Another friend passes

My friend, Bill Schoedel, died Monday. Bill was my mentor and Ph.D. thesis advisor at Brown University back in the 1960's. He was not much older than I, and he and his wife, Grace, had three children, Ruth, Paul and Carl, who were close in age to ours, and so during my grad student days, they became good friends to both Shirley and me. We would get together every Friday evening for pizza, and then would go to their house to play "Hearts," listen to music, and just talk. That closeness ended when I graduated from Brown and we moved to Keuka College in 1967. I very much stayed in touch by mail and phone, and we visited them in Providence once or twice, but then they moved to Urbana, IL when Bill joined the faculty in Religion at the University of Illinois. We visited them there in Urbana maybe twice, but mostly we just exchanged annual Christmas letters. So for over 50 years, it has been a friendship, but not a close one. Their son, Paul, died at age 63 just last year, on Christmas Eve. Paul was born May 6, 1960, so he was between my Betsey and John in age, and like Betsey, died an untimely death. In appearence, he was the spitting image of his dad. His death must have been heart-breaking to Bill. Bill himself chose to die by means of VSED - Vountary Stopping of Eating and Drinking. His wife was in touch via Facebook and let me know it was going to happen, and then, yesterday, let me know Bill had died. She said it took nine days, and it was hard work, but she had the help of the local Hospice, and her daughter, Ruth also lives nearby in Urbana. Bill evidently had several medical conditions that made him pretty miserable. Bill was born in Canada, and was a graduate student at the University of Chicago when I was there in seminary. As a student of Robert M. Grant, he took the opportunity to learn Coptic and tranalate the Gospel of Thomas into English for Grant's book on Thomas, The Secret Sayings of Jesus. I think this was the earliest book on Thomas to come out in English, and for Bill to have his name attached to it as the translator was something of a coup for him. Bill went on to publish commentaries on Polycarp, Papias and the Letters of Ignatius in the Apostolic Fatherss series, and several articles. When I was at Keuka, he encouraged me to take on the project of writing a commentary on The Diatessaron of Tatian, and I went so far as to get a grant from the College Center for the Finger Lakes to pay for photocopying everything I could find back in the Brown Library havng to do with Tatian, so that I could do research back in upstate New York. It was a large box of materials on Tatian (I think it may still be around here somewhere!). But I left Keuka for Lawrence, and then left teaching for administration, as a Dean of Men, and that was the end of that. It was both fascinating and overwhelming as a project. The overwhelming part was that the Diatessaron (a second century "Harmony" of the four Gospels, i.e., the four Gospels merged into a single narrative) exists only in early translations from the original Greek (some say the original was in Syriac) into e.g., Armenian, Syriac, Old Latin, Arabic, Dutch, Old High German and Middle English. The original no longer exists. That's a lot of languages to have to deal with! Some, but not all, of them have been translated into English, which helps. But they were all significantly different versions of the Diatessaron. One of the challenges facing a commentator on Tatian is: what did the original Diatessaron look like? It seemed almost impossible to answer that question, but one would have to deal with it. I'm sure it was a disappointment to Bill that I never really got into that project, except to collect materials on it, but he never said so. I was most fortunate to have Bill as a thesis advisor. He was very patient and understanding, he was supportive of what turned out to be a somewhat eccentric thesis, he did not make impossible demands, and he saw it through with me to completion. It could have been otherwise - believe me, I have known many grad students whose Ph.D. dissertations never got written because of their advisor's attitude. Here is a brief obituary: "URBANA - William (Bill) Schoedel, 94, died at home in Urbana on Monday (April 1, 2024). Bill was born in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, and is survived by his wife, Grace Schoedel of Urbana; daughter, Ruth Schoedel Book (Thomas) of Urbana; and son Carl Schoedel (Lisa) of Geneva. His son Paul Schoedel preceded him in death. Also surviving are his grandchildren, Lynn Book of Olalla, Wash., Laura Book (Esfandiar Alizadeh) of Santa Monica, Calif., Katelyn Schoedel (Ryan Offord) of Evanston and Daniel Schoedel (Jillian) of Schiller Park; and three great-grandchildren. Bill attended the University of Western Ontario, Concordia Seminary and the University of Chicago, ending with a Ph.D. in New Testament and early Christian studies. He taught at Valparaiso University and Brown University before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois to start a program in religious studies. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1976. Bill was an avid reader in all subjects, particularly music and nature. He enjoyed playing chamber music, specializing in the violin, viola and viola da gamba. A memorial gathering will be held at a later date."

