← Scripts

The Faith of My Grandparents

Easter, 2009 Gannon Greene Andrew Hill Luke Crawford Don Rhoads Jeremy Beard Melissa Mueller Cindy Crawford Drew Snodgrass

(Music will be added in three spots later) (Music, then…) MELISSA: On my mom's side my grandparents did not go to church.  But on my dad's side, they were Independent Baptists.

CINDY: I don't know what "Independent" means except that you couldn't tell them anything--once they got an idea in their mind that was it.

JEREMY: Whenever we’d get a new preacher, Grandpa would test him out to get him loosened up. One Sunday when they were passing the collection plate Grandpa put in his money, then slid the plate under his pew.

GANNON: The ushers couldn’t find it. Somebody had stolen the offering right in the middle of the offering! The new preacher stood there dumb-founded, then prayed for the money that wasn’t there.

DON: It was amazing. Grandma always made deviled eggs for the church potlucks because she knew I loved them. She’d make them in the morning, then they’d sit in the hot Buick all during Sunday School and church…and nobody ever died. I think eggs were different back then. Or maybe it was grandmothers.

DREW: My grandmother sings. Maybe at one time she sang well, but those days are far behind her. She still sings with a lot of conviction, and even more vibrato. I can remember sitting next to her at the Church of Christ, where we NEVER used any instrument but our voices, and admiring her vibrato.

  LUKE: My grandfather does not sing. In fact, he hates music. I think this may have resulted from his sitting next to grandma in church for so many years. At his insistence, they now attend an Episcopal Morning Prayer service where there is NO music at all. This makes Grandpa very happy, but I wonder when and where Grandma sings now.

GANNON: Grandpa always complained to the preacher that when the sermons got too long Grandpa would get hungry and his stomach would grumble. One Sunday the preacher began the sermon by walking out into the congregation and handing Grandpa a ham sandwich. He ate it.

ANDREW: Once when the 4 of us, my parents in the front seat of a 36 Chevy, and Grandma and I in  
the back seat, on our way to Church,  I heard my Grandmother say,

MELISSA: "Ernest, we must go back. I forgot my underwear". 
ANDREW: I remember thinking, I wonder how she can tell.  Her underwear were loose-legged, and hung from the waist much like an under slip would hang, and like shorts hang today.  We did go back. 

DREW: The faith of my grandparents has taught the value of simple, unglamorous faithfulness.  They’ve shown up for church at their church every single Sunday for more than 50 years. Grandpa would sometimes show up still soiled from his morning chores, but skipping was not an option.

DON: Grandpa’s faith was forged in the Great Depression. God provides. God teaches. God does not spoil or tolerate whining.

MELISSA: Not surprisingly, grandpa is a firm believer in simplicity. He's a man who, for most of his life, produced all the food his family needed with his own hands. His garden was magnificent, and Grandma's canning operation matched it.

CINDY: They ate very well on a very tight budget, and never touched a bite until the entire Common Table Prayer had been recited by all in unison.

 JEREMY: Sometimes, church isn't entertaining or inspiring. Sometimes it's boring and commonplace. What I've learned from my grandparents is that you go anyway, because it's your family.  We are part of God's family. And you don't skip out on family.

DREW:   Now I'm in my twenties, and I still don't skip church. Now I go to church with other people's grandparents. Like my own grandparents, most of them aren't flashy, or good-looking, or entertaining. But they are family, too, and I don't skip out on family.

ANDREW: I have no idea why Grandma and Grandpa took us to this church. It was wild. We called them Holy Rollers back then and they were a lot noisier than Methodists.

GANNON: People were shouting out and raising their hands and some even got out of their pew. I was scared to death.

ANDREW: Then Grandpa, who would have been nearly 80 by then, suddenly stood up and shouted.

DON: Yes! Amen! Preach it, brother!

GANNON: Grandma nearly had a fit.

ANDREW: She started pulling on his coat sleeve saying,

MELISSA: Ralph! What do you think you’re doing?!

ANDREW: Grandpa looked down at her and said,

DON: “Marie, if you look around, you’re the one who seems out of place here.”

CINDY: My Grandparents were from the Ukraine living in Paris and not well-received by their French neighbors. They attended Catholic mass as regularly as they could.

GANNON: My mother would tell us stories of hearing the bombing, when she was a little girl, and her family huddling together, listening and praying for safety.

JEREMY: She said that as long as you could hear the whistling of the bombs going through the air, and of course the explosions, then you knew you were safe.

GANNON: She said that when you don't hear them, they are probably going to land on you.

