Remembering Ralph

I chose the first reading for how it echoes Ralph’s long life in tune with the seasons and his commitment to settin’ and visitin’ over a good meal. 

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-14 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 

I also chose a short reading from one of the New Testament letters because when we love each other, God is at work: from 1 John 4:7-8

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Ralph Korman had firm opinions on many things. Maybe you experienced that about him too? As immovable as the gumbo makes some of the roads around here in the rain, arguing with him would get you nowhere. God bless you saints who lived with him closely for years of your lives, especially Karla/Ike who cared for him these last years. Most of us got a different version of his strong opinions than his kids did, because we could, eventually anyway, figure out a reason to walk home or hang up the phone call when the gumbo was getting too thick. YOu could probably each tell a story to prove his determination, but I’ll just note as an example, that  would only allow me to lead his mother’s funeral service. However, I had kidney stones at the time; he informed me that I would be doing the service if he had to medicate me with some home remedies (I believe vodka was suggested) and prop me up himself. You know who led that funeral. At least it was a loving stubbornness? 

Now Ralph didn’t particularly like preachers, but boy, did he like a good story. So here’s my best Ralph story:

The first time I met him, he came to the door of the parsonage, across the street from his and Alice’s home, now Karla’s, and said by way of introducing himself, “I’m not a part of your there organization, does that bother you?” Doesn’t that sound like him?

“No,” said 24-year-old me, “Actually I could use a friend outside of the church,” and we became unlikely friends, fishing buddies. I was rebuked a few times before I learned that “you don’t knock, just come on in.” Being back here this week, I think that might not have been just Ralph, but a community trait. Eventually Ralph started introducing me to people as “our adopted daughter,” and indeed I did come back to visit multiple times, brought my husband-to-be to meet them, and agreed to one day do Ralph’s funeral. Alice, in her gentle but firm manner, knew exactly how to handle Ralph, and did so with a chuckle. But I was still trying to figure out how to talk to people about God and meaningful things like what keeps you up at night and what is justice anyway? So you can imagine Ralph pushed me many times, for he despised when he thought church people were being hypocritical, as much as he strongly disliked many of the preachers he had known.

Excuse the interruption of the story here, but I’ve learned in the past 20 years that the Holy Spirit works not when we stay and keep talking not only with those who agree with us, but especially when we learn to love and listen to those who seem to be our opposites. [Here was the truth: we needed each other. I needed Ralph more than one time to pull my car out of a ditch. And he needed me to listen to him with fresh ears.] Back to the story.

On our last fishing trip of the season, Ralph turned the conversation towards baptism. “Oh no,” I thought, “what’s he going to pick apart about Christians or the church now?” He asked me if I’d ever baptized anyone, and I explained yes, during my summer as a hospital chaplain there had been babies on the NICU that were not expected to survive, and the parents wanted them baptized. And I waited to see where this was going. “All you need is water, is that right?” “Yeah, pretty much.” The conversation dropped, and maybe I sighed with relief that this wasn’t going to be confrontational. But after catching some probably catfish, finding a killing stick, and getting them prepared to take home, Ralph picked up the conversation again, only I didn’t know what was happening. We were on the Milk River, somewhere near Adolf’s place, if you know where that is, and Ralph walked out on a tiny piece of land jutting out into the river, gesturing for me to follow. What was he doing now? 

He squatted down to wash his hands in the water, I guessed. Then he took off that cowboy hat, a rare occurrence indeed. He turned to me and said something like, “Well, I think it’s about time, you’d better do it for me.” I remember I started walking towards him before I actually understood what was happening. But I did somehow find the words to baptize Ralph in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there in the Milk River. On the ride back in that old blue pickup, he said, “I don’t have to join that there church now, do I?” “No,” I laughed, “but you’re part of the universal church, the family of God in the world.” In fact, I believe he always was, as I trust God loved Ralph and probably shook the divine head in his direction hiding a smirk many times before and after that day, as I did.

Now I’m sure you have stories—probably saltier than that one—that will remind you of what Ralph was like in your life for a good long time. As we lay his remains to rest and say goodbye, perhaps we can imagine God as amused and delighted by Ralph as he was by any person who sat and talked with him wherever, whenever, because he could talk to anyone! Think of God delighting in Ralph just as Ralph appreciated his kids and family and delighted in his grandkids and grandnephews, for much longer than anyone could ever set and talk with him. 

May his legacy live on when we sit and talk with people who we may have nothing in common with, but by the Holy Spirit, we become kin. 

God is as wild and unpredictable and fiercely stubborn about who God loves as Ralph was. And for that we can be grateful.