While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Luke 24:36-48b

It’s been a quiet week at Crown and Cactus Lutheran Church, that little congregation over between Mesa and Gilbert and Chandler. Last Sunday after Pastor Bladridge had preached what he thought was a wonderful sermon about Believing Thomas, Mel Falstaff had come up to him during the fellowship time with a wry smile on his face. He said, “Thanks, Pastor, I have a feeling that your sermon might have been fed by some of my comments at lupper on Easter afternoon. I liked it that you focused on believing rather than doubting, and judging from what I’ve been hearing in conversations just now, I think others felt the same way.”

Pastor Baldridge gave Mel a hug and said, “You’re absolutely right. While I’ve always believed that faith and doubt are a part of the same continuum, just at opposite ends, I guess I have always lingered more on the doubt half. I think that’s a part of my own struggle, and also a reflection of my desire for people to accept their doubts. It felt good to explore all the benefits of faith and to encourage folks to remember their own moments of coming to faith.” And with that, Mel went off to connect with some folks who had visited on Easter, and who had returned. He wanted to hear their story.

Because of that encounter, Pastor Baldridge was not surprised to get a call from Mel with an offer for a lunch date. Mel was so excited and because it was a nice day they met at Postinos in Gilbert and were lucky to get a shaded outdoor table. In the interests of their respective diets they split a bruschetta board and then lingered over their Arnold Palmers. Mel filled Pastor Baldridge in on the brainstorm that had been triggered by the sermon and had kept him awake half the night. 

Mel said, “It just came to me that there are dozens of faith stories that have been lived out in our life together at Crown and Cactus, and that will soon be forgotten if no one writes them down. I’m thinking that it’s likely that the Tangibilifier has even forgotten them–it’s been a long time. It’s only people like you and me that even have a sense of the whole history and how this congregation came to be.”

Pastor Baldridge just smiled and said, “I smell an assignment coming on. Are you thinking that I should put together some kind of book? And if so, where do you think I might find the time for that?”

Mel was silent. That was exactly what he had in mind. He said, “Well, somebody should. Who would be better than you?”

Pastor Baldridge pointed his finger at Mel. “You,” he said. “You’ve been getting bored in your role here, and I think you’ve only suggested this because you’d love to do it.”

Now Mel grinned, albeit a bit sheepishly. He had in fact been hoping that this is how the conversation would go. He said, “Well, maybe that’s true. But I do need some help. I need to know how to contact the Tangibilifier…he has all the inside stories…”

Pastor Baldridge interrupted. “Well, I’m afraid that’s a no-go zone. I’ve never been able to reach him, even when I was in a tight spot. He comes to me…and it’s always a surprise. When he gets wind of what you are doing, maybe he’ll get in touch…but don’t be surprised if he doesn’t. He mostly shows up around beginnings and endings…and I don’t think there are any endings in sight right now.”

With that the two men parted, and Mel got started on his project. At home in his office he started to put together a plan. He would start with interviewing some of the people, especially those who had come out of the cloud a year and a half ago and who had decided to come back to Crown and Cactus. The first on his list was Loren Meade. For one reason or another, Loren had always been the president of the congregation and Mel had never been aware of him being elected.

When they talked Mel mentioned this and Loren just shrugged. That’s just the way it was at Crown and Cactus, but it had made him a treasure trove of information. He knew a lot of the inside stories, so many that Mel despaired of writing them down. When he mentioned this Loren told him not to worry. He’d been keeping written records ever since the beginning. They went to Loren’s home office and he showed Mel saying, “I’ve got a written report of the news at Crown and Cactus ever since 2012.”

They looked at the hundreds of weekly reports. Mel glanced at a few. There were some about him…many about Myrtle Brier. He looked at Loren and said, “I wish that Myrtle was still around. I think she could give us the key to understanding how all these stories fit together.” 

Loren said, “Yeah, I know. I was hoping that maybe she would come back with us from the cloud, but no such luck.”

Mel looked at some of the older files and said, “You say this all started in 2012? I could swear I remember things from before that.”

