Class of ‘62 via Ronald Byars, M.Div. ‘62

I’m in an assisted living facility in Tualatin, Oregon, near my daughter and son. My wife, Phoebe, died about a year ago.

 

Louisa (Sandy Sandstrom Halfaker ‘61) and I still live in Seattle, with some time most weeks at our Whidbey Island farm, nearby. The ferry boat ride to the farm and slower pace there is refreshing most weeks.

 

My favorite readings are The New Yorker and High Country News. The latter displays so many ways folks are bringing new life to the ecology and people of the west.

 

The massive study on Yale and Slavery: a History, (David Blight and Peter Salovey) and the responses of the Yale President and Dean Sterling, is great to hear about. I do plan to get and read that book.

 

Aging in place has its challenges, but walking in the neighborhood, engaging with neighbors and friends regularly and easily, is life giving. Having both sons and their families in town also helps. If only my baseball team, The Seattle Mariners, could do a little better!

 

I celebrated my 90th birthday on August 24 and am fortunately in good health. My memoir will be published in October by the Abilene Christian University Press. Chapter 4 deals with my life at YDS and the significant impact it had on my life.

 

At the moment I’m leading a Lenten Zoom class on the Gospel of Mark using Amy-Jill Levine’s book and video. The Jewish perspective adds another dimension to it. Grateful for continuing good health and an opportunity to be useful. Larry Young

 

Kate and I continue to live in our home adjacent to the Furman University campus, where I teach in the OLLI program for retired folks one term a year. Much time this past year has been involved with the turmoil in the United Methodist Church. The oldest downtown church in Greenville disaffiliated, so our former church has become the site of a newly established UMC congregation with an influx of folks from nearby churches and a number of new people. We have been busy putting together a “new” congregation, church staff, church school classes, etc. After living through the separation of Furman from the Southern Baptist Convention—allied state convention 30 years ago, I did not anticipate this turmoil in the UMC! I continue to preach on occasion, teach an adult class, chair the S C Commission on Archives and History, serve on the United Methodist Southeastern Jurisdiction Archives Commission, and on the editorial board of the SC Historical Magazine. I am enjoying getting acquainted with the NRSVue.

 

I’m getting a day off due to cancellation of the quarterly Board meeting of the Michigan Campaign Finance Committee which I chair. Too many of us have conflicts today so we will reschedule. Therefore, I’ll meet your deadline. Speaking of campaign finance, so far today I have received email $$ asks from 23 candidates and political organizations from all over the country. And we are only mid-afternoon in the day!

 

I can hear wife, Judy, in the living room listening to sermons from candidates who have applied to fill the pastoral vacancy of our congregation—Edgewood United Church, East Lansing, MI. She is serving on the search committee and trying to match applications with her faith and the congregation’s hopes and expectations. Tough task. I served on the Stewardship Committee this past fall, and we saw increased pledges over the previous year. We consider that an encouraging post-pandemic sign. The congregation just voted unanimously to allocate $100,000 of endowment funds to the Justice League of Greater Lansing toward building a reparations endowment for descendants of slaves for scholarships, business development, and housing programs. The League is soliciting funds from predominantly white congregations locally.

 

This past summer Judy and I joined a trip to Alaska with a niece and nephew and one of their daughters who is an army captain stationed in Fairbanks, AK. Been on our “bucket list” for some time. Amazing indulgence in hiking, sea kayaking, cruising alongside melting glaciers, and meeting a few interesting animals. We are taking a trip to Wisconsin in July to celebrate Judy’s Martin family reunion. That will coincide with our 50th anniversary. We have just confirmed our next “foreign” excursion for late this summer to Stratford, Canada to the Shakespeare Festival. There are six of us who have made this an annual outing for several years.

 

Fascinated to hear more about the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy’s “Inaugural Conference: What are the Moral and Spiritual Issues Facing Our Democracy in the 2024 Presidential Election?” at YDS in early April. Hope there will be some electronic access.

 

Thanks to my book group I have read two biographies that might be of interest (although both are pretty lengthy volumes - like 800 pages) - Grant by Ron Chernow, and G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage, a Yale History Prof. Grant introduced me to a lot more about the man and his values than I knew. I knew quite a bit about Hoover but never appreciated the impact he had on so many presidents and their administrations.

 

As I enter my 89th year of life I continue to be grateful for the arrival of each new day. I live in the midst of blessings including family, friendships and many memories of “former times.” Gratitude deepens in the face of the enormous and deadly “troubles of the world.” I mourn the losses, but faith, hope and love abide, do they not? Years ago, in retirement, with an ELCA pastor and a progressive Catholic priest, I began in Wisconsin the “Interfaith Peace Working Group.” We seek to climb “mountains,” an uphill struggle, one step at a time. Our focus is on peace education and peace building in communities of faith and includes many courageous nonconformists who seek a more just and humane world. We are presently engaged in non-violent public resistance to the catastrophe in Gaza and the other wars in which our country is immersed. I am aware that in every year since our graduation from Yale in 1962, our country has been engaged in war-making around the world in one form or another. And so we all press on, gratefully.

 

Dear Classmates, as I grow older there is less to report. Still in a French class. Taught a few adult classes at church this year. Published an article in Presbyterian Outlook, and wrote a book review for Interpretation. A couple of months ago, was interviewed by a man making a video documentary. (In 1990, I was asked to speak to an annual event in Bourbon County, Kentucky called Cane Ridge Day. I was given the topic “Cane Ridge from a Presbyterian Point of View.” In 1992 it was published in The Journal of Presbyterian History and, at the same time, in a book called Cane Ridge in Context. The man making the video is interviewing each of the contributors to the book.) A novel experience for me! During the year I worked as a kind of mentor/listening ear for a couple of people. One was working on a seminary degree in “spiritual leadership,” and the other was trying to pass his final hurdle to be ordained an elder in the United Methodist Church. (And he did!)

 

Susan and I are planning to move to an apartment in a local retirement community here in Lexington, Kentucky in about a month. The picture attached to this email will be easily recognizable. The same pic is hanging on a wall at YDS, or at least was hanging there at our 50th reunion in 2012. Probably you have one like it. I found it while going through boxes packed when we moved the last time. I can’t resist sharing it with you all! As I have learned reading your notes or messages over these many years, I have been struck by the diversity of gifts that have been distributed among us. What a joy!