memories – Waite for it…

Glowing orange skies

Posted on August 14, 2025 by William Douthwaite

After yesterday’s post, the evening sky called and demanded equal time.

I’ve written about the colors of dusk before, awed as the sun painted the bottom of the clouds one final time before retiring for the night. No shade of orange was left behind at the end of this day.

While pink greets me at the beginning a new day, orange won’t let go when that day comes to a close. It hangs on like the embers in the fire pit that glow long after everyone has closed their eyes for the night.

Once again, before I passed two utility poles, the colors had faded, stars appeared, and darkness punched in for the overnight shift.

This picture reminds me of a moment twenty-seven years ago when wild fires burned out of control in our county. A day before we were told to evacuate, we could see the glow on the horizon, wondering if the flames would consume our home. Thankfully, the fire came no closer than half a mile. But the memory is seared into my mind, reawakened when the day ends drenched in every shade of orange you can imagine.

books

A favorite book: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Posted on June 4, 2024 by William Douthwaite

Daily writing prompt

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

View all responses

I was just thinking about childhood books a few days ago. One of my grandsons asked, “Can we go to ‘Ripley’s Believe it or Not!’ again?” My wife and I took them to the first permanent odditorium in St. Augustine last summer. The older boy loved it. The younger was too weirded out to make it through the whole museum.

When he asked his question, I had a flashback to my childhood. Some of my favorite books were the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! paperbacks. I think my mom bought me a couple of them at a church rummage sale. I would lay on my bed and read those books over and over again, long before that first attraction opened. I was fascinated by drawings of the world’s tallest man, a goat with two heads, a tree growing through a house, and pages of amazing things.

A close second would be a World War two comic book about air battles in the south Pacific. The only thing I remember is the words used for the sound of the guns: “budda-budda-budda!” So my brother, sister, and I would call this the budda-budda book.

I must have really liked Hardy Boys mysteries, too. I remember checking them all out one at a time from the library.

retirement

Letting go, fading away, and free to be

Posted on March 3, 2024 by William Douthwaite

In her Medium article “Retirement: The Benefit of Letting Go” Marlane Ainsworth wrote that in retirement, we start to fade away. No one waits for our arrival before things start happening. We are no longer needed for meetings, planning, permission, or consultation. Previous significance wanes with alarming speed.

I know, that sounds a little depressing. Until you consider the positive side. It’s freeing. In retirement, I’ve shed expectations, assumptions, and demands like a snake sloughing off its skin. Something happens when you are no long defined by a job description. When you are less insignificant in the work world, a different part of you emerges.

Anyway, her story made me think about things things I did as a pastor simply because they were part of the job description and expected of me. If that surprises you, let me assure you, it surprised me too. Yes, it’s a calling. But it’s also an occupation.

Going to visit the same homebound person for sixty months in a row gets old after a while. I think that was my record. One person was on my visiting list when I arrived at my church in Connecticut, and I was still going to their home when I took a call to the next church five years later.

No one explained how many meetings I would have to go to. My calendar was full of them. Few were short. Few were productive. No, I do not miss them, not even a little bit.

Conference and convention attendance was mandatory. While I enjoyed spending time with other clergy from around the country, the agendas were filled with boring speakers addressing irrelevant topics. When asked, “Why do you keep going to those things?” I had to confess, “I have no idea.”

The experts told us annual stewardship messages would increase giving. These were my least favorite sermons. No matter how you dress up the appeal, you aren’t fooling anyone. It’s the big yearly ask. I was so glad when each campaign was over.

Part of the job was tracking down people who hadn’t been coming to church. I hated that. For some reason I didn’t like seeking out unhappy people to find out why they were unhappy. And I couldn’t simply ask, “Where the h*** have you been?” I had to be nice to them. I just wasn’t very good at looking for wandering sheep.

Okay. Enough of that. Don’t get me wrong. I loved going to seminary and I loved being a pastor. I loved teaching, preaching, and leading worship. I loved the music, ancient and new. I loved holding the babies, sitting on the floor with children, and running around with the youth. The stuff I loved doing far outweighed the burdens. But to do the things you love, you have to do the other stuff, too.

But not anymore. Having stepped out of that world and into retirement, that part of me starts to fade and other parts of me surface. Ainsworth wrote, “Letting go of things lets a part of us out that we kept corralled for a long time.” Keep in mind, I’m only eighteen months into this, so I am still discovering those parts.

I write more, read more books (mostly mysteries), take more walks (usually with dogs), get to know more of my neighbors, bake sourdough bread, practice music, attend bible studies (as a student), take trips, do some yard work, and constantly work towards a minimal-ish life. Along the way, I often reflect on my years in the ministry as well as these away from it. I may be fading, but the memories aren’t. Not yet.

