Remembering Robert

Today would have been the 21st birthday of Robert Yin, a dear friend of Christine and Sara's -- and our whole family for that matter -- who died tragically back in May following a pole vaulting accident. I had the privilege of speaking at his memorial service and these were my remarks:

As sad as it was, there was something quite fitting about the manner in which Robert died. For in life, as in death, Robert soared. A talented student, athlete, musician, and a wonderful friend to so many, he knew how to live in only one gear – high – and if there wasn’t anything happening, Robert was the one to stir things up. Whether it was painting his face for a pep rally, or hiding behind a couch in my family room to startle me, or screaming his patented “Yeaa Boi,” Robert brought energy and a little bit of fun – no a lot of fun – into every situation he was part of.

Robert never just showed up – he always made an entrance. He would run up and give bear hugs or launch himself into you in the hallway at school, roll on our living room floor like he was James Bond on a mission, or ring the doorbell, run away, and jump out of the bushes to scare a good friend – or in the case of Jonathan Loewe, his mom.

Robert was loud – not in an obnoxious way, but in a way that you always knew he was around. He had several different, telltale laughs – a quick, machine gun-like laugh, a loud evil laugh, and an “I’m-laughing-so-hard-I can’t-breathe-I’m-crying” kind of laugh. He shouted to people who were only several feet away, could burst into a song at the drop of a hat, and was just, well, sort of loud.

Robert moved through life with the impish grin of someone who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. And while he had the capacity to be goofy – and I mean really goofy, with no fear or qualms whatsoever about embarrassing himself – he also had a side of him that could be very serious whether it was preparing for a race, practicing his viola for a recital, or cramming for an exam. Consequently, because of these two complementary sides of his personality, in all of his pictures you either see him grinning/laughing/smiling broadly or conversely, with an intensity etched across his face.

Robert had the capacity to make everyone feel like they were his friends – because they were, we were. If you knew him for two weeks or five years, if you were the friend he had come over to visit with or the little sister – or the mom, or the dad -- he would take time to talk with you, to ask you about your day, to listen when you needed someone to be there. I was really touched to read his Facebook wall and discover just how many people had an experience of Robert just hanging out and listening to them. Robert liked to flirt and was a little girl ADD and the number of former girlfriends – do you all want to stand? – or girlfriend wanna-bes in this sanctuary today confirm this. He just made everyone feel special with his charm.

Last week was Pentecost, the day in the church when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. In my sermon I talked about Robert and the rough emotional week we had all just been through in coming to terms with his loss. But mostly I talked about the way that Robert lived intoxicated by God’s Spirit, and he knew that it was not something only to be sung about or talked about in this church that he loved and came to nearly every Sunday. No, this Spirit was something to be breathed in deeply only so you could breathe it back out into the world and share grace and love and compassion. That was what Robert did and it was this infectious, life-filled, overflowing spirit that we all loved and tasted and are better for having it blow through our lives. And so as we offer your life back to God, Robert, we say: “Soar, Robert, soar.”

Post-Sabbath & Playoffs

Though it feels good to be back at work, I have a confession to make: already I was sort of looking to play hooky from next Wednesday night’s Church Council meeting. Now I’m not one to casually shirk my duties. Nor did I really want to make Jenny cover for me again after she has provided such capable leadership to the congregation in my absence. But you see, I was really hoping to be at the Maryland State High School 4A Field Hockey semifinal back in Reisterstown, our old stomping grounds. Alas, after a 1-0 overtime loss an hour ago, looks like I’m going to have to be a dutiful pastor and show up for our meeting night after all.

In terms of sheer volume, I have taken more pictures of Wootton High School field hockey games during my Sabbath Leave than anything else – conservatively over 3500. As the unofficial team photographer, I’ve had the privilege of an up-close sideline view of this tight-knit (they call themselves “the cult” and hang out together all the time), senior-led group of girls who have excelled tremendously and they have provided me more joy and excitement than any other subject matter I’ve put my camera to. They finished 9-3 in the regular season, won several games in dramatic fashion either in overtime or by scoring in the waning minutes, tied for first in their division, made it to the regional finals and were only minutes and inches away from moving on to the next level. Along the way, Sara (who is the starting goalie), with considerable help from her stellar defense, racked up 7 shutouts and tonight she played one of her best games ever, making save after spectacular save – all but one, the game-winning shot which was a really solid strike. She came off the field with tears in her eyes but her head held high because she knew she had given her all and kept her team in the game to the very end.

