Church Shopping In Lakeland

After moving to Lakeland, I did look for a UCC church.  I had been active in the Fellowship Congregational UCC church in Tulsa so it seemed logical I would continue with the UCC church in Lakeland.  One problem:  there was no UCC church in Lakeland.  The closest UCC church was in Winter Haven.

I drove out to see the church and it was just too far from my home.  I realized that I would probably try to go for a while, but the distance would be just far enough to make skipping church the easy choice.

If I was not going to a UCC church, I still felt a yearning to go to church somewhere.  I liked that the UCC church used the Bible, but they were not a fundamentalist group.  I liked the fact that UCC church was accepting of same sex marriages/unions, they were pro-gun control, they were not anti-abortion, they were, in general, a gathering of liberals.  I knew I did not want to go to a fundamentalist church.  

But there are so many churches.  I wondered how I could most efficiently find a church that would fit with my needs.  [Yeah, and I wondered what my needs were.]

It came to me that the easiest way for me to find a church similar to the UCC church would be to send out a questionnaire to various Lakeland Churches.

I typed up a list of questions and ran off copies.  I got the yellow pages and addressed several envelopes to the selected churches.  I included a self addressed stamped envelope in each packet so they church would lose nothing to mail their questionnaire back to me.

I wish I still had a copy of my questionnaire.  I believe I had questions like the following:

1. If I attended your church would I be allowed to partake of communion?
2. How often does your church have communion?
3. I was baptised in the church of Christ.  Would I need to be rebaptised if I wanted to be a member of your church.
4. Does your denomination have a position on abortion?
5. Does your denomination have a position on gun control?
6. Does your denomination have a position on homosexuality?
7. How does your denomination view the Bible?

I am not sure now what all I asked, but it was a two page questionnaire.  

I mailed the questionnaire out, and waited.  I think I got four replies.

One reply came from a Methodist Church and it was OK.  Acceptable.  It was good enough that I went for a Sunday morning visit.  I found the congregation to be made up of people older than I was, the sermon was a yawner, and no one said a word to me.  I was able to get in, sit, get up, leave, pass the pastor and even the pastor failed to make contact with me.  They were off the list.

The next questionnaire came from the Lutheran church.  I actually expected the Lutheran church to be a possible contender, what little I knew about them.  It turns out there are Lutherans that are mainline denominational, and there are The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS).  I had mailed my questionnaire to the Missouri Synod group, and it sounded similar to a church of Christ group.  They would require me to be rebaptised, because only their baptism was accepted by God.  They were clearly fundamentalists. The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) were off my list.

I got a reply from the Catholic Church and the priest that wrote the letter wanted me to schedule an appointment to come in and he would go over my questionnaire with me face to face.

I made the appointment, and when I was ushered into a conference room I found myself greeted by a room full of priests.  My questionnaire had garnered a lot of interest.  Some of the priests were from other parishes.  One priest served as a spokesperson, I guess, and he had an Irish accent.

I started off asking my questions from the questionnaire, but quickly it became a free flowing conversation.  The Catholics were willing to accept me without being rebaptised, but they did not want me to take communion, or the Eucharist.  They wanted me to go through their classes and be confirmed before I would be allowed to partake of the Eucharist.

I asked about abortion, birth control, the infallibility of the Pope, as well as a phrase I’d heard in the past:

There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.

When I asked that last question the Priest said in his Irish brogue:

We call that a sad, sad saying of the Church

There was a lot I liked about the Catholics, but not enough.  I had so many misgivings.  The church of Christ thought all denominations were going to hell, but the Catholics were the worst of the worst.  Kathie told me a story about when she was in grade school and her history teacher had a question:  Name three non-Christian religions of the world.  Kathie wrote:  Buddhists,  Muslims, and Catholics.

In the church of Christ we were so inculcated with prejudice against the Catholics that our children did not even know that Catholics were affiliated with Christ.  The Catholics were off the list.

