Gerben Winters

Without a doubt, Gerben Winters (his real name!) was the grouchiest, crankiest, most curmudgeonly parishioner I had in over 45 years of ministry. He was a member of my first congregation way back in the ’70s. I am now in my 70s! I confess I haven’t thought much about Gerben in the intervening decades.

Recently my view of Gerben changed. My wife Jeannette and I enjoyed Puerto Vallarta sunshine in February with dear friends from that first church I served in Lambertville, Michigan, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio. Harry and Adria told us a story about Gerben that I have never heard. Combined with the insights I gained this week from reading David Brooks’ latest book How to Know a Person, I think it’s worth our time to reflect a bit on Gerben’s story.

The only part of Gerben’s story I have ever known before this week was the part that Gerben assaulted me with every time I paid him a pastoral visit back in the 70s: Gerben grew up on the farm in South Dakota and worked with his hands which he would quickly hold up close to my face and compare to a preacher’s hands that offered no evidence of work or struggle.

The oldest of nine children, Gerben would quickly launch into the sad story of how his dad died when he was a child. “Load of hay fell on him. The wagon tipped over. I was the oldest child. I had to run the family.” That sad story quickly and always morphed into a story of accusation that no one else in the world had it as bad as Gerben. No one else in the world knew how hard it was for Gerben to run the farm and take care of this whole family when Gerben himself was just a child.

I listened attentively to Gerben’s lament every other month or so—he was the only senior citizen we had in that little church so his name came up on the visiting rotation rather quickly! I would let him talk because I sensed it was the right thing to do. It also gave his dear wife Pearl a break from his nonstop grumbling. I would try to sit with Gerben on the front porch, just to give Pearl some peace and quiet.

Eventually Gerben died. A couple members of the Electricians Union spoke at his funeral about what a good electrician Gerben was. And Pearl lived many more years. Pearl missed Gerben a lot. But she also seemed to enjoy the quietness in the house.

Then in February I heard the other part of Gerben’s story. When Gerben was 13, his mother decided there was no future for her or the family in South Dakota and therefore they should move to Michigan. They gathered their belongings onto a large truck and piled in mom and nine kids. Gerben, the oldest child, drove the truck. In the middle of Illinois Gerben lost control of the truck and in the ensuing crash, Gerben’s six year old brother died.

Every time I visited Gerben he told me about his dad dying. “Load of hay fell on him. The wagon tipped over. I was the oldest child. I had to run the family.”

But Gerben never told me this story of his little brother dying when Gerben lost control of the truck. Believe me, I tried to listen deeply to Gerben. I practiced every active listening skill that Mel Hugen had taught me in my seminary pastoral care class. But Gerben never went beyond the hard, cold facts of his dad’s death. He seemed incapable of talking about how that felt, how that affected him as a child, how it impacted his faith. And he never talked about the accident where his little brother died, the accident when

Gerben was driving the truck.

It makes me cry inside now to think about how monumental Gerben’s guilt and sense of responsibility must have been. He couldn’t even get close to telling me this story. And neither could Pearl. No one in that little church in Lambertville knew this story. Our friends only heard this story a few years ago when they stumbled across Gerben’s nephew at a party in Toledo. Gerben’s nephew said that the accident changed Gerben forever, that before the accident Gerben was a pretty well-adjusted, positive kid.

Oh Gerben, how I wish you’d been able to tell someone the story of the truck accident in Illinois. I wish you could have known about the healing of memories. As I look back now, I guess I sensed that behind your gruff exterior had to be some pain, some unresolved trauma, some deeper sadness even than your father’s death. But to see how not just your little brother’s life ended in Illinois but in many ways your life ended too. . . Oh Gerben, I’m so sorry.

No doubt the impact of Gerben’s story upon me this week was deeper because I was also reading David Brooks’ fine book, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. Brooks’ book is a study in human complexity – how humans, fearfully and wonderfully made, are so finely tuned, easily damaged, yet resilient in the face of suffering. Brooks is at his most hopeful when he talks about the healing power of telling our story, how when we have the opportunity to deeply tell the story of our lives we also create it, or recreate it, or reframe it in ways that bring healing and coherence. If only Gerben could have deeply told someone his story.

The goal of Brooks’ book is that people will have more interpersonal tools to truly know another person. Brooks’ conviction is that if all of us developed the art of seeing others deeply and being deeply seen, we would all be healthier, happier, and more fully human. I agree and return home now determined to be more intentional about truly knowing other people.

Lord, tune my heart and mind and ear to know, truly know, and be known by, another person today.