He looked at me and grinned. I said, “What did you say to her?” And he said, “I looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘My name is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. NO!’” She said, “My brother is President of Harvard. Ring him up.”  And the old geezer said, “I didn’t have anything better to do, so I put a call in and it went straight through to the president, Abbott Lawrence Lowell.”

And the man said to President Lowell, “There’s a woman here who says she’s your sister.” President Lowell said, in his taciturn legal way, “Describe her.” The gas station man said,  “She’s sitting on the stone wall across the street. She’s got her pants kicked up to her knees, there’s a black hat down over her eyes, she’s smokin’ a black cigar, there are seven Sheep Dogs in the back seat of her car and is she MAD!’”  President Lowell said, “That’s Amy! Give her the gas!”

I want to be describable, don’t you?  Did you ever think about what the officiating clergyperson is gonna say at some of our funerals?  “Ol’ Flat Face.” Isn’t it terrible? Well, you know the thing I’d like to have them say more than anything else is, “He was a little odd sometimes. But, you know, he was full of hope. He cared about other people. He’d do almost anything for his neighbor. And he kept workin’ at it. He was a real pastor.”

 
– Harrell Beck
“The Story of Three Wise Women”
Preaching Conference, Board of Ordained Ministry
Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino, CA
May 12 and 14, 1986
 

Editor’s Note: This is another example of a story that Harrell dressed up to fit his own story-telling style. Based on a true story, Harrell inserted himself into the intro as the one to whom the story was recounted. He also got a couple of the details wrong (including the date of 1928 – Lowell died in 1925), the dogs (Lowell kept Old English Sheep Dogs*, not Great Danes) and the car (Lowell famously drove a maroon Pierce Arrow, not a Buick). If you have a recording of this story, you’ll note that the details above have been altered to bring them into line with Lowell’s biography. Harrell may very well have met the old gas station attendent to whom this happened and had this conversation. The details of such stories always morph over time. This anecdote (as remembered by Amy Lowell herself) is recounted in an article  in The Milwaukee Journal, October 10^th, 1958 

*Amy’s dogs were named Jack, John, Tommy, Rosine, Mary, Lydia, and Columbine

Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore and Director of Development, the Rev. Canon Ted Karpf, meet with members of the Beck Committee in April, 2013

In April 2013, the first meeting of the Harrell Beck Committee met in Boston to begin planning the launch of the School of Theology’s “Campaign to Fund the Harrell Beck Chair.” Launched after Harrell’s death 27 years ago, it’s hoped that the remaining funds (approximately $350k) can be raised in relatively short order.

When asked how the “Chair” works, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Ted Karpf, explained,

“The endowed funds on a chair are never withdrawn; rather the status of the endowment will allow whatever exists to be called a “professorship” which pays a portion of the incumbent’s salary, but never the full amount. Hence, Harrell Beck will be perpetually remembered. The chair, which is distinctive (there are only three at the School of Theology  in 173 years), is a guarantee for all time that the remembrance of Harrell’s name and work fully funds the professor who sits in that chair.”

The Professor who currently occupies the chair is Dr. Katheryn Pfisterer Darr.

Stay tuned for more information on how you can contribute to the effort to fully fund the Harrell Beck Chair in Hebrew Scripture. In the meantime, be sure to “like” Harrell Beck on Facebook, follow Harrell on Twitter, and subscribe to this blog!

I love my country. I love my flag – but I would like to serve my nation with my conscience. I’m smart enough to know that a real patriot is not just concerned with the external strength of his nation but with the internal condition of its soul.

Harrell F. Beck
January 31st, 1974

So we walked into the post office and I was truly interested on whether we’d have to pay duty. You know, how much duty do you pay on a parishioner?  There’s a set of variables that’d be hard to deal with.  He said to the postal clerk, “Do we have to pay duty?”  And the Canadian postal clerk said, “Not if you write three words on the box.”  By now I was all ears.

We said, “What are they?”  And he said, “No Commercial Value.”  And I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could write on people’s foreheads when they’re alive what we write on their boxes when they are done?  Oh, Father, forgive me.

Give yourself to a cause, a person, a possibility bigger than you are.  Believe that persons are ultimately valuable.

“The Story of Three Wise Women”
Preaching Conference, Board of Ordained Ministry
Arrowhead Springs, San Bernardino, CA
Harrell Beck
May, 1986

A few years ago I got cornered into speaking to forty Methodist Bishops on a hot afternoon in July in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I wasn’t prepared — and in an unguarded moment found myself asking, “What do you think your mother thought when she was changing your diapers?” I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have said it for several reasons; one of which is, of course, that there are a considerable number of Methodist Bishops who never wore diapers. I call them the “immaculate exceptions.”

Okay then, I’ll ask you, “What do you think your mother thought when she was washing your diapers?”  “This dirty kid; I thought he would come to a better end”?

But don’t you know that most of us are here because somebody who had their hands in our reality dreamed of what we might become? Don’t you know it!? And some of you on campus and in camps, dream for kids and write poetry, sing songs, dance dances. That is the foolishness of Christ: that you have your hands in the dirt of the world and you’ve got your dreams in the hands of God.

— Harrell Beck
“When the Eagle Flies High”

— diapered baby photo credit: Little Spruce Organics

But then I’ve lived long enough to discover that the only people who have really made any difference in my life are the people whom God has taken and sand-papered the cockles of their hearts – until they could not walk by a hungry child, a crying woman, or a hardened man [without responding]. It has pleased the Lord to bruise the servant.  And I thank God for what is in many ways the ultimate maturity of the spiritual life: it‘s no accident that the 53^rd chapter of Isaiah and the “Song of the Suffering Servant” is more quoted in the New Testament than any other single chapter of the Old – and is half the text of Handel’s Messiah.