The Last questionnaire came from St. David’s Episcopal Church.  It was the best one I got back.  Most churches didn’t bother to return a questionnaire.   A Father Kevin F Donlon.  I liked Father Kevin a lot, and I remember going to St. Davids.  I knew nothing of how Episcopalian worship went.  When the time came for the passing of the peace, I thought the service was over.  I headed towards the door, but noticed that no one else was leaving.  

I soon learned that Kevin was the assistant to the rector and the rector and Father Kevin did not get along.  The friction between the two spilled over into disdain for their Bishop John W. Howe.  Eventually the strife between the two priests bothered me enough that I left St. Davids after only a few visits.

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

I noticed on my drive to work that I passed this little church, back in some trees.  St. Stephen’s appeared to be a going concern.  I often passed by and there were a lot of cars parked there.  

I felt a yearning to go there.  This was around the Spring of 1990.  I would sometimes call the church and listen to their phone message, and then I’d hang-up.  Eventually I called and got the Rector, Father Jim Taylor.  

This is Father Jim out of vestments,
with his lovely wife, Glenda.

I set up a meeting with him.  

At our meeting I told him about my conflict in Wewoka, my activities with the Fellowship UCC church, and a little about how I ended up in Lakeland Florida.  I felt good about Father Jim and his reactions to me.

I set up a time for Kathie and Ryan and I to visit.  When we stepped out of the car that first Sunday morning visit, there was a kid standing a few steps away and he he said, “Hey Ryan.”

Ryan said Hey back, but he didn’t seem like that other kid was a friend exactly.  It turned out to be Jamie Hiber a kid that I had a lot of encounters with over the following decade.  

As I stepped out of the car I saw a guy on the sidewalk twist his head and squint at me.  He came over to meet me.  He was David George who turned out to be the next Deacon at St. Stephens.

I loved the way an Episcopal service was conducted.  I thought Father Jim was particularly good at the way he celebrated the Eucharist.  I started attending St. Stephens and became a fixture there.  Father Jim found out I could teach, and I started teaching a lot of the classes at St. Stephens.  

One year Father Jim asked me to teach a class based on the Foster book on Prayer.  I did that.  Somewhere around this same time, the Archdeacon called Father Jim and asked him to teach the Life of Prayer class at the Institute of Christian Studies held at the Cathedral in Orlando.  While anyone could attend the Institute of Christian Studies it was designed to be the place you went to get your diaconal training.  Father Jim told Archdeacon Linda B.  that he was unavailable to teach the course, but he said he had this guy in his parish that had just taught a class on prayer at St. Stephens and that he thought that guy would be an excellent choice to teach the class at the ICS.

That is how, before I ever started the diaconal process of ordination, I was a teacher of the people studying to be deacons.  

I taught the class and expected that to be the end of it.  My evaluations from the class were outstanding, and I was asked to teach the class the next year it was offered at the ICS.  I ended up teaching the Life of Prayer class for 8 years in a row.

Not long after getting to know Father Jim, we moved to the Bluffs of Christina, where we rented a condo.  Father Jim owned a condo just down the street from us.  Kathie and I started to hang out with Father Jim and Glenda.  We participated in Bible groups.  My wife and I and Jim and Glenda were all friendly.

David George was our Deacon, but he got a position with Chuck Colson’s Prison Ministry organization.  Eventually he moved.

I felt really drawn to the Episcopal Church and I started the diaconal program.  Becoming a deacon in the Episcopal Church is nothing like becoming a deacon in the Church of Christ.  

Being active in the church was enough to be considered for a position as deacon in the church of Christ, and if the Biblical requirements were all there, the Elders could appoint you.

In the Episcopal Church it required four years of study at the Institute of Christian Studies.

Over time I was elected to the Vestry.  The following two years I served as the Senior Warden.

My second year as the Senior Warden father Jim and Glenda his wife called us over and Father Jim explained that he was going on a One Year Sabbatical, and he wanted me to run the church while he was gone.  Father Jim had someone to do the Priestly duties, Father Paul Wolf, but he needed me to come in the office regularly, to meet with families who had emergencies, deaths, and to deal with problems if any should arise.