William R. Schoedel (1930-2024). Rest In Peace, Bill! Thank you for helping to make me who I am! P.S. I found a letter Bill sent me back in the 1960's (it is undated). It includes a report on his attendance at the national meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature at which my dissertation was highly praised by the keynote speaker! He is urging me to keep my hand in the field of biblical scholarship. I was not able to fulfill this hope, though I have certainly maintained my study and teaching of the Bible, but it has been more for and with lay persons, rather than the scholarly community. I feel okay about that.

Letter from Bill to me in the late 1960's.

Happy Easter!

We did not go to the early sunrise service or the pancake breakfast, but we did go to Easter service at Guilford community Church, and it was a wonderful service. Pastor Allyson had arranged for five members of the congregation to talk about miracles in their lives to match the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. They were quite moving stories and the choir also sang three anthems, The Angel Rolled the Stone Away, William Billings's Easter Anthem and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. I read the scriptures from Isaiah 25 and the gospel of John chapter 20.

The Easter Sunday congregation at Guilford, passing the peace. Mary Alice Amidon and Elizabeth Christie are prominently in the foreground.

Easter Sunday. with Pastor Allyson and the Easter altar flowers.

Reading Scripture this morning.********************************** Good Friday, we went to a "union" service in the evening at Dummerston that brought together four local UCC churches: Dummerston Congregational Church, Centre Congregational Church, Guilford Community Church and 1st Congregational, West Brattleboro. The various paators gave meditatons on the seven last words of Jesus from the cross. During this time, the March Madness Basketball Tournament has been going on. The TarHeels defeated Wagner College in the first round and Michigan State in the second round, thus getting into the "Sw eet Sixteen." But then it played Alabama, who won by two points in a last-minute surge. The TarHeels' star player, R. J. Davis, had a very bad night, especially from 3-point range: 0-10. It was a heart-breaking loss, and I felt especialy badly for him, because I'm sure he felt the expectations very strongly and must have suffered for not meeting them.

Maundy Thursday

At the moment, I am at the Guilford Church while people are setting up for the Maundy Thursday service. It is called "Maundy" because it was on this night that Jesus gave his disciples a new commmandment, and the word "commandment" in Latin is mandatum which in English somehow became "Maundy." This year, our interim pastor, Allyson Platt, has decided to combine the service with a simple meal of soup and bread. So they have set up tables for forty people. Hopefully, that will be enough. Here is how it looks (using Photo Booth on the computer):

Set-up for Maundy Thursday. This has been a fairly quiet week despite being Holy Week. Earlier today I went to a Foot Care Cinic at Putney Cares in Putney - an RN takes care of various foot issues - nails, callouses, etc. Yesterday, I had a dental appointment for cleaning. No cavities! Otherwise, it has been a stay-at-home week, reading a study of The Last Week by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. It is a thorough and provocative study of what was actually going on the last week of Jesus' life. It is provocative because it challenges some widely-held ideas. E.g., Jesus entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was not a "triumphal entry." It was an intentionally non-violent statement - a non-violent protest, if you will, countering another procession led by the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, going on at the same time on the other side of the city, glorifying in the power and violent oppression of the Roman Empire. Pontius Pilate on his war horse vs. Jesus on his colt. So that has been interesting!