ANDREW: She spoke of her parents, in their own poverty and fear, helping those around them; sharing food and lying to the Germans to protect certain neighbors. … of her parents' prayers, for her brother as the Germans took him and many of the young men, away to work at their munitions factories.

DON: I was fortunate that my great grandma lived right down the road from us and every Sunday we would pick her up for church, so, that meant we got to sit with her for the service. For all my life that I knew great grandma she had a dry cough, nothing contagious, just an annoying cough that always seemed to bother her.

DREW: It never failed, every Sunday morning we would be sitting in church, the Pastor had just finished the joy and concerns part of the service and it was the quiet meditation time …….that’s when the cough always struck her … A loud clearing of the throat, ……5-10 second pause, a cough.

ANDREW: At this point she knew the only thing that was going to soothe this attack was the Ricola cough drop that was in the farthest, deepest, darkest corner of her purse …. She would dig around for a while, used Kleenex falling everywhere, and then, she finally found it. More coughing……. She would slowly, carefully, but certainly not quietly start to unravel the cough drop. Crinkle….. Crinkle…… Cough Crinkle……… FINALLY freedom from the wrapper!!

DREW: Then, immediately upon touching her lips, the cough was gone. What a magical transformation. As a 13 year old I remember being so embarrassed thinking that everyone in the church was staring at us and why couldn’t she keep it down over there!

ANDREW: Ah, What a silly, shallow boy I was! If I could only do it all over again I would sit right beside her, put my arm around her and help dump that giant purse out, upon which, asking if she had 2 cough drops in there.

DON: This may sound strange, but I found Christ through other people’s grandparents. My parents didn’t attend church and I don't know about my grandparents, but I went.. ..and it was the witness of the older saints in our church that led me to Christ. I guess you don't have to be related.

JEREMY: Grandma and Grandpa had a lot of Catholic friends so we’d often go to mass. We never did get the hang of when you sat or sit or kneel, but it seemed like we were up and down all the time. Grandpa told me that Protestants had to believe the Disciples Creed to join the church. Catholics just had to have good knees. For a long time I believed him.

DON:   Grandpa has little patience for sentimentality or feel-good quips. But his gratefulness to God is evident in the way he lives his life. He takes absolutely nothing for granted.

CINDY: Now he's in his eighties and stricken by Parkinson's. But you'll never hear him complain. And if he could still shell peas, he would do it gratefully.

MELISSA: I think untended strawberries still grow in his patch, just out of habit. Or perhaps they endure for the same reason Grandpa's faith does: because that's what they were created to do.

LUKE: My grandmother lived in our home from the time I was 6 till 10 years of age. She demonstrated a strong faith in Jesus always.  She was fun, loving, and always up for a joke, and I loved being with and around her. 

MELISSA: To this day she is still a mentor for me.  Good worker, and kept things neat, and in order, But Christ, and her family always came first in everything she did.  I do not recall her saying 
anything like that, but as a young girl, I got that message from her without her saying 
it. 
DREW: I remember her always reading the Bible every night before going to bed.  Sometimes 
she would read to me, or tell me a Bible story.   She was a good storyteller too, this 
was done by kerosene lamps.  I had a strong love for her.  Still feel that to this day.

CINDY: I remember when my grandpa’s best friend, Tim died. We were walking into his own mom’s and he pulled my dad aside and he told him the horrible news that had just happened. In 4 days he had lost 2 of his best friends and he lost his composure right there on the sidewalk in front of the church.

ANDREW: It was the first and only time I ever saw my grandpa cry and it broke my heart. I learned a valuable lesson that day, even the toughest, most courageous men cry sometimes……and that’s a good thing. 
DON: Grandpa’s cows were always getting out on Sunday morning. We’d be ready to go to church we’d get a call saying the cows were out, so Grandpa would change clothes and take out after the cows while we went to church.

GANNON: When the preacher asked him about his absences, Grandpa quoted the Bible where it says if a man’s ox gets in a ditch on the Sabbath he should get him out. One Sunday the preacher announced that the offering would go to buy Grandpa a new ox.

JEREMY: My grandfather was a farmer and every day he wore bib overalls and work boots and had a plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth.  Except on Sundays. He wouldn’t chew on Sundays.

LUKE: On Sundays he and grandma would get dressed up--he would put on a suit, white shirt and tie, go without chewing tobacco and grandma would wear a nice dress and hat. This was the only time they dressed up.

CINDY: Grandpa even wore bibs when he took the milk into town.  Grandpa always said grace before every meal.

ANDREW: His Bible was, of course, the King James Version.  When grandma died, I was asked to do a Scripture reading of Psalm 23.  I read it from the "new fangled" NIV.  Afterwards my dad came up to me and said, "I don't think some of them had any idea what you were reading."

