talk. It moved past as I tried to interrupt without seeming to interrupt. Finally, somewhere between 2:01 and 2:02, he took a breath, I said, “Thanks for calling” and said — through the live phone — “You are listening the WCAT, Orange Massachusetts” with about five seconds to spare. I hung up the phone, quickly wrapped up and tossed it back to the high school student DJ/engineer. I’m sure he had queued up a recorded station break, then probably held it for 3:00.

A couple of years later, after I had returned to Chapel Hill NC, I got to know the program director of the local radio station, then also AM. They had recently expanded their broadcast day to 24 hours. The program director said they needed to expand their public-service broadcasting accordingly.

They were interested in something that could fall into the category “religious programming” but wouldn’t be overtly religious. Canned programs were available, but none really fell into this category. Besides, they preferred something with local appeal. I told him about my previous experience. He agreed I could provide what they needed.

Once again, I featured guests and music. This program, though, was a half hour long. It was prerecorded and aired on Sunday morning. I called it “Sacred Space.” In my introduction each week, I identified it as, “a program dealing with our relationship to God and our relationships with each other, with the belief that these two kinds of relationships are inseparable.” I closed each program with these words: “God touches and is part of all aspects of our lives. Sacred Space is where we stop to realize that.”

Usually, I focused on discussion with the guest(s) and used some music to enhance the discussion. At first, a competent engineer recorded and produced. After he moved on the bigger and better opportunities, the quality of the production help I got began a downward slide. Eventually, I did all the production work myself. My work was at least passable much of the time, though occasionally I ventured into the realm of the Peter Principle.

Every now and then, I deviated from the from the format and offered music and my own commentary. A specific topic may have suggested itself to me. I know I did at least one for Christmas and one inspired by the birth of my first child. A time or two, I threw something together because I had trouble lining up a guest.

I got some feedback from time to time that let me know that at least a few people listened. For a short while, an FM station on a nearby college campus used some of my work in their programming. Running the show itself didn’t work out, but some of my interviews fit into an on-air magazine. (Several years later, I was a guest at that station for an interview — by the same guy who had used parts of my program — to talk about a health promotion program I was running at UNC Health.)

Another commercial station in another city asked about letting them get tapes of “Sacred Space” to broadcast each week, but our PD said no. It was a competitor. Also, the person asking was a former employee of his. While I got along well with both of them, I got the idea they were less than friends.

In time, there was a new program director, with whom I also had a good relationship. At one point, he said he wanted to move my program back from 8 a.m. to 7 a.m. I already wondered how many people were up at 8 on Sunday morning to listen in. I told him I wasn’t sure it was worth my effort to produce a program that even fewer people were likely to hear. He didn’t change the time.

All my work for both stations was volunteer. When I sent tapes to the college FM station, I paid for the postage. Eventually, this PD had the station start cutting me a $5 check (about $30 today) each week for “expenses.” It was basically a “tip” for 3-4 hours of work each week.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that may have been the beginning of the end. Several weeks later, he called me at home one morning and said the station was making some cost-cutting moves. One move was to replace my show with one they could get for free from some organization that was not local. It would begin airing that coming Sunday in my slot.

I had mixed feelings. I was getting tired of doing the program. So, there was some sense of relief, along with the feeling of rejection and some anger at the abrupt way it came down. I choose to remember that the program director at least implied some message of thanks, but I still feel it would have been appropriate for the station’s owner to have sent me a short letter thanking me for all I had done for them. But that wasn’t his style.

My radio days ended without a sign-off.

A sermon I won’t get to preach

One time, long ago, I was asked to preach at my church. It was a small church at the time with co-pastors, both of whom would be gone. Being the first Sunday of the month, the service normally would’ve included communion. But it was skipped because I was not ordained.

I had led communion in small-group situations a few times in the past without any lightning bolts reigning down, but the book would be followed on this occasion.

I’ll never get to preach a communion sermon, but sometimes I think about what I might say if I did. Several experiences, some more directly associated with the celebration of communion than others, come to mind. Here’s a draft of a communion homily.

