was laid. The dedication of the completed sanctuary was set for late that fall. In good time, a splendid, lofty building went up, with lots of clear and tinted glass through which the worshippers could still appreciate the natural beauty of their surroundings. The soaring arches inside were of British Columbia fir and the roof was made of cedar shingles. The whole impression was one of woodsiness and airy heights.
The contract for the pulpit, lectern and altar had been let to a craftsman in downtown Toronto—a friend of a key parishioner. He did excellent work, but unfortunately he found it hard to keep to a schedule. As the much-awaited day of dedication of the new church approached with no pulpit in sight, I went to his downtown workshop and was greatly alarmed to find everything in the most elementary form, half buried in piles of shavings. He assured me, however, that everything was proceeding as it should. I tried to smother my fears, but when the day before the event came and went and still there was no altar, lectern or pulpit, I began to panic.
We were expecting several hundred people at the dedication, including local politicians and, in particular, the Lord Bishop of Toronto himself. In the Anglican ceremony of dedication of a church, there are special prayers of consecration to be said over all three items that were still missing. How to explain their absence? I cajoled, pleaded and begged, and the craftsman continued to assure me he would be on time. But when the Bishop arrived for dinner at the rectory on the evening of the affair, there were still no essential furnishings. The Bishop, the Right Reverend Fred Wilkinson, who terrified me at the best of times, had to be told. I took him aside and broke the news. He was quite annoyed. “I suppose you expect me to ask God to bless the altar, pulpit and lectern which one day will be seen here,” he grumbled. I gulped and told him that was about all we could do.
Finally, the service was ready to begin. The church was filled to overflowing and the choir was assembled at the doors to commence the processional hymn. As the sexton tolled the hour and I was in the middle of announcing the opening hymn, there was a roar at the gates of the churchyard and a cloud of dust as an antique truck lurched its way up the drive. It screeched to a stop and the driver, my tardy cabinetmaker, leaped out crying: “Don’t start yet!”
The red-faced Bishop, holding on to his ceremonial shepherd’s crook, curtly gave his permission to delay the proceedings until the contents of the battered truck were brought in. The altar came first, in four pieces, and had to be assembled up at the front while the packed congregation looked on in astonishment. Next came the pulpit. It seemed enormous and looked more like a chariot from Ben-Hur than an ecclesiastical podium. The maker and four men and I had all we could do to carry it up the aisle. Since it wouldn’t fit in the aisle, it had to be carried waist-high above the pews on either side. While we struggled with it, my accountant, who was also the insurer of the property, rushed up to say that he would not accept liability if the pulpit were to tip and fall on anyone. So an announcement was made and people scurried for cover or scrunched up together, and we struggled on. The craftsman, who was carrying some of the weight on his shoulders and dropping wood shavings all over the new carpet, was nearly crushed when we finally set it down too quickly.
When my former “boss,” the Archdeacon of York Mills, the Venerable A.C. McCollum, eventually climbed into the pulpit and launched into his sermon, he began, “I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to be the first person ever to preach from this pulpit. What’s more, I’m certain I’m the first because I saw it come down the aisle with my own eyes!” Afterwards, some people told me that it was the most dramatic church service they had ever attended, and others said they thought I had staged the whole thing for effect! This is one of the moments in my life that would be done differently if I had another chance.
Christmas in the 1950s and 1960s, while the source of a certain delight, was also a season of utter exhaustion for the ministry. There was private communion to be taken to the sick, children’s concerts to be endured, gift and food boxes to be delivered to the poor, and extra sermons to be given. After several years had passed, it became almost impossible to say anything new on the subject, I found.
On the afternoon of December 24, 1959, I was almost dropping in my tracks from weariness. Earlier that day I had delivered a box containing a large turkey and trimmings, with toys for the children, to a “needy” family who lived in a high-rise apartment building. The elevator wasn’t working and I had to carry the package up several flights of stairs. I rang the doorbell, and after an eternity a child of about five opened the door. The living room was dominated by a huge colour TV set going full blast, which made my little black-and-white one at home seem like a relic. “I’ve come with gifts from St. Margaret’s-in-the-Pines Church,” I said. The father of the house, who was reclining on a sofa with his head propped on pillows watching I Love Lucy, looked irritated and said, motioning with a casual wave, “Put it over there,” indicating a table in the corner. This little encounter didn’t do much to put me in the right frame of mind to deliver my midnight sermon that evening, entitled “Sharing as the Essence of Christmastide.”
I spent the rest of that afternoon pacing the church grounds with my pipe (my crutch at that time) and trying to think, but by suppertime nothing had really gelled, and I also learned that my organist had suddenly come down with the flu. By nine-thirty I had an outline in my head and headed over to the office to type out my notes. I threw my coat over one of the benches (we were using the parish hall until the new church was ready), and at about ten o’clock I added the final touches to my sermon. Then I smelled smoke. I dashed down the stairs three at a time and into the hall and stood there, transfixed with shock, as flames leapt five feet high from my overcoat and the bench, which was also on fire. I realized I must have forgotten to empty my pipe of its ashes before putting it into my pocket. Fortunately, a rush of adrenalin freed me from my immobility, and after several pails of water I had the fire out, but it left the hall completely filled with clouds of acrid, choking black smoke. The service was due to begin in less than an hour. I tore around, opening as many windows as I could, and to my relief blasts of freezing air soon cleared most of the haze. But the place simply stank of burned cloth and paint, and by now it seemed to be bordering on too cold to serve as a church. I felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown! I ran for my car, drove to the nearest convenience store and purchased several cans of air freshener, drove back, closed the windows and furiously sprayed in all directions.
By the time the congregation began to arrive, there was the oddest scent in the air, but nobody remarked on it.
Preaching is either a clergyman’s greatest delight or the one thing that can keep him tossing at night like a harpooned fish. At that time, sermons were prepared with great diligence in an effort to impart something original and inspiring. Usually I enjoyed it, but there were times when I would have given anything for a copy of a medieval collection of prepared sermons aptly titled Dormi Securi (“sleep without a worry in your head”), reportedly much used by clerics of that feisty period in Church history. Interestingly, the Internet has enabled some clerics today to use generic sermons. They’re easy to spot because they invariably conclude with a question: “How would you [pointing a finger at a sweep of pews] respond to such a commandment today?”
Soon after I was ordained a deacon and during my first year of theological training, I was sent on weekends to a country charge with three churches. All the services were in the morning, beginning with the farthest point at nine o’clock, where I did a “preach and run” and then moved on to the next and the next in order to get everyone home for their Sunday dinner at one p.m. My very first morning was a beautiful, sunny fall day that was so warm all the windows in the little rural church were wide open. I mounted the pulpit feeling confident, apart from a certain tension I always had while gazing down into such trusting eyes. It was a harvest home service and the oaken pews were crammed with families, including the front rows, a rare phenomenon in Anglican churches even then.
Unfortunately, I got off to a rather shaky start. There was a banner attached to the reading stand on the pulpit by a piece of elasticized ribbon. As I gave the opening prayer, I inadvertently toyed with the ribbon. I said, “Amen,” looked up to announce