Christmas

A Christmas memory I don’t remember

Posted on December 24, 2023 by William Douthwaite

I was looking for something else on my computer when I came across this picture from a 1958 Christmas, gleaned from a collection of my dad’s slides. That’s the one-and-a-half me in the red jumpsuit. That’s my mom sitting in the chair, and I’m pretty sure that’s her dad on the left.

My gifts included a ball, a train building set, and a classic Lassie dog. But in this moment, I was all about the red balloon on which my mom must have drawn something.

I think this is my grandparents house in northeast Philadelphia. The live tabletop tree, carefully decorated with individual strands of tinsel, is encircled by an O-gauge Lionel electric train. A tiny nativity on the table is surrounded by a little host of angels.

Mom’s ever-present ashtray and cup of coffee are perched on the arm of her chair. I’ll bet I’m the reason why she looks weary on this Christmas morning. She was twenty-four in this picture.

My earliest memories come from when I was six years old. This is a Christmas flashback by virtue of the fact that my dad caught it on film. This Christmas memory is one I don’t remember. These pictures tell my story, a story that fascinates me.

My dad’s slides included three or four pictures from each Christmas. Not many compared to the dozens of digital photos we take every year. But enough to make me want to sift through them to learn more about my childhood, memories I don’t remember.

Life

Vivid backyard memories

Posted on November 16, 2023November 16, 2023 by William Douthwaite

My childhood backyard from the bottom of the hill

The moment my daughter and her family moved into their new home, her boys were outside, running around and playing in the yard. They kicked soccer balls around with their cousins and threw balls for the dog to retrieve. The two previous houses they lived in had little yard to play in. This is so good for them!

What a blessing to have a yard to play in. The home I grew up in had the biggest fenced in backyard on the block. The yard included a big hill with flat areas at the top and bottom. We could roll down the hill pretty fast, crashing into the fence at the bottom. We had enough room to play baseball and football even though we had to climb over the fence to retrieve hits and kicks. In the fall, the maple trees left behind plenty of leaves for huge piles to jump in. In the winter, a little snow made our yard the best sledding hill around. By building a small ramp, we could get airtime with a saucer sled. We ate a lot of mulberries from the trees at the bottom of the hill. My friends and I build a great fort at the bottom with some wood my dad got from a salvage yard. The dogs we owned over the years loved to chase balls thrown from the top of the hill all the way down to the far corner until they were exhausted. We set up giant games of croquet that covered our half-acre.

As I write this, I am amazed at how vivid my backyard memories are from fifty-plus years ago!

Life, memories

Summer memories

Posted on July 24, 2023 by William Douthwaite

I’m a summer kind of person. While most of the people around me in Florida are complaining about the heat, I’m enjoying the warmer weather. I love the feel of the sun on my skin, getting sweaty while walking or working outdoors, and warming up after I’ve left a frigid air conditioned room. I know, I might feel differently about this if I cut lawns all day or roofed houses. Maybe not. I’ve always like summer.

A newsletter recently asked its readers to share their favorite summer memory. Summers are when there’s no school and families often take vacations. I have some great summer memories.

In junior and senior high school, my music teacher directed a summer band program, open to anyone of any age who wanted to come and play. We weren’t preparing for a concert. We got to play a lot of different music. Early on, you got to play with the big kids, musicians who were much better than you. When older, you got to show the noobs how it was done. It was just a lot of fun and the days and weeks were never long enough.

I spend most of my high school and college summers working concessions at Veteran’s Stadium in Philadelphia. That meant I got to see a whole season of home games and get paid for it. Most of the time, I was a cashier on a level that looked out over the field from behind home plate. Customers came in-between innings, so we got to watch most of the game. Oh, and eat whatever mediocre stadium food we wanted.

One year, instead of taking us away on vacation, my dad put up a swimming pool in the backyard. Our yard was a hill, so we first had to level out an area. I think the was only about twelve feet across and maybe three feet deep. Not olympic-sized, but we didn’t care. My brother, sister, and I spent a lot of that and the next few summers in that pool.

Band camp before my senior year in high school is burned into my memory, too. That was the first year of a week-long sleep-over camp devoted entirely to preparing a halftime show for the fall. Music and marching all day, volleyball games in the off times, and way too little adult supervision in the cabins. Perfect formula for summer memories.

I have one negative summer memory. I was in fourth or fifth grade, and my dad took us to Ocean City, New Jersey for a week of vacation. At that time and in that place (suburban Philadelphia), families vacationed at the Jersey shore. He didn’t even get to pick the week. He got vacation when his company shut down for two weeks.

Anyway, my parents enrolled us in a vacation bible school that week to get us out of their hair every morning. In hindsight, they were geniuses. But in the moment, we thought it was cruel to drop us off with a bunch of strangers while they enjoyed their vacation. That VBS was actually a two-week program, so we got off easy. I know how exhausting one week is. I can’t even imagine doubling that!