Now I was teaching Summer School at George Jenkins High School when I was called to the office to take a phone call.  The church secretary said that someone had called the office, and explained that a former member, let’s call him Guster Skutter, had been arrested somewhere in Florida on allegations he had sexually molested to members of the Boy Scouts of America.  The person on the phone said that there were sexually explicit materials that belonged to Gus Skutter and that when Gus had been evicted from his Lakeland home, Father Jim had allowed Guster to store his household goods in one of the outbuildings on church grounds.  The voice on the phone wanted someone at St. Stephens to get rid of that child pornography before it was discovered and brought bad publicity to the church.  I told the church secretary I’d head out that way after that day’s summer school classes were dismissed.

I went by the office and got some keys to the padlocks that secured the three outbuildings located behind the Sunday School classrooms.

In the center outbuilding I knew I was in the right place because I could see a bed frame, mattresses and other stuff that you’d expect to find in a household storage locker.  The building was stuffed front to back, and floor to ceiling.  I decided I would lock up and come back on Saturday when I could dress to do this job.

The following day was a Saturday.  I got out there dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt.

I should add here that starting on my fortieth birthday I started getting tattoos so both my arms are covered in tattoos.  I might not have looked like the guy in charge of a church while the priest was away.

I started unpacking that storage shed.  As I removed items one at a time, I eventually came across two suitcases.  Those little flip up things that lock or unlock the suitcases were taped closed with masking tape.    My mind said, “This will be the stuff.”

I placed the suitcases on the ground and cut the tape with a pocket knife.  When I opened the suitcases I found myself looking at the first examples of child pornography I’d ever seen.  I shut the suitcases and walked to the fellowship hall.  I called the sheriff’s office.

I spoke to an officer, eventually, and explained about Guster, the child porn, and I asked them to send someone out to pick up the stuff.  They asked me to load the stuff up and bring it to the sheriff’s department.  

I refused.

I could just see what would happen.  I roll a stop sign, or get into a fender bender, the cops come, find child porn in my car and I’m arrested.  The newspapers and TV would headline, Teacher and Senior Warden of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church is arrested with child pornography in his car.  I was not about to haul child porn in my car.  I insisted the officers pick the stuff up and made sure they knew who the stuff belonged to.  

It was a long wait.  My best friend, Scott Barham showed up and waited with me.  When the sheriff’s officers showed up they were a little suspicious of me, given that my  arms were heavily tattooed.  I just didn’t fit their idea of a church guy.  But this was Florida.  It was hot and humid and I was doing physical labor unloading all that stuff.

After the officers left I decided this guy’s stuff did not need to be on church property.  Scott and I started to clean out the shed, but we came across several boxes filled with 8mm movies.  The titles indicated that these films were porn as well:  with names like Salute to the Navy, and Horney as Hell.  I called the sheriff’s office to have them return.  We also found pictures of Guster in a party with other men, and in some of the pictures Guster was dressed like a woman.

Some of the people at St. Stephen’s were upset with me.  They felt, if this got out, that there was child porn stored on church grounds, that it would embarrass the church.  I countered, what if it got out that there was child porn on church grounds that might convict a child molester, and members of that church destroyed evidence.  Which would be the worst publicity?

My Views of Faith and Doubt

To some, my views of faith, God, and the Bible will not be a problem.  To others my views disqualify me to serve the Episcopal Church, or any church.  There are, it turns out, degrees of fundamentalism.  Some people are fundamentalists only about a hand full of issues, but on those specific issues they are as stern and undaunting as the most aggressive black-belt church of Christ fundamentalist that ever lived.  Drinking, dancing, instrumental music in the worship service, no problem, but if I said that the Bible is not inspired, or that the Bible really has almost nothing that condemns homosexuality, well if you don’t think right on those subjects you are going to hell.

The Perfect Word of God -- Isn’t

I have come to the point in my life where I no longer see the Bible as the inspired word of God, at least not the way some people believe that.  We use the word Inspired in different ways.  Shakespeare’s writing was inspired, but that did not mean God entered his body and moved his hand to write those words.

