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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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"Thursday's Fare"

Recently I was exposed for the first time to the concept of Church Retreatin', and let me tell you, like many things in this world, it wasn't quite what I had expected. This may sound strange, especially in our mind-numbing world of virtual entertainment and rapid fire electronic thrills, but it was downright fun. A blast. Hysterical even. And yes, somewhere in there, even enlightening. In fact, (please read this last part as a whisper), I'm thinking about going again.

I'm not sure why we went. Maybe to support the new minister or maybe just to rustle up some good summer memories for the children or maybe just to see if we had been missing something all these years. The whole gang would not ship off at full strength, however. Following Napoleons's lead we decided to employ a "Divide and Conquer" strategy, and split the troop evenly for the weekend. Momma and 6 week old "Mr. Rob," as we call him, would stay home with his 2-year-old sister Jane Bird. Dad, George and Gussie -- 38, 6, and 4 years of age respectively, would carry out the mission and see what this "retreatin" thing was all about. This was the best decision I made in all the month of August. Scratch that -- this summer.

We arrived at Massenetta Springs with a great deal of energy and excitement. George and Gus were boiling over to get to the room and more importantly to PUT THE KEY IN THE DOOR. You could have promised trips to Disneyland or rides on the space shuttle for that key and they would have looked you dead in the eye and given you a stout, "No Way." I suppose the attraction lies somewhere in the realm of command and control. But anyway, about it we were pumped. How anyone could be so gassed about accessing this particular wing of rooms was well beyond my comprehension as the place was, how shall we say nicely -- old, beat up, a little bit dank and poorly designed to begin with.

Presbyterians, I suppose, are many good things, but one thing we apparently are not, are engineers, and architects. Massenetta Springs, just up the mountain from Harrisonburg, Va., offers a 100-year plus cross section of cutting edge Presbyterian design, and let me tell you it ain't pretty. The original old hotel and open-air pavilion are certainly nice enough. In fact, they testify well of the post-Victorian architecture of their day. But what hath been wrought over the years in the name of additions and add-ons has created the most incongruous and eclectic mix of bad architecture assembled in one spot since Mini Graceland was constructed adjacent to the Roanoke Industrial Park. In fact the "Richardson Building," which housed our present accommodations, had the look of a 1950s medium correctional facility with a winged concrete roof apparently designed by Frank Loyd Wright -- at age 5 -- on a heavy dose of old fashioned cough syrup. I mean it was bad, real bad. All graduates of the Virginia Tech School of Architecture should be required to view this property as a "How Not To" and as a primary example of just how big a responsibility they one day may have to society, or in the case of Massannetta, their denomination..

To the wonder and awe of the children the key DID fit the door and with a rush of gleeful exuberance we entered our chamber as though it were No. 10 Downing St. Which, of course, it was not. In fact within our 12-by-12 cinder block and tile chamber were two beds, a roll-away, a small pine dresser and desk, a sink and a Bible placed by the Gideons. Yup, the Gideons. Go figure. I guess our forefathers saw no sense in spending hard-earned Presbyterian dollars when them damn fool Gid'uns was a gonna come by and put some in the rooms anyways.

To the kids, it was the queens residence and more.

We had a shared bath with a room located on the other side of the building that was connected by a short, cinder-block hallway with acoustics not given to 4-year-old little girls. When Gussie spoke at what to her was medium volume, this hall would take the sound waves and magnify them to the level of a locomotive horn. I know everyone within 10 rooms was most impressed, especially our suite mates who truly, by the grace of God, were someone we knew better than not.

The weekend kicked off with a dinner and talent show into which I had been conscripted. "C'mon," my dear friend, Hayden, had implored, "You can do this. I mean it's just a church talent show, for heaven's sake." He had me. It was just a little talent show, but as I sat in the back row and watched, it occurred to me that some of these folks were quite good. Mike Ridenhour, who owns the leading music store in town, did a fantastic job on his guitar, leading both the adults and youngsters in some sing-along classics. There was a 9-year-old, (the ultimate winner), who ripped off two jazz numbers on the piano that were astounding. I followed him with a pirated version of "Route 66," having changed the verses to both praise our great church and parody some of its leaders.