In the summer, families get to spend more time together, and I’ll bet that’s what forges some of our best memories.

advent, Advent devotions, Devotions

Bonus Christmas devotion: A heart full of treasures

Posted on December 25, 2020December 22, 2020 by William Douthwaite

A bonus “Live and in person” Advent devotion for December 25, 2020. Read Luke 2:1-20 and Psalm 148

“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

After the shepherds find Mary and Joseph the the baby lying the manger, they shared just why they were there. They had a quite the story to share about the angel’s announcement and the multitude of angels’ wonderful praises that night. Once they left, Mary had plenty of things to ponder. What a night!

We all have memories that we treasure. We store away special places we’ve been and people we’ve met. Photo albums and scrapbooks are filled with treasured moments from our lives. Certain songs or smells or sights bring those moments to mind as well. The music played at your wedding. The aroma of the cookies your mom always baked. The sight of an ornament that you’ve hung on your Christmas tree every year you’ve celebrated.

A ceramic nativity my wife made during her first pregnancy brings back the memories of our firstborn son. A set of nesting Santas we received as a gift in Des Moines brings back memories of playing “hide the baby Santa” with our children and grandchildren. Christmas poems I’ve written for my wife over the years remind us of what was going on at that time in our lives. And how we love to retell the stories – so many stories – of celebrations with our family in different places and in different ways.

I don’t know how often Mary talked about that night. After all, her pregnancy would have been a bit of a scandal. Her explanation a little fantastical for the average listener. At some point, she must have shared it with Luke, or someone Luke got to know. He wanted to be sure he got the story straight when he wrote his gospel about the Christ.

She would have a lot of time to reflect upon this night and what it really meant to be a servant of the Lord. She wouldn’t get much sleep until Jesus began sleeping through the night. She would have a lot of time to ponder while feeding him, rocking him and just simply watching him sleep. She had no idea what was coming. No parent does. Each day is a new page in the story of a baby’s life.

I hope you have a little time to ponder this Christmas. Hopefully, you’ve had some fun, joy and food with family and perhaps some good friends. But if you have a moment, just listen to your heart. What memories of the past are treasured up there? What questions about the future does it ask?

Chances are you’ve heard Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth within the past twenty-four hours. How did you feel as you heard those words? Tuck them away in your heart, think about them often, marvel at this good news of great joy that will be for all the people, and hum whatever carol comes to mind.

Thank you, Lord, for the many memories we store up in our hearts that always bring us back to the good news of Christmas. Amen.

memories

Connecticut memories

Posted on February 6, 2020February 6, 2020 by William Douthwaite

The first parish where I served as a pastor was Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Coventry, CT. We lived there for five years, from 1986-1991. The other day I quickly jotted down a few memories that popped into my head.

We had two Labrador retrievers, Gabriel (yellow) and Rachel (chocolate), plus two cats, Fred and Ginger. I would hit baseballs into the woods for the dogs to retrieve.
I loved cutting and splitting firewood. Great exercise, and we loved the heat from the wood burning stove in the winter.
The pews in the church had welded steel frames and wooden planks, crafted by some of the founders of the church. We had kneelers, too, which created quite a sound when they all fell to the floor at the same time for confession.
I got my first personal computer in Connecticut. Monochrome display, 5-1/4 inch floppy disk, no internet at that time. I just used it for word processing.
We often took the kids to the barns at the University of Connecticut. Most were open to the public, so we walked through rows of cows, pens full of sheep and goats, and fields filled with horses. The pigs were off-limits, though. Too many people tried to take the piglets. If we didn’t want to go to UConn, we just walk down the road to a small farm where horses, goats and chickens would come to greet us at the fence.
We lived in the church parsonage which sat on four acres right next to another four acres where the church was located. My two oldest children and I would often walk what we call the “‘benture trail,” along the boundary of our property which ran right up to the woods.
The obstetrician who brought our older daughter into the world forgave the part of our bill that insurance wouldn’t cover, in exchange for some “special intentions.” I was grateful, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t even know what that was. (They are intercessory prayers for someone, I think.)
The parsonage was a two-story, five bedroom, 2-1/2 bath, 2,600 sq. ft. home with a full basement and garage beneath. We moved in with a baby (Adam was four months old), a bed, a dresser, a crib, a table and a couple of chairs. We never never came close to fully furnishing that house. We did buy some antique oak dressers that we are still using today.
In the winter, those who smoked would stand in the narthex to stay warm, flicking ashes into the corner where they thought no one would notice.
The church wasn’t that big, averaging about 70 per Sunday in attendance. I still remember a whole bunch of the names: Thurber, Edmonds, Garay, Jeram, Sheehan, Ultzen, Wiebusch, Sans, Dollak, Davis, Burger, Dwyer, Bement, Ausburger, Underwood and Potterton. (That’s amazing!)

Not bad recall for events from over thirty years ago!