A Book of American Martyrs(28)

“Thank you, Reverend Dennis. I will.”

Though my conversation with Reverend Dennis was not what I had anticipated, I did not allow myself to become discouraged, but continued to pray, and to read all that I could about ministry schools in Ohio and close by; especially, I focused upon the Toledo School of Ministry, and began a correspondence with the dean there, sending the man carefully written letters, composed with Edna Mae’s help. And after several weeks, during which time I frequently spoke with Reverend Dennis after church services, and at other times, our pastor acknowledged finally, with a lifting of his hands (as in a blessing) that it looked as if I had a calling after all—“You are very resolute, Luther! God be with you.”

Very kindly, Reverend Dennis agreed to recommend me to the Toledo School of Ministry where my application was accepted, and where I was invited to begin my course of enrollment in the fall of 1986. He even offered to recommend me for a scholarship—(though I would not count upon this, for I could not feel that Reverend Dennis’s recommendation would be enthusiastic). For most students the program of instruction could be completed in a single term, but as I could only attend school part-time, and would be commuting from Muskegee Falls to Toledo to take two courses each term, instead of four, I would be lucky to complete my degree in a year.

“But will they guarantee you a church, Luther? When you graduate?”—Edna Mae would ask, worriedly.

So many times Edna Mae asked this question, I fell into the habit of replying with a shrug—“Ask Reverend Dennis. He made the promise.”


“JESUS, THANK YOU for your help! I want only to spread Your word.”

Many times alone in my vehicle, driving to Toledo, returning to Muskegee Falls, I uttered these words aloud, for solace.

There began then a difficult time in my life, that became ever more burdensome and fretful in the winter months of 1986 to 1987, when the drive from Muskegee Falls to Toledo, a distance of approximately eighty miles, was often buffeted by strong winds and driving snow; and once or twice, midway between, I was forced to turn back, as the highway had become impassable.

Even on clear days the commuting was very tiring, as I soon discovered. On the mornings I drove to Toledo, which were Mondays and Wednesdays, I would wake before dawn out of nervousness and excitement, and hurriedly eat breakfast in the kitchen alone, and leave before 6:00 A.M. for my first class (“The Minister’s Bible”) was at 9:00 A.M. and I did not want to be delayed by my family. My second class (“The Craft and Art of Preaching”) was at 2:00 P.M. Following this, I would try to work on my assignments in the school library, before starting off for home at about 5:00 P.M. On my workdays, which were Tuesdays/ Thursdays/Fridays, my foreman insisted that I work longer hours than I had been doing, and so I often began work at seven o’clock in the morning, and worked through the day until seven at night, with but a half-hour break for lunch. (Of course, I was very grateful for this work. I understood that my foreman was sympathetic with me, as one who is studying to become a minister, and at the same time supporting a wife and young children.) Reeling with exhaustion I would drive home, and eat a meal saved in the oven for me, as Edna Mae bathed the children and put them to bed. Often on these nights I was too tired to exchange more than a few words with Edna Mae before falling into bed myself. I understood that my schedule was very hard on her, for she had no one to help her with the household, and two young children to care for, and her health was not always so good. (Edna Mae had a respiratory weakness, as it was called. If she caught a bad cold it would likely turn into bronchitis if not pneumonia. Often too, it seemed that Edna Mae might be pregnant again, which excited and upset her, and when this turned out to be a “false alarm,” was a relief to her, and yet saddening.) Still I was fired with hope, at the prospect of becoming a minister. I will be like Christ, a carpenter. I will build my own church with my own hands and be revered like no other minister in the St. Paul Missionary Church.

Except, I did not find the Toledo School of Ministry to be what I had anticipated. There were costs beyond tuition, which were called “fees”—also, my textbooks were more expensive than I had known books could be. Most of my fellow students were younger than I was, and seemed hardly more than high school boys; yet they were aloof to me, as they were (perhaps) intimidated by my size, like the smaller boys in the Sandusky schools who had been fearful of me and yet believed themselves superior to me, because their grades were higher. Little bastards I could break you with one hand. Fuckers.

A strange anger rose in me, like heat bubbling through tar. I was not aware of this anger until suddenly it emerged leaving me breathless.

There were a very few students at the ministry school older than I was—men in their forties and fifties who had decided to “make a career change” and become ministers. Two had been schoolteachers, and one an accountant. Another had been a “lay minister” in a church in Michigan, for thirty-two years! I felt for these individuals a sympathy tinged with pity, if not scorn, of the kind Reverend Dennis had seemed to feel for me, for I saw how unlikely it would be, that these middle-aged men would ever be chosen for a “pastorship” at any church.

It was a young pastor who would be favored, suffused with the joy and strength of Jesus, whom the congregation would love as a son or a brother. Not an older man who had failed at a secular life and was turning now to the church as a convalescent might enter a hospital.