The Weekly Fare . . . April 30, 2004

Reclamation, Reason and Rainbows

Not quite a year ago two men came together to save what to many was a beloved landmark and to keep our city from wasting millions of dollars on a stadium / amphitheater combination that would have done everything mediocre and nothing well.

One was a former economic developer for the city, turned private development consultant who happened to have had a significant hand in almost every meaningful project for Roanoke in the last 20 years. From the Shenandoah Hotel to the Jefferson Center to the recruitment of Johnson and Johnson to The Hotel Roanoke to the Grandin Theater to Warehouse Row to the Higher Education Center to the O. Winston Link Museum - the list goes on and on . . . He also happened to have served on the Roanoke City School Board and is known by all, not only as a man of great abilities, but one of fairness and integrity - someone you can count on when the chips are down.

The other one Chaired both the Roanoke City School Board and Total Action Against Poverty - an "in the trenches" doer known for taking his "no-nonsense, get the job done right" attitude and applying it in support of all kinds of community improvement programs. When he saw a need to better fund programs that serve at-risk students, he organized the "Western VA Football Classic" to raise money. When a neighborhood group sought to fight a methadone clinic in their backyard he was there to assist in a calming but purposeful manner. One friend describes him as perhaps the greatest "listener" he has ever met.

Both these men were told one thing. It couldn't be done. "Victory Stadium," they said, "was a lost cause . . . water so far over the dam as to be laughable." In fact the so called power-brokers in Roanoke, from the newspaper to those who sat on Council scoffing at their constituents, dismissed these two gentlemen as hopeless dreamers - men who just didn't understand the plans which Council had sold so well to themselves.

But these guys weren't quitters. They went to work organizing a remarkably diverse advisory committee representative of all parts of the city. In less than forty days they collected over 5000 signatures, and packed Council chambers repeatedly as they sought to help those in power understand that the community was vastly at odds with their plans for a new stadium. But Council refused to listen. Even after a forum in which they were overwhelmed 100 to 1 by Victory Stadium supporters and even after THEIR OWN CONSULTANT advised them strongly against building a new facility, they STILL voted to continue the project. "Arrogance" was the word on many people's lips. But it didn't matter - now it was over . . . through . . . finished.

But not for Brian Wishneff and Sherman Lea. They were just getting started. They continued to keep the issue before the public for the next three months and in December decided that their support had reached such a level that a run for City Council should be considered. As a consultant, I advised them both to campaign as independents in the general election in May, but Brian and Sherman decided that if they could beat two of the most ardent new-stadium supporters in Bill Bestpitch and Linda Wyatt on their own turf in the Democratic Primary, that maybe it would send a loud enough signal to Council to get the project halted.

On February 7th 2004 it wasn't even close. Wishneff and Lea crushed them both by a large majority. The rest of Council seemed to realize that they "weren't in Kansas anymore . . ." In the following weeks almost every candidate in the election being held next Tuesday May 4th has either changed or molded their platform to fit theirs. Imagine that.

But then an even more amazing thing happened - one more little miracle in a long line leading to what will hopefully be an even greater miracle. Linda Wyatt realized that the people had indeed spoken. She made a motion to halt the new stadium. Her vote swung the issue - this time 4 to 3 the other way. The stadium was halted. And lucky for the citizens of Roanoke, it looks as though it will stay that way. (Unless Bill Carder is somehow re-elected.)

But here's the truly amazing part of this story and the reason I think that the Spirit has his fingerprints all over this thing:

A. God always seems to work through seemingly lost causes, and as lost causes go, this was a good one. (Several times!)

B. God generally uses the most unexpected people to accomplish his will. In this case, a white Jewish Economic Development leader with family roots in Russia and a Christian African American Department of Corrections Administrator who looks like he could play linebacker for the Carolina Panthers. Odd couple? You might say that . . .

C. I keep seeing rainbows.

That's right - rainbows.

A couple of years ago my wife and I were participating in the Relay For Life Cancer Walk at Victory Stadium and after a brief shower passed by in the distance, we were treated to the most spectacular rainbow either of us had ever seen. This wasn't just a rainbow, rainbow. It was a masterpiece of brilliance and color. Hundreds of people stopped dead in their tracks to behold the glorious sight in hushed silence. I remember thinking at the time that it must have been incredibly meaningful to all those who were walking around us who had lost loved ones to cancer.

And then on the very night that City Council voted to build the new stadium in the face of all that opposition, a friend and I were coaching soccer behind the City Recreation Department. Just before practice was to get underway, as we were discussing how disappointed we were in the vote, the most resplendent rainbow formed itself as though drawn by some magical hand over Victory Stadium and Mill Mountain beyond. It was so extraordinarily bright and perfectly positioned that I remember the both of us standing there in awe, neither able to really put words to the scene. "Trust . . ." the voice seemed to be saying. But I had a hard time believing it.

And then last Tuesday night, as I left a meeting downtown, the sun was shining brightly as the rain poured all around me. I was frustrated by the charades and the "whatever's good for me" attitude of another candidate who was supposed to be supporting our ticket, but I was glad to see the rain and the sun. "Devils beating his wife . . ." I remember thinking, "Something good must be happening somewhere . . ."

I glanced off to the left. There, arching over the valley in the same iridescent and extraordinary brilliance as the other two was a rainbow of such depth and proportion as to be indescribable. I made a left turn and stopped the car in the driveway of the old Fishburn house above the famous rose garden. From the view on this high ground it was clear . . .The rainbow stretched from the general proximity of the City Court House downtown all the way to . . . you guessed it . . .

Victory Stadium.

I'm not talking near it. I'm talking on it. In it. Filling it with every color of the spectrum as though it were a giant bowl of lucky charms for God himself to eat - quite frankly bathed in light in such a way as I have never seen before and have scant hope of beholding again.

It glowed. It was ethereal. It was nothing short of Grace.

Think I'm kidding? Find a Bible the next time you see me, and I'll put my hand on it.

I realize that this all sounds rather schmaltzy and I know that from a different vantage the view was entirely different, but this is how it looked to me. It was absolutely extraordinary.

The gift of a miracle? Maybe. But if so, it's in addition to a second one . . . That two men of such vision, talent, experience and character would be led in such a way, at such a time to run in an election they never would have otherwise - in a City that so desperately needs just what they have to offer.

I don't know about you, but I hope it's a gift we all have the wisdom to claim.