Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Jan/94

Contributor - Jim Moerman

Title - A. Gardiner Skelly

Topic - Profile

Last time, as you may recall, I wrote about the death of one of our oldest friends in Canada and though she had survived to an advanced age we felt the pain of that parting. But there was much worse to come. Within a few days we had been bereft of two more precious friends, one of them, in our own age group, died in a tragic accident. So in the same week I had the emotionally draining experience of participating in all three of these funerals. It was a week that we shall not soon forget.

I want to tell you about our third bereavement. This lady was the widow of a pastor and she died on the eve of her ninety third birthday. Her late husband whom she survived by almost twenty years, was my closest ministerial friend on this continent. Our relationship with this wise, warm couple had been a special source of strength and laughter for many years. Then sadly, after only a year or two of retirement he was gone. On a bitterly cold day in Advent of 1975 we laid his mortal remains to their last long sleep in the frozen, snow-covered earth as a biting wind blew fluffy flurries in from the Georgian Bay.

His widow, a lady of great grace and poise and chan-n lived on with Christian courage in the beautiful retirement home much of which he had built with his own skillful hands; for he was not your average parsonical penknife carpenter!! The house stood on an elevated site in the village of Duntroon and enjoyed a magnificent panoramic view of rolling farm land, shimmering water and of course, the blue mountains which lured the winter skiers by the score.

And thereby hangs a tale. One winter's evening a fierce blizzard roared though western Simcoe County and over the crest of the Devil's Glen. Ere long all the roads were blocked. A couple of stranded skiers ploughed their way to the door of our friend's house and found it uninhabited for she had moved down a day or two earlier to Collingwood to house-sit the home of an absent snow-bird friend. In the interests of shelter and survival the strangers forced their way into her home. 'that same evening her sister, living in another city and unaware that our friend had already moved out, decided to phone her. Surprised and concerned to hear a male voice answering, she asked who he was and what he was doing there. He explained frankly enough that they were storm-stayed and had taken refuge in the nearest house. The sister, then realizing that our friend had already moved to Collingwood, called her and told her of the uninvited intruders who were occupying her home.

Spellbound by the story, as she told it to us later, we dared to interrupt with the question - "What did you do"? (Reflect, dear reader, what you might have done in similar circumstances). She replied, "Oh I called them on the phone and said I was sorry that there was not much food in the fridge, but that they should turn up the thermostat and I hoped that they would be reasonably comfortable"!!

Of course, one could philosophize about the folly of such a soft approach and about the irresponsibility of encouraging house breakers. But despite such wise words, I am haunted by the suspicion that our friend's response to the situation comes very close to what Jesus had in mind when he spoke about going the second mile". She becomes an inspirational challenge to those of us who have enough difficulty going the first mile, let alone the second.

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