Wednesday Wonder

Members of the Broadway congregation recently returned from a pilgrimage that included a tour of historic Bethany, West Virginia, the home and locale of Alexander Campbell’s work and ministry. This tour also included Bethany College which was founded by Campbell. On one end of Bethany’s large board room hangs a portrait of Campbell which was painted late in his life, sometime during the last two years. Those were difficult times; the Civil War raged on, members of his extended family fought on both sides, and the enrollment of Bethany had sunk to the place where in one year they only graduated six students. The burden of the years, and that year, were painted into his time-worn face.

The Face of the Times

There was an early time

   before the wife was under the ground

  the children started their dying

   and family took up arms against family

      when life was fresh

      another debate around the corner

      the printing press spitting out another pamphlet

      on urgent matters for frontier faith

   There was a college to build

      students to shape

      important guests to receive

      and preaching conquests

      to the edge of the world

But that was then

   and not now

Now is the time of doubtful dreams

   dreams doubtfully fulfilled

   and the twitch in the gut that says

      after all this

      maybe not

But this is now

   and not then

Then was confidence and logic

   certainty in the text

   the rising pride in providence that says

      surely the world

      is changed forever

This face

   is not then or now

   but if and maybe and hope so

   wondering if the story can be saved

      in the allotted time

      flashing like a mountain storm

            (Tim Carson, July 2010)