I believe the Bible is a collection of writings by humans, probably all men, maybe, and they were writing about man’s struggle to relate to God.  It has been common throughout human history for people to believe in a power greater than themselves, and they have sought to relate to, and to please this Higher Power.

I believe the Bible is a record of people’s struggle to relate to and understand God, and that that humans relating and understanding God was something that evolved over time.  That means in the older parts of the Bible, when men killed babies, and sometimes their own children in an effort to please God, they were just wrong in what they did.  When the Bible condones slavery I just do not support that.  When a man offers his children to be gang raped by a mob, I would not consider that guy one of God's hero followers.  I cannot and I will not believe in a God that thinks it is OK to take babies and dash their heads against stone, but all that stuff is in the Old Testament.  I find that a lot of people that take the Bible literally have no clue what is in that Bible.  Read the Bible and you can't help have questions, doubts, and at times, outrage.  I think people living in a more primitive time, when life was brutal, nomadic, and patriarchal that when they wrote about their relationship to God their God was created in their own image.  That early view of God was a God who was also brutal, and patriarchal. 

If the Bible is from God and it is perfect then why would God sometimes change his mind?  Why would Matthew and Luke feel the need to copy parts of the Gospel of Mark into their version of the Gospel Story if God inspired them.  It seems like research would not be needed if the words were coming directly from God.  Why would Mark's Gospel have grammar errors that were later corrected by Luke?  Would God make Grammar mistakes?  The more I study the Bible the more moved I am by the scriptures and the less I accept it is inerrant. 

Over time life for humans changed, and those changes were reflected in their writing about God.  The evolution of how humans viewed God had its ups and downs, the evolution of faith was reflected in the early scriptures so that sometimes God was loving, and forgiving, and compassionate, and sometimes He wasn’t.  

When we come to Jesus I believe the evolution of mankind’s faith had improved significantly, so that there is a greater emphasis on love, compassion, an understanding that our love of God motivates us to love one another and that love is not just a feeling, but that it is demonstrated through acts of love and compassion to those around us who are in need.

By looking at the Bible as an evolving document that recorded man’s struggles to understand God and relate to God, I no longer have to be upset because there is a talking snake in Genesis.  The focus of the Adam and Eve story is on what the story teaches us, and it is not a textbook for science that forces us to reject the theory of evolution, or the effectiveness of antibiotics.  

I can see other sacred writings in this same light.  No matter how meaningful, or ludicrous the writings of some faith different from Christianity might be, I can believe it was written by people trying to relate somehow to a Higher Power. I can accept that their scriptures are not worse or better than mine.  I can believe that there are other faith traditions, many that do not appeal to me, but that does not single them out to be burned forever in Hell.

CS Lewis wrote, and this is a paraphrase: 

We know that no man comes to the Father except through Christ, but we do not know that every person that comes to the Father through Christ comes calling on his name. 

If you believe Jesus came to save us, then he did that.  We are saved.  It is a free gift of Christ and it does not depend on our belief, or our action.  We do not go to church and love our neighbor because we are afraid, if we don't, that we will scream in hell forever.  We go to church and believe in Christ because Christ loved us and our response to love is to be loving.

I can actually view Heaven and Hell as symbols rather than something to be taken literally. For me it seems silly to hate another person because they do not share the same exact collection of dogmas.  For me Heaven and Hell are symbols to point me to new understandings.  Heaven and Hell are real in the same way Eden is real, as symbols.

The Book of Common Prayer, in the section entitled Historical Documents, under Section VI Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scripture for Salvation it states:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation. . .

The historical document does not say that EVERYTHING in Holy Scripture is necessary to salvation. If this is true, then what are the parts necessary to salvation? 

I have come to believe that Jesus gave us a hint as to what parts of Holy Scripture are necessary for salvation:

Matthew 22:37-40 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

 

37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

 

I can discuss what I think it means to love God, and get some disagreement, but there is little to no debate over what it means to love your neighbor.

Jesus told a parable to explain who your neighbor is, and it was not limited to the people next door.  My whole goal in being a Christian, and a religious person is to seek to have a relationship with God, as I understand Him [or Her], and to seek to love others around me.  Maybe I can’t change the world, but it might be possible, No it IS possible, for me to change the world around me through love and loving acts.