LUKE: Grandma was opposed to cremation; somehow she thought that if you were cremated there was no way you could be resurrected.

DON: They didn't have the best farmland and they didn't have a lot of money, some people might have called them "poor" but they had everything they wanted so I guess in that respect they were rich.

CINDY: Grandma’s faith was unwavering.  She listened to at least one radio evangelist regularly.  I have three items she received for helping support this evangelist’s ministry.  One plaque says, MELISSA: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me." 
CINDY: The other two are very familiar prints of Christ.  One is the head of Christ, and other is of Christ knocking at a door.   They have been hanging in my home since then, and always bring back happy good memories of Grandma and her undying faith in Jesus.

GANNON: I was caught in the middle. Usually it’s the job of a wife to nudge a husband if he’s snoring in church but one Sunday Grandma started to snore and Grandpa couldn’t hear well enough to catch it. I was sitting between them and was stuck in the middle. I was only about five. When you’re five you don't nudge your Grandmother. I don't remember what I did but I remember it was a very long service.

DREW: In the late 1940's Harvey Mueller was working as a farm laborer and raising a family of 6 children.  He came home one afternoon in a state of panic, gathered all of the family together around the kitchen table and prayed for one half hour, non stop.

DON: Even though he was well acquainted with the scriptures this was a little out of character for Harvey.  When he finished praying he told his family that he had just seen a sign, a billowing white cloud moving through the sky and he knew the second coming had arrived!  Now we know those are the trails left by jet planes but to Harvey Mueller and his brood it was a miracle.

GANNON: I always dreaded Sunday morning at Grandma’s house. She’d brush my hair with a very stiff hair brush. I really hurt. Besides, who needs a brush with a burr haircut?

CINDY: We were going to the Concord Methodist Church on the west end of town. The church powers were trying to merge the M.P. churches with the M.E. churches. 
JEREMY: In the two Concord churches the merger was not going well.  When the Lord struck the wooden Church building with lightening, and it burned to the ground, the merge moved along smoother. MELISSA: I do remember walking up the steps with my Grandmother the 1st day we worshipped in the brick Church.   I could tell you what each of us was wearing that day. ANDREW: Grandpa was in charge of dinging the little black bell to bring the Sunday School classes back for church. He’d stand there five minutes early then stare at his watch until exactly the right moment, then ding it.

LUKE: Grandma’s parents were German and so before each meal she’d say a prayer in German. Years later we found out she was actually speaking in English but she said it so fast it sounded like German.

MELISSA: (quickly) “Father we thank you for this food, and bless it to our use, pardon all sinners for Christ’s sake amen.”

LUKE: It sounded German to me.

GANNON: One of the best times we ever had at Grandma’s church… the preacher didn’t show up and we did it all on our own.

DON: The worse the weather, the bigger the crowds got at my grandparents’ church. For those farmers it was a sign of weakness to be snowed in while all your neighbors made it to church.

ANDREW: I often wonder how I turned out this well after all the things I tried. Now I know. Nothing can defeat a praying Grandma.

JEREMY: I remember my Grandma Brown napping with an open Bible in her lap...I also remember that she was always thrilled for the chance to go to church but there were not many...

DREW: I remember when the first tattoo showed up at our Christmas dinner table.

LUKE: My dad tried to keep from choking on his turkey and my uncle just stared at his plate through most of the meal.

DREW: It was a nephew and he had it right on his neck where everybody could see it.

LUKE: Then Grandma finally said,

MELISSA: You know, I was just thinking about when you boys started to chew tobacco. You tried to hide it from Grandpa and me but I was always trying to wash the stains off your shirts. Isn’t it funny how fads come and go?

DREW: We all knew what she meant. My dad saw the tattoo. My uncle saw the tattoo. Grandma saw Jesus in the eyes of her grandson.

DON: Mom told stories of her Mother hitching a team of horses to a buggy, and taking my Mother, and her 3 siblings to Church every Sunday.

MELISSA: It’s strange how the pictures from your youth stay with you. Grandma had a big picture in her living room of Christ praying in the garden of Gethsemane. I think it’s probably the most famous picture of that. He’s wearing a white and blue robe and the light from heaven is coming down and striking him in the face.

LUKE: We now know that Jesus probably didn’t look anything like that and I certainly wasn’t white like we are. But whenever I think of Jesus I think of that painting. I can’t get Grandma’s picture out of my head.

CINDY: When Grandpa got older he got pretty deaf and Grandma would have to nudge him when the prayer was over. He’d always say,

DON: “Huh? Oh.. okay. Amen.”