Loren said, “Well, there are other stories. Crown and Cactus has been going on for a long time, but there are no written records of that period. I’m pretty sure that we’re missing more than half of our history.”

Mel came away from his conversation with Loren with some sadness, but also with a new sense of direction. What he needed to do now was to interview those who had been a part of Crown and Cactus before 2012. He could get their stories from the early years, maybe all the way back to the beginning. But who were they, and where were they now? He went back to Pastor Baldridge in his office last Wednesday and asked for his help. 

Pastor Baldridge sat back in his chair. Mel was right, he had been there at the beginning, but that didn’t mean he remembered any of it. He said, “I doubt that even the Tangibilifier remembers those early years. Sad to say, I think a lot of that stuff is just gone.”

Mel said, “Well, just tell me what you remember. Maybe I can pull the stories together from myself and Loren and Janice Porter and a couple other of the old-timers. I think Jennie Craster knows a lot of stuff too, though sometimes I think she just makes things up. I don’t know if they really happened or not.”

Pastor Baldridge got a faraway look on his face and said, “I was thinking that this must have been exactly what it was like when Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote their gospels. They all knew that something spectacular had been happening in the faith communities, and that it was all connected with Jesus. But the stories were different. Some believers had been there from Day 1 but others were new to the church. I think they just did the best they could to preserve the message and didn’t worry much about details. Sometimes they even got ideas from the books of the prophets and the psalms that were a part of the Hebrew scriptures. They went ahead and wrote their gospels anyway, and we’re blessed that they did.”

Somehow that encouraged Mel, and he spent the rest of the morning coaxing memories from Pastor Baldridge’s aging hippocampus. In the afternoon he revisited Loren Meade and did the same. Both men struggled to come up with names and places, but they did manage to retrieve some surprising details. That evening he and Lil sat out on their patio in the cool of the evening and did some reflecting together. Both had vivid memories of the Holy Spirit moment that had drawn them to Crown and Cactus. On Thursday morning he made appointments with both Janice and Jennie and was overwhelmed by what they were able to call to mind. So much had happened and they seemed to remember it all. He again wondered if it were true, but he wrote it down anyway–their detail would add to the meat of the story.

By Friday Mel had a lot of notes and decided to go out to the Gilbert Riparian Area, walk around the ponds, and find a shady place to sit. He was bummed to see an older woman sitting in his favorite spot and glanced at her as he walked by. She looked up and smiled, a strangely familiar smile. He wondered if she knew he wanted to sit in her spot. He continued the circuit around the ponds, read the signs he’d read many times before, and kept watching to see if his bench would open up.

Finally on his third pass, she said to him, “Would you like to sit by me?” Her voice, so familiar, he looked at her closely. She was the spitting image of Myrtle Briar. He felt a cold chill run through his bones–it couldn’t be. His apprehension was obvious and she smiled at him, “Hi Mel. I was wondering if you would ever recognize me. Why are you afraid?”

Mel was speechless. He stood still, not knowing what to say. She said, “Come on, Mel, it’s okay. Yes, it’s really me. Would you like a cookie?” And she reached in her bag and pulled out a chocolate chip cookie and handed it to him. “Take it and eat,” she said.

And he did. And he sat there in silence, eating the cookie and listening to her talk. Somehow she knew what he was doing, and she recounted for him the whole story of Crown and Cactus right back to her arrival from North Dakota. And then she opened his mind to the whole purpose and intent of the Tangibilifier in bringing the congregation to life. She said, “All these things have taken place to open up the whole of scripture and shine the light of the gospel into the hearts of committed and faithful people. It’s all about grace,” she said, “and spreading the good news of change and forgiveness.”

Mel just sat there. Soon the cookie was gone, and so was Myrtle, gone back to wherever she had come from. He looked at his shirt and saw crumbs. “Crumbs,” he thought to himself, “she gave me so much and I feel like all I have is crumbs.” The story was even bigger than he realized. All he could do was take the fragments he had and somehow give it life-giving substance. He took a deep breath. For Myrtle’s sake, for Christ’s sake, he would do it.

And that’s the word from Crown and Cactus Lutheran Church, where all the men are committed, the women are faithful, and the children are all growing in grace