ON BEING A DEACON

i was seeking to be helpful to Father Jim in as many ways as possible.  I remember once when he asked me to go out late at night [late for me, after 10 pm] to pray with and visit an elderly woman in a Lakeland nursing home.  

When I got to the nursing home, the doors were locked.  I knocked and got someone’s attention, but they refused to let me in.  I realized that if I had a clerical collar on that I would probably have been let in.  

My first desire was to become a priest.  I discovered that that was not a desire shared by my

wife.  My next desire was perhaps to do what Deacon David George had done, to be ordained.

It was a hard process.   One of the members Duncan Kilpatrick became a close friend, and she would take the diaconal classes too.  We drove up together Saturday after Saturday.  Sometimes I had to go alone, but she was a frequent flier with me making the studies easier for me to get to.

It is very odd that I was one of the instructors at the Institute of Christian Studies at the same time as I was a student there.  I was a member of the class over and over again, and then one day I was the teacher of my peers.  I’m not sure that had ever happened before.

I was a drama teacher at George Jenkins High School around the time of my ordination.  I invited my students to come to my ordination services, but Lakeland is a 45 minute to 1 hour drive from Lakeland to downtown Orlando and it was on a Saturday.  I didn’t expect any of the students to show up.  About 20 of my students showed up.

I was told later by one of the parishioners that at the reception, while they were in line for cake or peanuts or punch, the woman spoke to one of the students, Mark Nixon, and said, “It was very nice of you kids to come to tex’s ordination.”

They said that Mark’s reply was, “We would do anything for him.”

I had a number of students at George Jenkins that I loved.  I had a number of students that enhanced my life.

TCTA or How I Was Screwed by Politics

Moving to Tulsa was not what I wanted to do, but it is what i agreed to do.  The last UniServ director had been distrusted and disliked by the TCTA Board.  There were conflicts within this, the largest Teacher’s Association in the state of Oklahoma.  I didn’t know anyone in Tulsa, and I didn’t know my way around Tulsa.  I was afraid, but I was taking the risk because I was earning more money, and it kept me out of the classroom.

I sometimes kick my own ass thinking about the boneheaded choices I made, choices that totally disregarded the needs and wants of my wife and son.  I worked hard there because I felt like I had no other choice, that this was my shot at a better life, that if I failed I would have no other path to a better life.  In fact, I thought that if I failed I would lose everything.  I feared my wife would leave me and take my son with her, that I would end up homeless, living under a bridge, making my coffee with creek water.

Ok, yeah, I have mental health issues.  As I was growing up I was always told how stupid I was, what an idiot I am.  My mother used to do something that I didn’t understand at the time, she would say things like:  “You blinkin’ idiot.  You blinkin’ moron.”  I didn’t know what blinking meant.  Now I know it was central Texas slang for blanking.  She was putting a blank in her description of me.  “you ____________ idiot.  you ____________ moron.”  My mother was leaving a blank where a cuss word would go.   Church of Christers are not supposed to cuss so to comply with the Law she used blinkin’ [or a blank.]  I wonder what word could have gone into the blank?   Over time I learned that I was truly the stupidest excuse for a son, the most worthless human on earth.  Eventually I learned the lesson well.  

One my brothers is offended by the way I talk about his mother and father.  I am giving the wrong impression if you think my mother didn’t love me.  She put bandaids on my booboos.  She cooked for me, and washed my clothing.  But she did put me down.  My mother got mad at me a lot.  My father got mad at me a lot.  The mother and father that called me a blinkin’ idiot or the stupidest kid on earth may not have been the same people that raised my youngest brothers.  I am not lying when I say that my childhood prepared me to hate myself.  I hated myself from an early age.  I felt sorry for my parents that they were stuck with the miserable excuse of me as their first born son.  I was too afraid to kill myself.  I thought about killing myself all the time.