The overall desire had been to produce something humorous, but it turned out to be received in a more uplifting way, and as it was, I bumbled my way through, barely able to keep myself from singing the original words I had last crooned some 18 years ago in the basement of the Lambda Chi Alpha house at Hampden-Sydney College. A different crowd to be sure, and not as appreciative or fun-loving as this group.

Just moments before our departure, my wife, apparently worrying about my ability to survive the weekend without some vestige of decadence, had packed in our gear bag a large bottle of red wine and paper cups. "This," she said, "might prove useful on your journey." And useful it was. Within 15 minutes of my arrival, the word was out on our corridor, and by dinnertime a group had formed who were most interested as to when, exactly, this wine would be served. This included our senior minister; my friend Hayden, a retired heart surgeon; a local newspaper editor who shall go unnamed and the weekend's featured speaker, Mark Durrette. When questioned as to the implications of possessing a bottle of fermented grape on the hallowed grounds of our retreat, our minister defended us with great theological eloquence, reminding the questioning party that Christ's first miracle was indeed the turning of water to just such a beverage. Architecture no. Theology yes. You gotta love these Presbyterians. We had the wine late that night on a balcony overlooking the quadrangle.

The rest of the weekend was life at its best for both me and the kids. Our meals were all served in a large pine-paneled lodge just like the ones from everyone's childhood camp. They served the same old institutional macaroni and cheese that no four-star restaurant can dish up and did a wonderful job with the powdered eggs that George noted were somehow not exactly like the ones mom fixed at home. Unlimited bacon was a hit with him, however, as were the plates of whipped pies that awaited on the tables in each corner of the room. He may well have traded the room key after the first night for another one of those, had he not known that they, too, were "unlimited." Saturday morning the children did "arts and crafts" as Durrette unpacked the intricacies of the Psalms. He was a loud and laughing and hearty speaker, quite unlike the calm and reflective man who had sipped his wine with us on the veranda. He took us in and out of the ancient scriptures with ease and lent his clarity well with stories and song. When I met up with Gussie, she presented me a hat with a picture of "Dad and Me" painted on the brim. A nice bit of shade for a mind more at peace than it had been in some time.

After lunch we canoed together on the small lake, raced magnolia leaves down the spring creek and played extended rounds of 'Shark," "Marco Polo" and "Team Keep Away" in the invigorating pool it fed. The second night we had a bonfire by the lake accompanied by "some mores" and songs from Ridenhour's guitar. The frogs and cicadas joined in our choruses and the children's flashlights searched both the ground and the sky for what might be left of summer's hidden treasure. The adults connected memories, past to present as the future raced in and out of the periphery of firelight. We were all quite complete and I suspect most of us knew it.

Our trip home wasn't quite as smooth as the weekend. Dad's decision to jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Buena Vista proved to be ill fated. First we got stuck behind a Model T club and breathed in about an hour's worth of 38 mph lead. This was followed by another wise Dad decision to make up time on the extremely curvy sections of road around the Peaks of Otter and yup, succumbing to lead poisoning and pulling one too many positive G's, the Gus girl yorked quite thoroughly upon the front seat floor mat. She recovered nicely but was again overcome while we were sweeping around the on ramp to I-581, this time bathing the right side of the car while her hair whipped in the hot Interstate wind.

Several motorists we were passing at the time, seemed to gain some amusement from the scene. The Gus girl, however, was not the least bit amused, and I suspect if her vocabulary possessed the words she would have had them all rotting in Pokemon hell. Upon pulling her head back through the window I questioned as to her condition and she gave me the sweetest, "I'm OK Dad," I've ever heard.

I'll never forget that "I'm OK" It was all heart and then some. I told her the whole thing was my fault -- getting behind those old cars, driving too fast on a curvy road -- and she told me that that was OK too. She's a good one, that Gussie

What had I expected on this trip? Pious and plain people? A setting a bit more in keeping with Camp David? Stifling rules and attitudes ... an epiphany maybe ... from out of the blue beyond the clouds?

Well, not on the surface, but maybe somewhere down below those expectations probably hovered.

Perhaps God never speaks as we suspect, or even fear he might. Instead, he seems to whisper into the ordinary moments of our lives -- when we get out of the way, toss aside our shallow visions, allow him the room to walk among us, and more often than not, to makes us laugh.

I hope we get the same room next year.