GANNON: Once she nudged him to pass the mashed potatoes and he thought he’d missed a prayer so he shouted, “Amen!”

JEREMY: One set of Grandparents never went to church, and the other set never missed church. When the two families joined up, we became a church family. God won.

LUKE: My grandpa was a blue collar, man’s man. Every morning, the same work clothes, which I always remember being really dirty at the end of the day. But on Sunday, Grandpa was the sharpest dressed man in church.

MELISSA: One Saturday night I spent the night at his house and as he was tucking in my shirt before church that next morning (which I hated) I just blurted out in an angry tone,

GANNON: “Why do we have to dress up for church?”

LUKE: His answer has stuck with me to this day,

DON: “Because I love Jesus, I want to look nice when I am in his house”.

LUKE: To this little guy that changed everything. If Grandpa loved Jesus that much that he would put his snug blue blazer and tight red tie on, I could too. Now, as a grown man, I know that my Jesus doesn’t care what I wear to church, but, out of reverence for my creator I think of that every Sunday as I am sliding my jacket on, (most of the time without tie because I still don’t love that feeling), but, “because I love Jesus, I want to look nice when I am in his house.” Thanks Grandpa.

CINDY: We were on a cruise to Alaska and it was Sunday morning. Grandma and Grandpa were on the cruise with us and you did not miss church. I mean you NEVER missed church. No matter what.

DREW: The boat had docked in a tiny Alaskan fishing village and while the rest of the family were sleeping in, Grandma and Grandpa were the first ones off the boat. They went tramping all over that little town until they found a Presbyterian church in service and they went it. Grandpa said they were the only ones not wearing animal skins and the folks treated them like royalty.

ANDREW: My grandmother would always pose the question, "What would Jesus Do?"  long before WWJD became popular. She would tell me, when I'd whine about something, Jesus Saves, give it to Jesus.

MELISSA: Grandma died in our home of cancer, she went down hill slowly, but near the end she was 
bedfast, and the doctor at that time, made house calls, and my parents hired a nurse to 
live with us, and help care for Grandma.

DREW: Sometime after her death Dad told me, Grandma made him promise to raise me to know Jesus as my best friend.  Dad didn't need to tell that story but once for me to get the message because I had so much love and respect for my Grandmother.

MELISSA: To this day I can hardly think, or tell the story without having tears come to my eyes. LUKE: She told me that when circumstances were difficult she always cried out to God.  That God was always good. She spoke of her mother playing the piano at the Methodist Church. Then, as a young woman, my grandmother also played at the church for a short time.

DON: When my grandmother was in her 90's and senility had set in, she would play the piano and sing hymns like, "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" and "What A Friend We Have in Jesus" and "Jesus Loves Me".  She couldn't remember where she was or even why she was there but these hymns of faith she remembered.

CINDY: I’ll see that happen when we visit Alzheimer’s wards. Some of the folks won’t have any idea what they’re name is or where they’re from, but once you start singing “Amazing Grace” or “In The Garden,” they start to sing along.

JEREMY: He prayed with me each night. He would kneel at my bedside, after reading to me.  He and I would sing "Jesus Loves Me", except, while I was a very little girl, he told me we would change part of the lyrics.  Instead of ".....for the Bible tells me so", we substituted,".....for my grandpa tells me so".

CINDY: He said that was until I could read the Bible for myself, but in the mean time he would tell me what the Bible says about Jesus' love for me.  He also made up a little prayer that we would say.  Here it is:

GANNON: " Dear God, thank you for this day, thank you for my friends. Thank you for the nice things you have given me today.  Watch over me and help me and keep me.  Watch over me tonight so that tomorrow may be another happy day.  Amen"

ANDREW: It was in 1976…I was ten years old… my Granny sent me a white leather covered bible.  It was beautiful!  I read that bible and carried it to church and Sunday school every week..it’s still adorned with stickers on the inside cover that I earned from memorizing bible versus.

DREW: I know when I was 12 years old, something that I read from that very bible stirred my soul and I knelt in our living room, mom and dad had already gone to bed for the night.

CINDY: I was alone in the living room and I asked Jesus into my heart and I remember weeping and it felt so wonderful.  Thanks, Granny.

MELISSA: Now that I’m a grandparent I wonder if I’m providing my kids with those same types of memories.

LUKE: The more our family gets spread out over the country, the important our times together become. Sometimes I sit around the Easter table or a birthday party and I look at my family. I wonder if I’ve done enough. I wonder if I’ve prayed enough.

DON: The times are different, but Jesus is the same. I guess that’s the most important thing I can give them.

(Music…)

Easter 2009

Page PAGE * MERGEFORMAT 9