I was making my way through life faking it.  I was passing as competent.  I wasn’t always successful, but I learned to play the part of someone who was not stupid and worthless, while knowing the whole time I was so dumb god was wasting air on me.  I was totally convinced that the only way I could take care of my wife and son was to cling to what I was doing and hope know one found out what a fuckin’ loser I am.

I started out terrified of the TCTA Board.  I got all my fear of TCTA from Leila and some of the other movers and shakers at the OEA head shed.  Tulsa was well known as a force to be reckoned with, and they were generally uncooperative with OEA leadership.  TCTA was a gathering of independent thinkers, and they were large enough that they didn’t have to kowtow to the OEA State Organization.

I have to tell you that while I had no positive views of TCTA I found them to not be a gathering of demons.  The President was a man named Charles, and the Vice President was a woman named Polly.  Charles did not look like someone who would rise to become President of Oklahoma’s largest teachers association.  Charles weighed then, what I weigh now, like 260+ lbs, or much more maybe.  He was not a good looking guy.  If he put a tie on the points of the tie stopped halfway down his enormous belly, like the big member of the Laurel and Hardy Team.  Charles had moles on his face, and he was not particularly articulate.

I remember once Charles was interviewed for one of the Tulsa TV stations.  Over and over Charles used the word ‘frustrated’ but he pronounced it “FLUSHstrated.”  Charles was not the sort of guy that would normally rise to the top of a simi-big deal organization, but he did.  I think he’d been on the TCTA board, and a popular president had died unexpectedly.  Charles must have “paid his dues” and earned his right to be elected president.  

Of course, he had enemies, people that disagreed with his leadership, or perhaps they were just embarrassed that he was head of the healm.   Regardless, Charles had actual skills at figuring things out, and he made decisions that were not just good, they were often brilliant.  

For some reason Charles and Polly liked me.  We got along swimmingly.  I didn’t spell very well, but I could write.  I wrote articles and speeches for Charles.  I prepared him for events.  I advised them in the processing of grievances and it turned out I was better at that than they were accustomed to seeing.  

I remember one teacher was in trouble accused of hurting a little black girl’s back.  The teacher was a white, big burly female PE teacher.  The children were in the gym and they were told to sit on their knees in rows facing the front.  The little girl in question did not do as she was told, she turned and faced the back.  The little girl was the only girl facing the back.  The PE Teacher told her a couple of times to turn around and face the way the other children faced, but the little girl did not cooperate.

The PE teacher said she walked over and simply spun the little girl around so she was facing the front.  Then the PE teacher offered to demonstrate.  Polly got on her knees and the PE Teacher spun her around.  

“See,” she said, “it was just like that.”  It did seem harmless.  But Tulsa was having racial issues then, and a white teacher was accused of singling out a black child, spinning her around hurting the child’s back.

After the PE teacher left our offices Polly turned to me and said, “Tex, when she spun me around -- she hurt my back.

TCTA was happier with me than with the UniServ Director that had preceded me.  TCTA was giving me positive feedback to the leadership at OEA.  The job was not as good as being President, because I was actually a lacky, a gofer, an employee that took orders.  I could give input, and make suggestions, but the decisions belonged to the President and the TCTA board, and that is the way it should be.  It just wasn’t as good as me being President of PCACT.

CHURCH -- Fellowship Congregational Church

We were living in Tulsa and coping.  Ryan liked his new school, Barnard Elementary, and for the first few months Kathie did not work.  I was happy with how things were going.  Now while I was angry at the church of Christ and fundamentalism in general, I still thought that perhaps Ryan should be exposed to church.  The Judeo-Christian tradition was an American tradition and I just felt Ryan might do well if he knew the basic Bible Stories.  Kathie was not as skeptical as I was, and she felt a loss at having no church home.

I took it upon myself to find some sort of church we could go to that would meet the needs of my family without driving me crazy with their narrow-minded I approach to everything.  I thought we would check out the Fellowship Congregationalist Church.  I almost backed out when I found out that it was affiliated with the United Church of Christ.  We went anyway.  

The sermon was by a very articulate man named Russ Bennett.  The sermon was pro-gun control.  Since I was politically liberal I was surprised and pleased that the sermon was on a political topic.  Kathie was impressed with the preaching and the people were friendly.  