As a young minister, I was helping plan a weekend retreat, along with a senior minister and a facilitator who was a graduate student in psychology at a nearby university. Though it would be consciously unchurchy, the other minister and I suggested we conclude the weekend with a communion service. The facilitator balked at this. A few minutes later, I suggested our last activity could be sitting in a circle, listening to music and passing around a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. He thought that was a great idea.

Sometimes words aren’t needed.

Yet often we do rely on words, and they can certainly get one’s attention. Another time when the bread and wine were passed from one person to the next — this time in what was consciously a religious observance — my seatmate went off script. We were to say some simple phrase about the body/blood being symbolized as we offered the cup and loaf. Most of us repeated familiar words. My neighbor, however, said, “This is the blood of Christ, who was murdered for your sake.” That surely got beyond the usual ritual and down to the nitty gritty.

The elements are powerful symbols.

But do they have to be bread and wine? At a communion service during a student retreat when I was in college, the minister leading it used potato chips and orange juice. He explained, “Jesus used what was on the table. This is what I found on the table today. Jesus took ordinary items and touched them with significance — just as He touches you and me with significance.”

For that matter, are they merely symbols?

At one time many years ago, I was a member of the same church as the well-known theologian Harvey Cox. Harvey preached one communion Sunday. He reminded us that as Protestants, we see the bread and wine as symbols, while Catholics believe Christ to be present, the elements literally becoming His body and blood. He suggested they were right that Christ is indeed present, though not in the bread and wine themselves, but rather in the act of sharing them with one another.

One last anecdote doesn’t come from a communion service, but from what was nonetheless a communion experience.

Our community and the world were reeling from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A large auditorium on the University campus was packed for a memorial service. As I was leaving I spotted a friend through the crowd. He was one of two Black (a term a few of us were beginning to use at that time) students with whom I had lived in a house during the previous spring semester. My white guilt made me try to be invisible as I slipped away along the edge of the crowd.

He saw me and called out. It was a short hi-how’s-it-going exchange that concluded with his saying, “Well, stop by the house some time. We still have parties.”

I felt he was saying, You are welcome at the table.

If speaking from a pulpit, I would conclude with an invitation to the table, attempting to tie together themes drawn from these anecdotes. In other contexts, I would and do offer no liturgical words, as special people and I partake of whatever food is on the table and in our sharing of it are touched with significance.

Before offering the elements, I would share this story:

In 2010, my wife and I saw The Passion Play in the German town of Oberammergau, where it has been presented every 10 years for nearly 400 years. The dialogue, of course, was in German, and we were given English scripts to follow (and tiny flashlights to make this possible). I relied on the translation most of the time, though for longer soliloquies, taken from familiar Biblical passages, I just watched and listened. I knew what the character was saying without understanding the specific words. I just wanted to get the feel.

I had adjusted to the German dialogue by the time we got to the Last Supper scene. Then, as Jesus blessed the bread and wine, the words were familiar. Why did they suddenly insert English? No, wait, that’s Hebrew. The Last Supper was a Passover seder. The blessings Jesus offered were the same I’d heard at many seders over the years.

Of course, that’s what he would say. That’s what everyone says in a seder, regardless of their own language. Of course, that’s what it means when it says, “Jesus blessed the bread and the wine.” He didn’t wave his hand over the elements in some act of hocus pocus. He recited a blessing.

Then, when I said, “Jesus took the bread and blessed it,” I would pray:
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.
In like manner with the wine:
Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-alom bor-ay peri ha-gafen.

The English translations could be spoken then or could be in the bulletin:
Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Blessed are You, God, Ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

Then we would be ready for the further words of institution — the symbolism of the body and blood of Christ, who would be present in our sharing of the elements.

Adventures in job hunting

Have you ever had a job interview that didn’t go well? (I’m guessing your answer is “yes.”) Who’s had one that seemed doomed from the start? (Yeah, I see those hands rising.) You may not relate to the profession, but the situation I’m about to describe is likely familiar. You may not have had the very same experiences, but I’ll bet you’ve had some that were similar.

