Newsletter, Novemeber 16, 2011
From the Senior Pastor….
(Click here for full Newlsetter in PDF format.)
She was alone. There were no other cars in the church parking lot. Four men in an SUV pulled up alongside her. I don’t know what her initial thoughts may have been, but I quickly jumped out of the car, and walked toward her to say hello. Seeing me, she stepped out of her cars and called out, “Render!” (She claims it was the eyes that immediately identified me!)
It’s embarrassing to tell you that I got her name wrong. I called her “Betty,” but she quickly corrected me: “No, I’m Marilyn.” Marilyn has been the organist of Bethel Presbyterian Church in Sparta, Illinois, since I was the pastor back in the 70s. It was just one of many special treats the Lord had for me during a three day trip to St. Louis with three good friends.
Tom Lowe had six tickets to the sixth and seventh games of the World Series. Two of them were for a business associate and his son from Springfield, Illinois. The other three were for Tom May, Mack Lonas, and . . . ME!
As we approached St. Louis we learned that the sixth game was rained out. That was terribly disappointing. I had to be back in Chattanooga by Friday evening so I could fulfill a Presbytery responsibility in Knoxville on Saturday. That meant we wouldn’t get to attend the seventh game. All we’d get to see was game six.
Knowing we weren’t going to a game that evening, we took a slight detour to drive through Sparta, some fifty miles south of St. Louis. And that’s when we just happened to “run into” Marilyn. It was delightful. I got to catch up on some of my former members, we took the time to take a quick tour of Bethel church, and I got to show off the town of 4300 where my family had lived for seven years, and three of our children (Philip, Gretchen and David) were born.
We then headed on to our motel. The next day Tom showed us some of his business interests in St. Louis, we drove past a few PCA churches, and visited Covenant Seminary.
And then we headed for the ballpark.
I’m an avid baseball fan. I’m a fanatical Cardinal fan. I’ve never even dreamt of attending a World Series game.
I have to admit I was still feeling disappointed about not getting to attend game seven, but by the seventh inning of game six my dis-appointments were gone. The Rangers were winning and it didn’t seem as if there’d be a game seven.
The Cardinals were trailing four runs to seven. In the bottom of the eighth the Cardinals scratched out a run, to trail five to seven. In the bottom of the ninth, with two out, David Freese, down to his last strike hit a two run triple. In the top of the tenth, Josh Hamilton of the Rangers, one of my favorite non-Cardinal players, hit a two run homer. But in the bottom of the tenth, Ryan Theriot drove in a run, and then Lance Berkman, with two outs and down to his last strike drove in the tying run. The Rangers did not score in the top of the eleventh. David Freese led off the bottom of the eleventh for the Cardinals, and promptly hit the game winning home run over the center field fence (only the fourth walk off homer in the history of the World Series).
Tom Lowe insists that he watched me die and come back to life three times during the game. Probably so. It was fantastic.
The seventh game would be a cake walk for the Cardinals, who claimed their eleventh world championship in 2011. It would have been great to have been there. But we had witnessed what many are calling the greatest game in World Series history.
It was a gift. A gift from a friend. And, for me, it was a gift from God. Obviously, it was not of any world shaking significance. But for me, the game, the time spent with friends, and a stroll down memory lane were the icing on the cake.
Pastor Caines