We started going to Sunday school, and I was, as I often am, vocal, mouthy, seeking attention, needy for the approval of others.  I tried to feel my pitiful yearning by being very active.  I started getting involved in the church, was elected to their governance council.  Eventually I was elected the Moderator of the congregation, the equivalent to being the congregational president.

I found myself drawn to the way they worshiped.  They only had communion twice a month, but the way they had the communion was very moving.  You went to an altar rail and knelt.  You held your hand out palms up, and bread was placed into your hands.  The person putting bread in your hands would say, “This is the body of Christ, the bread of heaven.”  The wine, and yes, they used actual wine, was in a big cup, or chalice, would bring the cup to you, you would sip from the chalice, and the person holding the chalice would say, “This is the Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”  It just felt more, well, holy, somehow.

In the UCC church they had some written prayers and they were well written and moving.  What I remember from the church of Christ was a lot of babbling prayer. There were stock phrases in the church of Christ prayers:

• guard, guide, and direct us ***  [I would wonder, “isn’t guide a synonym for direct?”]
• help the sick and afflicted *** [the sick and the afflicted sound a lot like synonyms too.]

There were a lot of “we just” prayers.  You know, “Lord, we just proud to be here.  We just want you to bless us, to guard, guide and direct us.  We just want you to forgive us because we just want to be your people, yadah, yadah, yadah.

I enjoyed my time at Fellowship Congregational UCC Church.  My ties there were broken when I was forced to leave Tulsa.

THE 1990 TEACHER’S STRIKE

I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it belonged to someone on the TCTA board.  The problem all teacher unions in Oklahoma were having is this:  effort after effort was going to impasse because there was just not enough money in the pot to negotiate over.

In almost all cases a little more could have been done in the area of teacher pay, but it would have been taken from somewhere else in the budget.  If teachers unions wanted more, perhaps it was not the size of the slice that was the problem.  Perhaps the size of the pie was the real problem.  The schools just did not have enough money to run the schools properly.

Someone at TCTA pointed out that while state law made it illegal for teachers to strike against the school board, there was nothing in state law that said teachers could not strike against the State Legislature.  Efforts were started at TCTA and people in Tulsa started talking up the idea of a strike against the State Legislature.

In 1990 this showed up in the newspapers:

OKLAHOMA TEACHERS STRIKE, HIT PICKET LINE

Monday, April 16, 1990 8:00 pm

OKLAHOMA TEACHERS STRIKE, HIT PICKET LINE

Thousands of teachers went on strike Monday to show their anger over a failed $230 million education improvement package, and many picketed at the state Capitol.

Teachers say their pay ranks 48th in the nation. The minimum beginning salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree is $15,060.

TCTA actually contacted superintendents of schools urging them to support a teacher strike because it would get more money for the schools, not just for the teaches.  Slowly people started to consider the idea, until it happened.

Only a few schools went on strike, at first, but over a couple of days more and more schools joined this strike and the majority of the schools in Oklahoma were closed down.  Thousands of teachers walked a picket line around the state capitol building.

I learned a lot as the UniServ Director for TCTA.  One event that I remember specifically happened during that 1990 teacher strike.  

We had teachers carrying picket signs at the schools just to remind the public in Tulsa that the teachers were on strike and the schools were closed, but the real action was in Oklahoma City.  We weren’t on strike against our schools, we were on strike against the lawmakers in Oklahoma City and that was where we needed to picket.  

TCTA decided they would charter some buses and ship teachers to Oklahoma City to join the picketing there.  How do you do that?   The logistics of that had to be considered and worked out before we even invited the teachers to do this.