– The Heart of Biblical Faith, May 1986

(photo credit: WGBH Boston)

And I said to myself, “Good heavens! What did he do? Slip a gear in his last years?” So then I went to the history books and I discovered amongst the martyrs of the ancient church and in the catacombs of Rome a dolphin portrayed on the tomb. And I discovered in some of the catacombs of Rome a dolphin wearing a crown!  And sometimes a dolphin carrying a scepter! And then I read a reference or two to Christ the Sceptered Dolphin. I was intrigued! Wouldn’t you be? And I discovered that the Mediterranean people around Italy and Greece and North Africa had a tremendous regard for the dolphin or the porpoise. And there are three reasons why I love the dolphin.

Every Mediterranean person who had gone to sea knew that when there was a captain who didn’t know his way… it is a matter of record that dolphins will lead a ship across the exit from the harbor along the rocky reef and if necessary, clear to the far port.  That is a matter of record!  It is also known that occasionally if a little boat should be encountered by a school of sharks – the dolphin will take on the whole blooming group!  And we have instances where dolphins have offered their lives to protect the people on the ship! And I, who have had the joy of sailing the Mediterranean a number of times (because I was a poor school teacher and down on the lowest deck) — know that when they don’t have anything else to do, dolphins like to come back in schools of two or three and entertain the passengers.

How could I ever say a thing like this: “Christ is the Sceptered Dolphin” to a group of educated graduates of Claremont? Then I discovered… are you still credulous? I discovered, down in New Zealand, on its Eastern side, that there is a port called Pelorus, and that for thirty years a dolphin lead every ship in and out of that harbor. In nineteen hundred and four, New Zealand made “Pelorus Jack” a National Hero and put him under the patronage of the army and navy of New Zealand. The next year a group of characters went out and killed him!**

Why do I bother you with the heart of Biblical religion? Because in the simplest possible way you know, I’d like to be loyal to the sceptered dolphin — to help people find their way. Especially when the rocks are sharp. Am I bold enough to intercede when the enemy is violent? And is it possible in meaningful and wonderful ways that meaningful communication could go on?  Should that begin to happen, they will not only know we are Christians by our love, they might just think that the biblical people and the body of Christ are synonymous.

- adapted from The Heart of Biblical Faith and Images of Hope: Christ the Dolphin (a blending of two tellings)

______________

von Rad grave marker. Retrieved from Wikipedia. Used by permission

*NOTE: Harrell may be confusing von Rod’s tombstone with someone else’s here. von Rad and his wife are buried in Heidelberg’s “Hadnschusheim Cemetery.” On their marker is a minimalist impression of a fish. However, it is clearly depicting Jonah emerging from the great fish, said to be an Old Testament foreshadowing of resurrection. See picture at right.

**NOTE re: the Pelorus Jack story: Some of the details Harrell shares are incorrect, but the gist of the story is the same. It’s hard to remember a pre-internet age when a good story would come to light and there were almost no local resources for confirming the details. There are many examples among Harrell’s stories where the details aren’t quite right, but the theme of the story is apropos to his message. For details on Pelorus Jack, click HERE. 

Featured Image: Mosaic of a dolphin with an anchor is from the ”House of Dolpins” in Delos, Greece (2nd century BCE). Retrieved from Lessing photo. 

Finally, in September, they got a call from a high school in Western North Carolina: “Have you got a music major?” They sent the boy and he was brilliant!  The summer of the following year the school board asked him, “Would you also teach agriculture?”  The two are closely related as you know — and America has a distinctive way of rewarding its teachers. He said, “No” and they said, “Yes, or else,” so he did.

The first day in his course in Agriculture the lecture was about sheep — and he knew nothing about it. So he cleared his voice and said to the students, “The sheep of the world are divided into two groups. There are rams and there are ‘eee-wees’.” One of the students wiggled a little, so the teacher shouted all the louder, “There are RAMS and there are ‘EEE-WEES!” Finally the student couldn’t contain himself and said, “Are you sure that’s right?” Around here we pronounce “ewes” as “yews.” And the teacher (who had had a number of courses in education) said, “Well, there are two schools of thought about that.”

From “Images of Hope, The Nails”
Harrell F. Beck
March 8, 1985

*Hutson was President of Greensboro College from 1952-1964

Ewe graphic by Diana Madaras 

Images of Hope: The Nails
March 8, 1985

 *Eugene Talmadge, Governor of Georgia (1933-1937 & 1941-1943) 

“Knowledge” graphic credit: http://thesalesmaster.wordpress.com

One day a student came forward, mounted the pulpit and on the sheet was written the word, Zacchaeus.  Fortunately the student was conservative enough to have read the New Testament (which can not be said of all seminary graduates). He knew that Zacchaeus was that little man who shimmied up a tree down in Jericho — the chap from the IRS who had to look over everything.

The student thought for a moment and announced boldly, “My subject is Zacchaeus and I have three things to say. First is: Zacchaeus was a little man — and so am I! Second is: Zacchaeus was up a tree — and so am I! And the third is: Zacchaeus heard Jesus say, “Come Down!” and precisely now that is what I’m going to do!”

I keep thinking that’s one of those sermons that might have been ruined by preparation.

Heart of Biblical Faith – Being a Biblical People
May 13, 1986

- Spurgeon graphic credit: www.pilgrimpublications.com