By Dave Layton
The last day of Charlie’s life was a big day for him and many others in the United Methodist Church (UMC). Each day of his life he wrote a prayer in his prayer journal with a different pen. He loved his pens, and each prayer was an act of love with them.
UMC had a big Circuit Worship Service on this day, and Charlie prayed for big things to come from it as you’ll read from his prayer pictured below. Note: the top of the picture is the end of his prayer the day before.
For those of you who are too young to read cursive writing, Charlie ends with, “Let this worship be the genesis of many miracles!” Indeed, some miracles have already happened, and others are in progress. However, you must include miracles of the heart as well as miracles of coincidence in the count, magical miracles not so much.
Charlie added a second church to his Cedar Rapids ministry, Kenwood UM. When I drove there to give them Charlie’s church keys, I felt like I was wandering aimlessly. I had so much more to do to get ready for the funeral starting with contacting a potential organist for the upcoming funeral service. As I’m handing the keys to the church steward I hear lovely organ music from the sanctuary. There was the organist I needed to talk to practicing on a gorgeous pipe organ that was built into the new church in the 1980s. She agreed to play for the service on the electronic organ at Charlie’s first Cedar Rapids church, Asbury UM, but she said. “The service really should have been here. He loved this pipe organ.” Now I remembered him saying, “Kenwood has a pipe organ that might have clinched my decision to take them on.”
Carolyn, the organist turned out to be the artist of a lovely Amanita muscaria mushroom watercolor that Charlie gave me for my birthday. We became quick friends, and began planning another service, actually a community event featuring the pipe organ with the best pipe organists in the area performing on it. Carolyn is a member of the Organ Guild, and she got them involved.
Fast forward to today and the Charles Layton Memorial Pipe Organ Celebration is scheduled at Kenwood for Sunday Nov. 17 at 4 PM with Cedar Rapids’ finest organist, Dr. Brett Wolgast, as the featured performer. Charlie’s churches will work together to provide a choir to sing while Carolyn plays the organ in the first part of the program. Bruce Western the choir director is also a fine saxophonist. He’ll play a number with Carolyn, and I’ll play sax on a couple spirituals with her. A free will offering will go to both churches Charlie served as well as Buffalo Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids which Rev. Carol Mart served. She was Charlie’s close friend and mentee. Carol died in his car also. They were checking out another church outside of Cedar Rapids that needed a pastor.
If the pipe organ celebration is a success, we’ll have it every year partnering with other churches that have pipe organs. It will elevate pipe organ appreciation in congregations and throughout the community. Maybe more churches will respect the amazing instruments they already have rather than replacing them with drums, guitars and electronic keyboards. Those are all okay, but they’re nothing like a powerful pipe organ for inspiring reverence. If pipe organs are saved, it will be one of the miracles Charlie prayed for. The organ celebration may be a miracle in progress, but other small miracles began to happen right away. Here are a couple of them.
Charlie was a diabetic. He’d just purchased his supply of expensive refrigerated medicine. The staff at the nursing home next to the church put up a sign saying his medicine was available but not many details. There weren’t any takers. We were about to throw it away. That morning, I wanted to use the church’s recycle dumpster, but the key was in the nursing home and no staff were answering the doorbell. Then a resident walking by opened the door a little and said I probably shouldn’t let you in. I said I was Pastor Chuck’s brother, and I needed the dumpster key. She relented and I thanked her profusely. I was able to get my work done. Loretta the cook was there when I returned the key. She said, “We have one resident who I think might use that same medicine. I hope so because she’s struggling to make ends meet. She’s sitting right over there.” It was the same lady who let me in earlier. I ran and got the medicine and showed it to her. It was what she uses! She said she’d be willing to pay for it. I replied, “My brother would reach out and choke me from the grave if I tried to make you pay for it!” She looked like a kid at Christmas when I brought it over!
When he was pastor at St. Lukes Methodist in Dubuque, Charlie helped the church janitor, Caprice, turn a vision into reality when Caprice created The Fountain of Youth program to help struggling youth and ex-convicts to succeed in society: https://thefountainofyouthprogram.org/about/. When Caprice and one of his coworkers, Eric, came to the funeral, Nancy caught them afterward and asked if they could use any of Charlie’s stuff, including a 1983 Cadillac Seville in excellent condition, except for the not running part. It turns out that Eric leads a mechanic training program at Fountain of Youth and the Seville would be perfect for it. Caprice added that Eric needs a car himself so that one will be his once it’s repaired. They also took some of Charlie’s nice clothes perfect for making a couple of very large ex-cons look presentable for job interviews etc.. I want to believe that Charlie’s spirit has an eye on Eric driving around in his Cadillac doing the business of a ministry he helped to form.
Another minor miracle may come from Charlie. Charlie had an extensive antique pen collection that he always said he wanted Will to have because, like him, Will appreciates good fountain pens. Yes, Will likes good pens, but he knows that he doesn’t need so many of them. Eventually he plans to sell some pens and put the proceeds towards good causes. Hopefully he’ll have a good story about that to share in a future post.
One more ongoing miracle is happening. Often estate settlement can tear families apart, but Charlie’s death has brought us closer together and shown us how much we need each other. That’s true for Nancy and her daughters as well as me and my sons. It’s also true for Will and his cousins, who he now communicates with and even visited recently. But it’s especially true for Nancy and me. We used to talk a couple times a year. Now we have regular conversations, mostly doing estate business but always ending with “I love you,” no matter what else we debate.
Miracles don’t necessarily require magic, just love. Then, like a stone tossed into the water, they create ongoing ripples of love spreading through the fabric of our existence.