A Voice from the DeadLast night, late, I was able to finish transfer work on a project long delayed. My grandfather, Rev. David W. Lewis, was a Nazarene minister from 1951 to 1991. He died in 2002, and naturally it became a priority for my family to locate and preserve any recordings of his sermons, mainly so that my aged grandmother could listen to the sound of his voice. Some months later Grandma Lewis gave my brother Eric three cassette tapes which she believed were made by the Reverend. It still took some months for "E" to get them to me, and I'm not sure when I got them from him - some time ago. My incredible delay on the project is inexcuable, as Grandma Lewis isn't getting any younger, although now I lately have the software and amount of memory needed for working on these cassettes in a manner appropriate to the task.
Of the three tapes, only one appeared to be in good condition, and unfortunately this was of a service that my Grandpa did not participate in. But I used that as a guide for the other two, as it was made in the same "in lectern" recorder that produced the damaged cassettes. The next cassette, marked "1991" was broken at the beginning, but my brother had repaired it and suggested that if I just stick it in the player and start it I'd get it to play for one transfer. If I were truly an anal pro about transferring audio I would have opened it up and redid the repair, but instead I took E at his word, and it worked fine - there was nothing at the beginning that was essential to the project.
The third cassette, marked "1989 AM/PM service" was a real challenge, as the tape was twisted up inside the shell. I took it apart only to discover that the pad was bent all out of shape, and I don't have any replacement pads, so I moved the tape out of that shell into another. I collect junk tapes just so that if I need to replace a cassette shell I can. The audio was warbly and broken up at the beginning, but as before there was really nothing at the start that was important. Grandpa would call out chapter and verse for the scripture reading, and then there would be a long silence while he waited for the congregation to reach the Biblical passage in question; relatively few ministers I have heard in recent years extend that same consideration to their auditors. Most of the ruined tape falls into this lengthy silence.
The two tapes yielded three sermons, 20-25 minutes each, of excellent length for a single CD of my granfather's sermons to distribute to my family. That's kind of a bittersweet victory, as his career as a man of God spanned 40-50 years, and these tapes, coming from the end of that time, do not capture him at his fiery best, which I remember from countless services attended when I was a child. It is a real pity that there are no tapes from the 60s and 70s, when Rev. Lewis was truly "on fire," and I wonder why he wasn't recorded more, or if there IS more that I just don't have access to or knowledge of.
Grandpa Lewis only worked at small, rural churches in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Michigan. These churches were often lucky to have a rooves over their heads, let alone a tape recorder or disc cutter. Grandpa certainly didn't view what he did as something that was appropriate for recording - it was really a writer's medium. He would spend several hours per week typing out his sermon notes in FULL - most ministers only transcribe the main points of a given sermon and then memorize the points. Grandpa would then leave the notes behind and deliver the sermon from memory, with embellishments. He did not care if his message went no farther than to the ears to which he was preaching, and the only reason we have him on tape is that he spoke a couple times at a church equipped with a simple accessory for recording.
The first two services, those from 1989, were delivered in the morning and evening of Palm Sunday. The morning sermon is a good one, dealing with the story of Palm Sunday and it's greater implications in terms of service to God and of Christ's humility. But about two thirds along he loses the thread of his argument, and the last part is largely a repetition of what went before, embellished with his usual statement that he doesn't want to miss the great reunion of Jesus with his followers and all of the great prophets/disciples/apostles "up there." He would turn to this thought whether or not he felt he had an ending to his sermon, so it is hard to say if he launches into it here in order to provide something of a close. There are many points of reference to Biblical passages that are obscure, and at one point Grandpa asks his congregation if they are still following him. At another he says "There! I heard you wake up." Rev. Lewis is certainly the only preacher I've heard that mentioned Malachi - the most "minor" of the minor prophets - in the course of a sermon.
The PM service is excellent - Grandpa's delivery is smooth, calm and measured, and he retains his thread for the entire 20 minute sermon, which is more in the form of a homily. The message is on Pontius Pilate and the delivery of Christ's fate to the hands of the people, with some passages devoted to Barabbas. In the last third he speaks about personal experiences of the kind Grandpa seldom discussed in private - the suicide of a close friend, his service in World War II, where he acted as the ad hoc chaplain on an aircraft carrier. But the phrase that really got my attention was "I only ever had one brother..." Uncle Charlie was a police officer for the city of Columbus and full-time hardass who died by his own hand in the early 1960s. Grandpa Lewis NEVER EVER mentioned him in my presence. I didn't even know who Uncle Charlie was until I was an adult - he was no more than a mysterious figure in old, black and white family photos. Grandpa uses these recollections as examples for what happens to people who get away from Christ, and seems mystified that anyone would want to endure the misfortunes of taking such a path in life.
The last sermon is on the subject of marriage, and of the church being prepared as a bride for Christ. This is from about three months before his retirement, and I do not find listening to it particularly enjoyable. Some time before this Grandpa had stepped off the curb into the street and shattered one of his vertebrae, the result of long-term osteoporosis. While he was able to walk to a limited degree, his last decade was one of almost constant pain. In this sermon Grandpa is completely unable to retain a thread, and sometimes his voice leaps into a sob - "Praise God!" - that seems to be masking a twinge of pain. The end to the preacher was already near, though the end of the man would have to wait.
Once Pastor Bob Moulding asked about my radio show, and I replied "I've got a plan for it, and I know it's not the best idea I've ever had, but it's ready and I'm going to go with it." Pastor Bob chuckled and replied "Yes, I've gone forward with that very same condition several times." Minstering is a creative act, even as it posesses the function of bringing God to the people. Despite the intense prepatation and unbending technical rigor employed in the making of his sermons, at its highest level of practice, Rev. Lewis was flexible, persuasive and introspective. He was equally dedicated to educating his congregations about the fine points of the Bible as to preaching the Gospel. As a person, in his prime he could be very inflexible and ill-tempered, something that he was terribly sorry about in his old age. I certainly forgive him for that, as I gained much more from him in example than I lost to his anger. Listening to these tapes reminds me of Rev. Lewis' contribution to the world, and how much I respect and admire it.
David N. Lewis