• What did we need?  Buses.  I contacted bus companies and got some prices.
• The teachers will need a place to meet to get on the bus and that place needed to have parking.  I located a sporting facility that was closed and got permission for us to use their property to load our buses and park people’s cars.
• People might be concerned about their cars.  I contacted an agency that could provide a couple of guards to patrol the teacher’s cars.
• We could use this event to gain additional publicity for our strike.  I contacted a funeral home just to ask how they get motorcycle policemen to lead a funeral procession and block intersections so the cars can move smoothly through the streets without regard to the traffic lights.  The people who do that for the funeral home were not the police, but an agency that provided this service for a price.  I hired them.
• Would the picketers need to eat.  Working with the charter bus company we found a place halfway back from Oklahoma City where the buses would stop to allow people to get some food and relieve themselves, if you know what I mean.
• We had to get the word out to get as many people as possible to participate in the picketing.  We used building representatives who all had phone trees.  We also got a news story on TV and on the radio.  We needed the people planning to go to call by a date certain so we could know how many buses to order for this trip.
• AND I had to make sure we were going to have news coverage of the departure of these buses.

The event went off without a hitch.  We were on TV in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City.  The pictures of the motorcycle guys leading those buses out of Tulsa was impressive.  The motorcycle guys stayed in the front of those buses until the buses reached the turnpike.

Later it turned out to be wise that I hired these funeral motorcycle people.  Someone accused TCTA of getting the police to lead those buses out of and that would be taxpayer paid employees helping out a union during what some were still calling an illegal strike.  

Being able to provide a receipt showing a private company had been hired and the tab was paid out of TCTA’s bank account.

By the end of the week the pressure on the lawmakers were heavy enough to get them to pass what was the largest increase in Oklahoma funding to that date.  The teachers had won.  The strike was over.  This Spring, when the negotiated agreement was being bargained, there would be, for the first time, significant money on the table.

OEA was thrilled that this risky stunt worked.  We had a new Executive Director and she felt that this was the perfect time for OEA to get a dues increase.  Her rationale was that OEA had called the strike, and the strike was successful, so why not give the OEA a dues increase.

TCTA opposed the dues increase.  TCTA had the ability to gather enough support to kill the OEA’s efforts at getting a dues increase.  The new Executive Director told Charles, the TCTA president, that if TCTA blocked the dues increase, OEA would have to make some cut backs.  TCTA said they didn’t care that they would not stand for a dues increase.

So guess who was laid off?

Suddenly I found myself out of a job.  I had a month to get my ducks in a row and then I would be unemployed.  I started looking for other UniServ Director Jobs around the country.  I interviewed in Kansas, Nevada, and Florida.  

Florida flew me out to Tampa and I was picked up by JJ, the Assistant Executive Director of the Polk Education Association.  I interviewed with a former PEA President who was on the PEA board, and things went well I thought.  I was sent back to my room at a local Bartow, FL motel.  I called my wife to tell her how the interview went.  A second after I hung up with Kathie the phone rang.  I was asked to return to the PEA office.  JJ picked me back up and brought me back.  Suddenly I was negotiating my own salary and conditions.  I asked for what I thought, in 1990, was a good salary:  $35000.  I also was to have an expense account [$3000], a company car, a gas card, and moving from Tulsa to Polk County was to be paid for, in full by PEA.

I accepted the job, signed a contract, and alcohol was served.

I returned to my room in a daze.  I was just about to call Kathie and give her the news when my room phone rang again.  This time it was the new Executive Director of OEA.  She told me I didn’t have to leave TCTA, that they had found enough money to keep me on the job there.  

Well, I’d just accepted the job.  And I felt like I’d just been used as a poker chip in a game between TCTA and OEA, and I was pissed off about that.  So I just said I had accepted the Florida job and I was going to move to Florida.  

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”

― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

I was again uprooting Ryan.  Why did I do that?  What was wrong with me?  Ryan had been informed that due to his grades and IQ he was to be moved to a science magnet school and he was going with several friends.

Kathie had been working at a USAA MasterCard call center and she was about to be promoted.  

Instead of letting my family put down roots, I made them move.  It sort of makes me sick now, thinking of this.  Later, when Kathie’s father died she was in Florida.  She could have lived closer and seen her father more often had we stayed in Oklahoma, but that is not what we did.  Because of me.

See My PEA pickin’ Past which may not be next but it is part of what followed my leaving Tulsa.