It has been so much fun as her dad to see her grow in confidence, emerge as a leader and become such an important part of her team – moreso than any other team she has played on in all her years of competitive sports. She worked hard to raise the level of her game, putting in extra hours with her coach after practice and I couldn’t be prouder of her grit, determination, and performance. I am really going to miss this team, but what a season they had. When they dress up for their banquet this coming Sunday, I hope the disappointment of tonight gives way to a sense of satisfaction about how much they were able to accomplish. I better get to work on that slide show – I have a ton of pictures to wade through, one last time – truly a bittersweet labor of love.

Sacred Sand Between My Toes

Most of my travel on my Sabbath Leave was front-loaded for the month of August so that I’d be around for all the big events at the start of Sara’s senior year – field hockey games, homecoming float-building, college apps, and the like. But I’ve still managed to squeeze in some local photography and one and two day excursions to a handful of selected spots. Earlier this week I got to travel back to the Jersey Shore – not the one of the current TV reality show but the one of my childhood. For twenty years, I vacationed with my family in North Wildwood and it still holds a ton of wonderful family memories. Nearby is Ocean City, NJ, not far from where I was born (Somers Point) so an overnight trip to these two personally significant beach towns seemed in order.

The North Wildwood of my youth was a magical place. We rented the upstairs of a modest house at 315 E. 12th Street whose amenities included a large deck, a refreshing outdoor shower, and proximity to the Catholic school right across the street. After playing all day long on the spacious beach which was literally a block long from the bulkhead to the ocean – pinky, whiffle ball, horseshoes, body-surfing, soccer – my brother and I would head over to school before and after dinner to continue our never-ending games on the basketball court and baseball field. Every morning meant glazed donuts from the Terminal Bakery at 17th & Central (to this day it is THE bakery that I measure all others against) and evenings included miniature golf at Diehl’s or trips to the boardwalk to blow the quarters and dimes we had been saving all year long for this family pilgrimage.

Sunday afternoon was truly a step back into my past. As I expected, a lot had changed in the intervening years: “our” house had been razed and replaced by a beautiful new dwelling twice as large; gone was the Dolphin restaurant, our annual first-day-of-vacation dinner choice; the amusements and shops had morphed along the boardwalk, too, though enough was the same to make it feel familiar – Douglass Fudge, Sportland Pier, and Mack & Manco’s Pizza had all survived the decades. The beach was still huge and it was fun to be back getting that sand between my toes. I headed down to Cape May for some sunset pictures, fully intending to spend the night back in Wildwood, but more and more I felt drawn to visit the other beach I wanted - no needed – to see. So I booked a room at an Econo Lodge a little farther north up Route 9 and got up early the next morning to watch the sunrise on the 9th Street beach in Ocean City.

This stretch of sand was chosen quite intentionally, too, but for very different reasons. It was here in the summer of 1994 that my father had drowned while successfully rescuing two young girls from the water after the lifeguards had gone off duty. I had come to pay tribute to his life and to remember his sacrifice. It was, as you might imagine, a bittersweet time, but not as full of the sadness and tears that I had anticipated. Instead, I found myself just simply lingering on that beach all day long, moving from boardwalk to water’s edge to my (reclaimed from someone’s trash pile) beach chair and back again. I took pictures of the rock jetty over which they had pulled my father's body in their efforts to revive him, the signs which warned of dangerous rip currents in the area, the hotel a block away where my parents had come to stay on that fateful mini-vacation.

In a deeply reflective and life-giving way, I spent the day with my dad on that beach, the man who had coached me in little league, worked his whole professional life for one company, come to all my games in high school, taught Sunday School at our church, modeled respect and openness to everyone, got down on the floor to play with his grandkids, the man who loved and helped us to love the beach, too. The gift of warm memory and mystical presence was way better than the cotton candy or pizza I ate or the book I was reading or the pictures I took. I miss you, dad.

Learning a New Canon, Too

One of the goals of my Sabbath Leave was to immerse myself more deeply in the history of photography and to learn more about the pivotal people and developments that have shaped the craft over the last 150 years. So in addition to all of my field work with camera in hand, both locally and abroad, I've been spending a lot of time in all of the area libraries (and Barnes & Noble stores) mining their photography sections for books and videos that tell the story of photography.

I've had a whole new world open up to me with some names that were familiar before (Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Alfred Steiglitz) and many that are new to me altogether (Paul Strand, Yousef Karsh, Julia Margaret Cameron). I'm trying to absorb the meaning of famous phrases and phases (the Cartier-Bresson's "the decisive moment," Adams' "extracted" v. "abstract" images, the Pictorialism Movement that sought to transform photography into high art, etc.). It is all fascinating stuff and much like familiarizing myself with biblical texts and the interpretations of major theologians over the centuries, I feel like I am discovering a whole new canon of sacred, significant texts (and the accompanying images and image-making techniques). I know I have only scratched the surface and my connection with these icons of photography has both inspired me and rooted me in a living tradition that is much bigger than my solitary making of pictures with my camera.