A wintry Palm Sunday

We got quite the storm last night. It snowed a lot last evening and we thought it would turn to rain, but it didn't - it snowed more and we ended up with about 10 inches, maybe more. Parts of Vermont got 3 feet! Church was held, but many were not plowed out and didn't make it. Mary Westbrook had to do a lot of shoveling to get her car out - she missed the entire rehearsal before church and came in just before church started, exhausted. Zach had plowed our road twice, so we were fine. I led the rehearsal, and we were all set to sing everything a cappella, but at the last minute we had accompaniment. The congregation was much bigger than I expected it would be - there were even five boy scouts there - two of whom were baptized during the service (including Cameron, Pastor Shawn's son). So everything worked out and I was proud of my little choir. Today it is bright and sunny, but very cold. Ellen has been cooking food for Nan all afternoon - Nan is recovering from a knee replacement. Yesterday, before the storm, we went to the Bergh's to watch the TarHeels play Michigan State - and they won. It was an exciting game - Michigan State came out on fire and looked like they would run away with the game, but the 'Heels rallied and won handily. So the 'Heels go into the Sweet Sixteen on Thursday. That is Maundy Thursday, but we don't know what time the game will be - it will be played in Los Angeles, 3 hours earlier than here. So it could be late at night here.

The Dummerston Church Choir

Jim and Joy

We have guests! Jim and Joy Harris, who live in Cherry Hill, NJ, are vsiting us for a couple of days. They are not actually staying here at the house overnight - they are at the Hampton Inn - but we had supper out and the evening with them here at the house yesterday, and earlier today, I went on a little trip with them over into New Hampshire, and they will have supper with us this evening before Ellen and I go to a Dummerston Church choir rehearsal. Jim is Shirley's nephew, the son of her brother, Ladd Harris. Ladd died, tragically, on July 31, 1960, at age 38, when Jim was only six years old. Jim has two siblings, an older brother, Robbie, and a younger sister, Patty. His mother is no longer living. Joy is his second wife, and they are a happy couple. Jim worked much of his adult life as an assistant District Attorney for the state of New Jersey. He has a son, Matt, by his first wife. Joy has a son by an earlier marriage, whose first name, coincidently, is Harris. He lives in Boston, which is the main reason for this trip. They will go to Boston tomorrow. Jim is retired, and in his retirement, he has gotten very interested in his inner life, and has become an author. His first book, Banishing Snakes by Fire: 13 Rituals for Recovering Your Authentic Self, draws on the work he has done in his own iife to heal the trauma of his father's death and its aftermath, and he is currently working on a novel about a man whose dreams prefigure what happens to him the followimg day. They arrived just before supper yesterday, and we ate together at Panda North. I had my usual Mala Tofu ad Ellen her ginger chicken chicken string beans, and Jim and Joy shared a shrimp appetizer and a main dish I forget. We had a surprise sitting at the next tabe was Ken Burns, the well-known PBS film-maker! He was with what looked to be a granddaughter. That was cool! Today, we went over to Harrisville and Dublin, NH, which are important locations in Jim's family tree - nothing to do with the Harris family- that is another coincidence - but rather with the Townsend family - his great-grandmother was Kate Townsend Langley. We visited the house where Kate was born and grew up in Harrisville, and the graves in nearby Dublin where her father amd mother and other Townsends are buried. Harrisville is a lovely old mill town, beautifully kept amd restored, and we had lunch at the General Store, which is an extremely popular gathering place. The Dublin cemetery proved to be a challenge for me because of hills and rough ground, and it was very cold and windy, but we had a good time.

Joy and Jim at Panda, with Ken Burns in background.

The Townsend house in Harrisville as it looks today

The Harrisville General Store, outside and inside

Time marches on!

Gosh, it has been two weeks since my birthday - my last post! How did that happen? A lot has taken place in those two weeks. Two friends died: Don Hazelton, who was my Dummerston neighbor decades ago, and Elliot Freeman, whom I have known for 40 years through the Guilford Church. Don was 93 and arranged his death. I visited him at Valley Cares a few days before he died and recorded a half-hour of conversation about his early life. Elliot was younger - 80 years old, just a few days short of his 81st birthday. We had sung for him at his home in Dummerston a couple of weeks ago. He had Alzheimer's. We went to Elliot's calling hours just yesterday evening, and in addition to talking with Diane, Elliot's wife, I saw many friends I had not seen for years - many from my years at the School For International Training, back in the 1970's.

Don Hazelton (1930-2024). Don was a farmer, orchardist, maple-sugarer - a lifelong resident of Dummerston. His wife, Bunny, died a few years ago (cf. my blog post, December 6, 2019).

