Tag Presbyterian Church

Chasing trains, good tunes and goodwill

Nancy Crowe Leave a comment
Charlie and me when I came back to Louisville for my 10-year seminary reunion in 2006.

We were saying our goodbyes outside the restaurant when a train came roaring by. Charlie, then well into his seventies, sprinted across the parking lot for a closer look. Having known him for years, I knew he was taking note of what kind of train it was and its probable route and cargo. He’d be able to tell us its history.

But my partner, Kathy, who’d met him more recently, whirled around and stared after him.

“He’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

Charles Beaumont Castner Jr. — aka Charlie, or CBC in notes and emails — was retired from a storied public relations career with Louisville & Nashville Railroad (later CSX) by the time we met in 1994. We both worked with Religious Leaders for Fairness, which advocated passage of Louisville’s Fairness Amendment to protect LGBTQ rights.

Charlie was a seasoned Second Presbyterian Church elder and PFLAG dad. I was a twenty-something student at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, had just lost my father and was trying to figure out a ministry without a clear path.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) at that time was in the midst of study and dialogue on what to do with gay folk — to ordain, welcome or continue with “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Though single at the time, I knew I couldn’t ask a partner to stay in a secretive corner of my life. What was a theologically educated journalist to do?

Charlie and I became fast friends. He’d become an advocate for LGBTQ inclusion when his daughter Louisa came out, and we shared a vocation in storytelling. Along with writing about railroads and organizing tons of train documents, Charlie edited the Louisville Presbytery Pipeline, news of all the PCUSA churches in the Louisville area. It was part of the Synod of Living Waters newspaper covering all things Presbyterian in several Southern states. He was ready to scale back on that, and I became his co-editor with the plan of eventually taking over for him.

We went to monthly communications committee meetings. We covered presbytery meetings, which were all-day affairs with a meal, a worship service and scads of handouts. Then there were all the other events that called for photos and copy … bluegrass gospel quintets, food drives, forums, fellowship with a family of new Bosnian immigrants and more. Some of these took us to the outer reaches of the presbytery, and Charlie and I had great talks on the way.

To him I was not an issue; I was just me. Questions around LGBTQ inclusion were tough for church and society, but to Charlie, a way forward was possible with faith, constructive conversation and goodwill. He’d tell you that shared music — hymns sung in the church choir, boogie-woogie piano jams and more — helped too.

My work with Charlie, and the connections made through him, helped me reshape my career into writing and editing for church-based publications and organizations. Eventually I began doing communications and healing work with animals, too. You just never know where God’s call will lead. It’s never been the pastoral ministry I initially planned, but Charlie helped me see what was possible and craft something even better.

Charlie and his wife Katie remained my Louisville parents after I graduated from seminary and moved back to Indiana. Over the decades I was blessed to know their adult children as well: Beau, Louisa and Fenner, all smart and musical.

Charlie and Katie sold their classic Indian Hills house and moved into a nearby Episcopal Church Home apartment; the Presbyterians were taking over, he jokingly warned his new friends.

Music lifted and powered Charlie through Katie’s passing, recovery from a stroke and a move to assisted living. Getting around with a walker slowed him down, but gave him more time to greet people in the halls. Everybody knew Charlie, and a whole lot of folks are missing him since he passed into the eternal Feb. 3 at age 97.

Somewhere, I’ll bet he’s sprinting after another train.

Charlie, me and Kathy in 2025.

Fred Rogers’ uncommon calling

Nancy Crowe 4 Comments

38656999._SY475_.jpgWhen Fred Rogers was about halfway through his studies at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, the faculty asked him what sort of ministry he envisioned. Rogers, who was already doing children’s television work, said he hoped to make that a ministry.

“Nothing like that had ever been fashioned from Presbyterian fabric,” relates Maxwell King in The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers (Abrams Press, 2018), “and Fred’s teachers were somewhat at a loss to guide him.”

Fortunately, one of them suggested Rogers also study child development with Dr. Margaret McFarland at Pittsburgh’s Arsenal Family & Children’s Center, which he did. He and McFarland would work together for the rest of their lives. Rogers also took graduate-level child development courses at the University of Pittsburgh.

But Pittsburgh Presbytery’s elders felt Rogers should become an assistant pastor, then senior pastor of a church, and stand up in a black robe and preach on Sundays. They refused to ordain him.

A friend from seminary, the Rev. Bill Barker, risked his own position to advocate for Rogers’ non-traditional ministry. Rogers’ television audience — kids from about 2 to 8 — was a congregation of thousands if not millions, he said at a presbytery meeting. “‘And this is a man who has been authentically called by the Lord as much as any of you guys sitting out there,'” Barker recalled telling those gathered.

The elders somewhat reluctantly relented, and Rogers was ordained in 1963.

A few years later, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood popped up on the television landscape. The show contained no Bible verses, prayers, or mention of God. It was just this quiet, sensitive guy and his neighborhood of people, puppets, and stories. Yet the core messages of kindness, courage, and respect for self and others could not have been clearer.

As a young child, I watched “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” when it first aired (in black and white) on a bulky Magnavox that was more furniture than appliance. His approach spoke to a kid who didn’t like a lot of noise and flash, but appreciated a reasoned, encouraging word. The fact that Mister Rogers was also a Presbyterian minister didn’t really surprise me. I figured he was where God wanted him to be. Rogers just had that vibe of someone who pointed the way to a bigger, better reality.

There are many more layers to this comprehensive biography by King, a journalist and now CEO of the Pittsburgh Foundation. What struck me was the way Rogers, with God and the people who entered his orbit, co-created a ministry. And he did so despite the church not knowing quite what to do with him.

Rogers probably would have continued with his television ministry with or without the presbytery’s endorsement via ordination. The fact that he persisted, a friend backed him up, and the church body changed its position testifies to our ability to learn even when we don’t especially want to.

Answering a call to serve God doesn’t always take the form we expect, and sometimes the best career move is to drop our expectations and listen.

The payoff for our world could be significant.