Huffington Post--Not Huffy Posting

I saw a Facebook link recently to an article in the Huffington Post about Joe Overholt.  Fancy that.  It was written by a younger relative and former student named Steven Denlinger.  He is a free-lance writer.

Everything in the article sounded spot-on, based on my long-distance knowledge of Joe and his twin brother John.  Simple vignettes that captured moments in their lives provided quite enough fodder for chuckles, sighs, and furrowings of the brow.

Their lives were enigmatic, with remarkable giftedness mingling, as it did, with off-the-charts cluelessness  about practical realities.  Joe, for example, was said to speak eight languages fluently, and understand twelve, but he once called someone for help when he found that his steering wheel had been stolen from his car.  When help arrived from some distance away, the steering wheel was found exactly where it belonged, and Joe concluded that he must have mistakenly gotten into the back seat of the car, where, of course, he found no steering wheel.

Pathos is present in the story also.  Both Joe and John had a passion to see others come to salvation through Christ.  They traveled often in foreign countries in an effort to spread the Good News of the Gospel.  Being musically gifted gave them a vision for organizing singing groups to travel along.  The word “organizing” is only an approximate description of what actually occurred.  They were, in fact, famously disorganized, and unable to keep schedules, and anticipate, prevent, or correct problems.  

My house mate and co-teacher in Ohio was along on one of these tours to Mexico and Central America.  Sarah told me that they had stopped in Kansas to pick up Raymond Wagler, who traveled with them.  It was a good thing he was along.  The bus broke down repeatedly, and the Overholts had no money to fix it.  So Raymond reached into his own pocket over and over and paid for repairs so the trip could commence.  In the meantime, the busload of singers did what they could to survive with their dignity intact.  Sarah remembered bathing out of buckets behind blankets strung up among the trees outdoors while they were stranded.  

I have  my own memory of waiting in the wee hours of the morning in the Maranatha church building in Ohio, along with many others who were planning to go to New York City for weekend street meetings.  Several hours later, Joe and a young man from NYC arrived in the bus in which we planned to travel, but there was a problem--with the heaters perhaps?  Everyone who had even the faintest idea of what to do worked on the bus, but no one could fix it, so after a while, the trip was canceled, and we all trailed home again, and Joe and his friend trundled off to Hartville.

Joe lived at times in poverty, and died with no funds left for final arrangements for a funeral and burial. His niece, Carol S., told me that they took up an offering at a family reunion later to cover the costs.

Joe was disillusioned with church matters near the end of his life.  His influence had waned, and despite his best efforts, a decision was made against his will, and he couldn't quite get over it.

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I've pondered here before the juxtaposition of giftedness and cluelessness.  I still don't really get how this works, but I find it interesting.

In Denlinger's writing, however, I find something else worth pondering, which I may never have explored here.  In other writings on his blog, Denlinger recounts his journey from Hartville, OH to Los Angeles, CA, and the accompanying move from being Mennonite to being something else.  I'm trying to understand why I feel less empathy for Denlinger's journey than I do for the Overholts.  I could, of course, substitute other names here, for this story has often been told in various forms.  Someone who grows up Mennonite finds that they don't fit in that milieu anymore, for whatever reason, and they detail the journey away--the angst, the search, the discovery, the relief, the reflection, the resolution, which very often sounds like no resolution at all.  Uncertainty, "lostness," bitterness, redirected desperation, inability to function well elsewhere may be present--all of which makes me feel sad and a little embarrassed for them.

What I really wonder is if we couldn't just agree that people who take that journey are deeply flawed human beings--as are those of us who do not take that journey, of course.  I, for one, am decidedly not in awe of how well Denlinger has it all figured out.  Neither am I convinced that he was in bondage as a conservative Mennonite, and that now he is gloriously liberated.  I believe it's entirely possible to believe oneself to be liberated when, in fact, unnoticed, the skies have begun to lower, and all that is clear is the distance a person has put between themselves and their former life.

I'm chuckling, imagining how Denlinger would describe my current situation.  That he would do so specifically about me is highly unlikely, given the fact that he almost certainly does not know that I even exist.  He undoubtedly, however, is just as ready with sweeping categorizations of  circumstances like mine as I am of circumstances like his.  He probably would zero in on how much distance I'm putting between myself and people who live like he does.  So is there any point at all in thinking about what underlies journeys away from and journeys of ongoing immersion in the traditions of one's upbringing?  Is this just a tit for tat exercise?

What do you think?

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I don't believe that everyone who leaves the Mennonite church needs pity or rescue.  Neither do I believe that everyone who stays needs pity or rescue.  I am distressed whenever I sense in some people's telling of their story a glossing over of the real losses that accompany their choice, and a burnishing of details concerning life somewhere else.

An unswerving commitment to honesty and continual prayer for a heart that loves God's truth is decisive in determining destiny--for those who stay and for those who leave.