Elliot Freeman (1943-2024). In earlier years, Elliot was a Navy pilot and Flew helicopters all over the world. Elliot's wife, Diane Larson-Freeman, is world-famous in English-as-a-Second-Language circles. "An applied linguist, known for her work in second language acquisition, English as a second or foreign language, language teaching methods, teacher education, and English grammar, she is renowned for her work on the complex/dynamic systems approach to second language development." (Wikopedia). Elliot and Diane have been faithful and important members of tne Guilford Church. Both Elliot and Don were gentle, lovely men.

Two photos from Elliot and Diane's wedding album which was on display at the calling hours. They were married in Ann Arbor, MI in 1974. ****************************** Despite these deaths, I think that what has dominated my thinking these past two weeks has been my work on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). This parable has proved to be quite a challenge. I've devoted two sessions to it - the first session was just before my birthday and the second was this past week. I called the first session a microscopic view of the parable, and the second a macroscopic view. I.e., in the first, we zoomed in on specific words and unpacked their significance; the second, we tackled big questions like "what is the basic message of the parable in its original contexts in the Gospel of Luke and the teachings of Jesus?" This question has proven to be not easy to answer. When I get a chance, I'll insert some examples from my lecture notes. Other things? The UNC Men's basketball team - the TarHeels - won five games and will play for the championship of the ACC Conference tonight; the Academy Awards happened. I'm reading about Thornton Wilder; we sang at a funeral in Guilford and in Shirley Squiers home; we've been practicing with the Dummerston choir; we've been going to River Singers; we went to Town Meeting, etc.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Wow, what a birthday weekend! My actual birthday was Saturday, March 2nd. Saturday was a family day, Sunday was a big celebration day. Saturday I had a leisurely morning in bed, and Ellen prepared a sumptuous breakfast for me and then she took me to John and Cynthia's at about 11a.m. or so. Maybe it was noon. Anyway, I spent the entire afternoon with them, which included going to Bellows Falls with them, where they took me to lunch at the Moon Dog Cafe: a sort of hippie restaurant where I had a Vermont Brie, Apple, Grilled Cheese Sandwich with potato salad. It was good! The rest of the time we sat by the stove in their living-room and enjoyed visiting. Then at 4p.m., I tuned in on my phone to the Tar Heels BB game against NC State - an excting game in which the first half was dominated by NCS, who had an 8-point advantage at the half, and the second half by the Heels who won by nine. The Heels are having a good year! Then at 6p.m. or so we went to Panda North where we met Ellen for supper. I had my fave, Mala Tofu. Yum!

My birthday breakfast prepared by Ellen. My phone was dead when we were at the Moon Dog Cafe, but I got these photos off the Internet:

This is exactly where we sat: J&C sat on the purple couch and I sat opposite on the flowered chair.

An interior picture of the Moon Dog Cafe. And here are two I took at Panda North:

Cynthia and John at Panda North.

Panda North interior. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sunday, we went to church at Guilford in the morning, and afterward, Ellen brought me home and left me there while she came back to the church to get ready for my brthday celebration, which started with a 1950's themed pot-luck supper at 5:00p.m., followed by a hymn-sing at 7p.m. The supper was fantastic! CLose to 100 people came - from thw Guilford Church, the Dummerston Church, River Singers, Hallowell, and beyond. The food table was full to the brim, and there were exactly the same number of people as there were chairs at the nine tables set up. There was a wondeerful energy in the room, we sang "Let Union Be," and "The Silver Rain," Brendon sang "My Way," Andy Davis wrote and sang a "Hymn for Larry Crockett," there were four birthday cakes (needed to hold a total of 91 candles). Many, many people came by to give me greetings, it was all just over the top and wonderful. I felt utterly surrounded by and wrapped in love. Scores of photos:

Andy and Robin starting things off.

Singing before we ate.

My plate of food.

The incredible food table.

Cutting the three-layer carrot cake made by Ellen.

Me with John.

Me with Ruth Barton and Merrill Barton. Ruth. was in the teen-age youth group in Dummerston when I was pastor there 1956-60.

Me with Sue Miller who was a two-year old girl when I first came to Dummerston in 1956.

With Arthur Davis and sweet, little Iona, just two months old - the youngest person at the party!

Four birthday cakes with candles! Because of COVID I didn't blow out the candles. We ended up extinguishing them by waving a paper plate over them like a fan.