Home > Lenten Blog 2024

Shining Lamps & God’s Love.

March 14, 2024

Pat Hallenbeck, 1972, working with the youth group.

Exodus 32: 7-14  |  John 5:30-47  |  Psalm 106:6-7, 19-21

The gospel reading for today, from John 5:30-47, made me remember my life 50 years ago, growing up in St. Luke’s Church. In today’s gospel, Jesus says “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just…” I was just a teenager in the 1970’s, and my cohorts and I probably had many judgments that were not “just,” regarding the world around us.  Jesus refers to John the Baptist’s “human testimony,” saying, “You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth….He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.”

For the group of us teenagers that made up what was referred to as “fellowship” back then, Father James Knudson and Pat Hallenbeck were the human testimony givers…not about themselves and their lives, but about God’s way, and His love. They helped shape our judgments to be “just,” and to seek not to do what our own wills would choose, but to do the will of the one who sent Jesus. They taught us to come to him, Jesus, to have life. They taught us to have the love of God within us. We rejoiced while in their light. The strong core in my life, that has kept me going through these many decades and their challenges, is a byproduct of these teachings. One of the greatest things these teachers introduced me to was the play “Godspell.” I’ve seen it in all different versions in all different states over all the years since. I felt I was a flower child that blossomed from the actors that brought to life the book of Matthew, and the love of Jesus. Pat nurtured this love of mine.

Pat is now 97 and will turn 98 on our shared birthday (shared with Heddie Neale for so many years), April 2nd. Last month I went to visit Pat.  Lisa Johnson, my best friend of 55 years, used to visit Pat also (as Lisa grew up in fellowship, too), and would frequently suggest that she and I should go visit Pat together. Unfortunately, that never came to be. So after Lisa’s death, I took her with me in spirit to visit Pat. At the end of our visit, I knelt down next to Pat in her recliner, and looked into her still beautiful blue eyes. The sparkle in her eyes, and her broad smile, were as loving as I always remembered them to be. I tried to hold myself together while I told her that she was the reason I grew up with the Christian spirit I have today, and the reason why I try to live as Jesus did, as represented in Godspell. I reminded her that she was my second mother, and after the years of fellowship, we’d go out to lunch together, and she’d dispense sage counsel. (Pat was also one of my mom’s best friends.) I told Pat I was grateful that she made my wedding cake, and read my favorite chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, at my wedding. I told her that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her weighty influence.  In that moment, as I looked at her, I knew we were sharing a minute unencumbered by her illness. She told me to “come back anytime,” and she kissed me.  It was a precious gift, and I felt God, and my dear Lisa, were there. If you are a parent and your kids are not involved in the youth group at St. Luke’s, try to encourage them to get involved. It could offer them a lifetime of education in what God truly looks like, if they find such burning and shining lamps as those I did.

Heidi Johnson