Happily, I did get to do a little of that last week on the with a day and a half excursion to the Eastern Shore that began at with a very early morning at Sandy Point State Park to witness the sunrise and included stops at falling-down outbuildings, ready-for-harvest soybean fields, and watefront scenes in and around St. Michaels. Special thanks go out to the Kleinknecht's for a beautiful and welcoming place to lay my head for a night at their home just off the Miles River. Couldn't you just sit in those chairs forever?

New Rituals & Rhythms

My Sabbath Leave has been a truly refreshing break in a nearly 25 year pattern of living. Most mornings, my daily ritual is to take our English Cocker, Buddy, for an early walk over to Panera’s where we hang out together at an outdoor table for about an hour, he with his cup of water and I with my morning paper and cinnamon chip scone. Were it not for the fact that I might be kicked out of the restaurant, I’d love to bring my camera with me and capture some of the "regulars" I see when I go in to order – the stately looking man with his blue blazer, medical journals and copy of the NY Times; the older Asian woman who sits quietly by the window most mornings and sometimes brings her grandson; the scores of professionals with laptops who use Panera’s as their personal office for meetings, email, spreadsheets and interviews. It is a happening place and for now, I get to count myself among the nearly-every-morning crowd.

I think I underestimated how freeing this “no Sunday job” thing was going to be for Holly (and me, for that matter). We’ve been able to go to our beach house two weeks in a row – something we have never done before. Last weekend’s visit included taking in the Kite Festival (really fun), a 25 mile bike ride (tiring fun) and SunFest, billed as the number one crafts festival on the East Coast (sort of tacky). We’ve had the chance to reconnect with friends from our first church whom we haven’t seen in a long time. And we’ve had the luxury of having to decide how we will spend our Saturdays and Sundays together. After a quarter of a century of not really having weekends to ourselves, I think we could get used to this new rhythm! But fear not – I still miss you and we’re coming back in a month.

A Sunday Treat

This past Sunday, I got to do what so many of you take for granted: choose if and where I would go to church! It was really my first weekend in town since my Sabbath Leave began and with Holly running the Wilson Bridge Half Marathon (and me going down early to Alexandria to cheer her on), I decided to drop in on a couple of colleagues who serve churches in Washington, DC. One of the occupational hazards of being a pastor is that you don't often get to venture outside your own sanctuary to see what other churches are doing so I considered it a real treat. I heard two really good sermons and tried to worship openly without too critical an eye (another occupational hazard) though I have to confess that I found myself missing the music, the people, and the way we do worship at BUMC in both instances. It was a satisfying morning in many respects, one I hope to repeat at a few other venues before I return, but truth be told, I'd have rather heard Jenny preach -- we are so spoiled to have her!

This week also gave me the chance to check in on a couple of the girls that I used to coach in soccer for many years as their high school teams were playing one another on a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon (Washington International School v. Maret). As an added bonus since I was in the neighborhood, I got to wander the grounds of the National Cathedral and try to capture some of the majestic grandeur of that sacred place with my camera. What a privilege it is to have that beautiful structure almost in our backyard and how often we drive by on Massachusetts Avenue without stopping -- I was grateful to have the time to just soak it in for awhile before I had to head home.

BUMYF Reunion at Clemson

You know you are in the South when you join in the Pledge of Allegiance, God Bless America, and the National Anthem AND a pastor offers an invocation before the kickoff of the football game (a rabbi had the honor the week before which threw people off a bit, I'm told). We were down at Clemson this past weekend and not only was it great seeing Christine and her three roommates very happily settled in their new condominium (why does my college daughter have a nicer kitchen than we do?), but also getting a chance to reconnect with some other BUMC youth group alums: Daniel Kirwan and Lauren Chacon (both freshmen) and Ashley Fansler (a junior, like Christine). I'm happy to report that they are all doing well. Lauren is in the marching band (billed as "The Band that Shakes the Southland" -- and they did), Daniel has joined Central Spirit (a pep club that supports all the sports teams), and Ashley is plugging away at her science courses to get into the Nursing Program.

On Sunday morning we got to make a return visit to Downtown Clemson Fellowship, the church that Christine has been attending pretty regularly now for the last 2 years (Pat & Karen: you'll be happy to know that Daniel came with us, too). It's an emergent style church (coffee, casual, band, weekly eucharist) that caters almost entirely to college students and it was quite moving to see so many young people tuned into the nearly two hour service which included an hour-long teaching sermon by the young, hip pastor -- not sure I could get away with that at BUMC, and not only because I'm no longer young and hip enough! They really do pray and worship every day in the South -- or at least on football weekends.