A Man of Modest Mien

If anyone were paying attention (which, fortunately, they're not) they'd see that it's been over a year since I posted to this thing. I have another blog, Clutterjam, to which I'm somewhat more attentive, but even that's a spotty proposition at best.

That's my principle blog, such as it is, but long ago I decided to set this one up as a depository of religious (or religion-inspired) posts. The idea was to separate the religious from the secular – not because of any weird “American separation of powers” jag or because I'm ashamed of my religion (Catholicism); on the contrary, I'm quite proud of it. But it seemed to me that two different (purely theoretical) audiences were at play. Maybe I was the one who needed the separation. If nothing else, it was a way to help me organize my thoughts.

Whatever.

Anyway, Clutterjam – Clutterbread. Get it? The pun, incidentally, was accidental. I thought “Clutterbread” was a clever way to reference the Catholic Eucharist – the “source and summit” of our faith, as Pope John Paul II put it. It was only after a little while that I saw the double pun of “jam” and “bread.” Apparently, my humor is so subtle that I even trick myself.

I've lately thought about trying to be a bit more regular with my entries, whether on one or the other. I started recently to be a little more active on Jam while entertaining the notion of inhabiting Bread again. The fact that Lent began recently gave the latter a bit more priority in my thinking, but a coupla weeks into it, I hadn't pulled the trigger yet.

My immediate inspiration for doing so now was the recent death of my good friend's father. More specifically, I got a thank you note in the mail yesterday from his widow. It was her response to the sympathy card I sent when the news came of her husband's passing. It was very touching and, well, here I am.

Ken Helm was an inspiration. You talk about your solid Christians. Ken was that in spades. I met his son, Mike, on the first day of my freshman year in high school. He was (and oddly, remains) only a few months older than me but was a sophomore. The Helms (Mike also has an older sister, Cindy) were a solidly Christian family.

I'd been born and raised Catholic, but like many of my peers, I'd pretty much begun ignoring the Church by adolescence. When I embarked upon a young adult understanding and acceptance of it, Mr. and Mrs. Helm were two of a handful of grown-ups who were key to nourishing my new-found faith.

According to Mike's eulogy of his dad, at one point Ken considered becoming a minister, but on the advice of a friend and spiritual adviser, he remained in his job as a field engineer with General Electric. In his years with the company, he and his family lived and traveled all over the world. After his kids were grown, Ken took early retirement and he and Jinnie continued their international hopscotching, doing missionary work (principally in Europe and Asia, I believe.) This was a couple that, even in their twilight years, were knee-deep in the grunt and tussle of spreading the Gospel, or as Mike put it, enacting “practical love through service.”

Ken was a rather astonishing physical specimen. Not that he was The Hulk or anything; he was a normal looking guy but he was extremely fit and active. I believe he swam most mornings. (Perhaps not, I suppose, when he was on one of his many mission trips. I imagine lap pools aren't readily accessible all the time in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Thailand, etc.) He wouldn't do them all at once, but even shortly before he was recently diagnosed with late-stage cancer at age 86, Ken would drop and do a hundred pushups during the course of the day. And being a WWII navy man, I have little doubt that they were done with proper form. His kindness, good humor and all-around decency would never betray it, but Ken Helm was a bad-ass.

As it happens, he wouldn't betray it either. He was a man of impeccable modesty and good taste. As Mike describes it, Ken was fastidious in smothering attention aimed at himself – always, but always shunning his own glory in favor of deflecting it toward Jesus. “I never knew a guy,” Mike said, “so worthy of a compliment who had such a tough time accepting one.”

In my long and sordid odyssey of faith, I was eventually drawn back to my Catholic roots about fifteen years ago. Ken was (and Jinnie still is) of the denomination known as the Church of Christ. I've known the Helms for over a third of a century. In a world where Christians are often pissy about their sectarian differences, they've never once even hinted at disapproval of my Catholicism. I know that anti-Catholic sentiment is not always a rare thing among Protestants.

In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis uses the metaphor of a mansion with many rooms to describe the body of Christ and its many denominations. He says that the believers in the various strains of the faith (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc.) have their differences, but that it's the believers closest to the core of each that he thinks are closest to one another. I happen to agree with him.

I have no doubt that Ken and Jinnie Helm have long been close to that center in the Church of Christ. I try to accomplish the same in my own Catholic Church (with middling results, perhaps). If I can even cover a fraction of the distance toward it that Mr. and Mrs. Helm have, my priest might try to recruit me for the seminary.

And a note on what some may call semantics. Several years ago, Jinnie said it was okay for me to call her by her first name. I explained (perhaps at the cost of awkwardness for her – by making her feel old) that old habits are hard to break. When my brothers and I were kids, my parents were adamant that we address our elders as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” Maybe I'm unfairly indulging those habits, but I simply can't think of her in any other way. Referring to Mike's parents as “Ken and Jinnie” will always seem foreign to me. I've even felt that way in writing this.

If, as the Bible tells us, a tree shall be known by its fruits, Mr. and Mrs. Helm can be justifiably proud of the orchard they've planted. I've been privileged to walk in its shade and eat of its fruit for many happy years.

Which reminds me of something. One of my fondest and earliest memories of my friendship with Mike was watching cable TV at his house and eating Mrs. Helm's delicious frozen fruit cups . . .

But that's another story.