Back when I was in campus ministry, or at least trying to be, I set up a job-search file with an ecumenical organization that had a presence on many college campuses across the country. I was working as director of a local, non-profit service agency, when I got a notice that the campus ministry program at one small university in the mid-west had expressed interest in me.

They arranged to fly me out for an interview. For reasons I don’t recall, it had to be wedged in between commitments I had at home through a Saturday evening and a seminar nearby at which I was to speak on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. It seems possible that my schedule would’ve been more flexible from that Wednesday afternoon through the upcoming weekend.

They booked me on an odyssey that began early Sunday morning. I landed twice along the way, changing planes at the second stop, before reaching a large airport across the state from the school. There I was met by someone from the organization’s national office.

First we had to connect. He had me paged, but had my first name wrong. Hearing someone else’s first name, I didn’t focus on the rest of the announcement. But I asked myself, Didn’t the last name sound like mine? Could it have been meant for me? But why would he not have the correct name? As I pondered, the page was repeated. I went to the designated meeting spot. Yes, the guy didn’t really know my name.

Then we set out in his car, swinging by another big airport to pick up one of his colleagues. Apparently the plan was for them to get to know me along the way. One might think that a preferred alternative would’ve been for the two of us flying in to have landed closer to the school, and the three of us to have gotten acquainted there rather than in a car. But one who might think that didn’t make the plans. We stopped for a quick evening meal. At some point it started to snow. The campus was covered by the time we got there.

I went directly from the car into a building with a large meeting room for the official interview. Tables were arranged in a large circle and filled with people. My job interview would be conducted by 27 individuals. That is about two dozen more than ideal.

I had not heard of this school before the initial inquiry came. As I began the interview, I had taken less than a dozen steps on the campus, and my feet had not made direct contact, thanks to the blanket of snow upon which I had walked. I hadn’t even ever been in that state before. I knew nothing of the resources for and past programming of the campus ministry there. I had some experience and ideas on which to draw in a general way, of course, but I couldn’t lay out for them at that moment a program tailored to that community.

I had an assigned host for the brief visit. First he took me to my lodging for the night. I was put up in a private room with bath in a women’s dorm. It was on the ground floor and had its own entrance from the outside, apparently designated for guests. All the typical dorm-room furniture had been pulled away from the walls (for painting? cleaning?) — and not put back. The single bed was near the middle of the room; the other pieces were scattered about. It felt sort of like sleeping in a small warehouse. But I did sleep, after a welcomed shower.

My host picked me up the next morning, Monday, for breakfast and a day of gathering information that would’ve been useful in the previous night’s Q & A. There was a tour of the campus, including a visit to the campus ministry offices. The tour of the small town included stops at 2-3 key supporting churches. I met more people. Conversations revealed more about how this program looked, past successes and failures, hopes and expectations. A couple of hours of this activity on the day before might have been more helpful to me than riding across the state.

One person I met was the token Jewish faculty member, also known for his left-leaning politics (maybe a token there as well). My host seemed to regard him as a friend, but didn’t pronounce his name correctly.

A few people were selected to have lunch and dinner with me. So there was informal, but mostly pertinent conversation at both that day. After dinner, I was taken to the small airport in a neighboring town. I boarded a small plane that took me to a larger airport for the first of two plane changes. The overall route meandered eastward.

I was scheduled to get back in time for my Tuesday morning conference, fortified by whatever in-flight naps I could catch and, of course, plenty of coffee. Fog at the second connection, however, intervened. I missed the first day of my commitment, though those in charge were understanding.

The potential employer and I didn’t make good enough impressions on each other to proceed. File it under learning experience. At least I learned some things, and I have to think they did, too. The flight delay taught me that is is unwise to rely on an air-travel schedule with no wiggle room. I hope we both learned not to shoehorn such an occasion into such a tight time frame and to find a way for the candidate’s job interview not to be conducted before any orientation.

Another lesson would be to have 3-4 people conduct the direct interview and report to the larger body. (O.K., I had already known that.) The value of using a professional travel agent to book the flight is yet another potential lesson.

I thought about beginning this entry with something about having spent a week there one day. But that wouldn’t have been accurate. It was more like “2-3 days in 30 hours.” And the days were in reverse order.