On this All Saints Day. I am remembering some of the saints I have met in my life. One essay in my journal is too short to tell the story of any of them fully. That is one of the advantages of celebrating All Saints every year. In truth, a lifetime is all too short to explore all of the dimensions of a relationship. I won’t pretend to be able to tell the whole story this year. I’ll be telling stories of the saints I have known for the rest of my life.

I met several saints at church camp. Frank was my cabin counselor the first year that I attended camp as a youth camper. I grew up at church camp. I don’t have a conscious memory of my first time at camp. The story is that I went to camp with my family when I was about six weeks old. My mother was the camp nurse, and my father made up a bed for me in the wood box of the cabin where we were staying. When I got old enough to attend a week at camp without the rest of my family, I was eager. I was assigned to Trails End Cabin. Frank was the cabin counselor. At first, I was skeptical because he was not a natural outdoors person. One day, the lunch plan was for us to go into the woods as family groups.
We had pocket stews with potatoes, carrots, and hamburger patties inside aluminum foil. We were to collect rocks to build a fireplace, gather wood to build a fire, and when the fire burned down to coals, place our stews in the coals to cook. I had been a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout, and our family cooked outside every summer. Frank, however, didn’t seem to know how to cook our lunch. I took out my pocket knife, which was sharp because my Uncle Ted had helped me sharpen it for camp. I made feather sticks, gathered kindling, and started the fire with a single match. Frank watched. He thanked me for knowing what to do. My potato was a bit burned, but the lunch tasted good.

Frank was a minister who wrote out most of what he said in worship. His prayers were poetic. His sermons were lectures in theology. He was the beloved pastor of a church in the state's largest city. I don’t remember much of what he said at that first camp. I do remember that he cared and that he made me feel included, even honored to be in his cabin. I also remember that he addressed God in prayer by saying, “Eternal Creator.” That way of speaking to God stuck with me. I’ve used that form of address in thousands of prayers. I’m sure I’ve also used more words I learned from Frank, but "Eternal Creator" is a way of talking with God that has stuck with me.

Frank not only taught me how to fit in at camp. He taught me a great deal of what it means to be a minister. I joined the church he served when I went to college. I was drawn to that church because it was the church of my girlfriend’s family, and where they went, I wanted to go. Frank asked me to serve on the Christian Education Board as a student. He talked to me about becoming a minister and told me stories of Chicago Theological Seminary, from which he graduated, and where I went after college. He was a careful artist who paid close attention to details. He taught me about newsletters and worship bulletin layout, about selecting hymns and studying commentaries.

I will never forget the first Christmas Eve service I attended at the church Franklin served. In my home church, we all held candles and passed the flame around the room. At Franklin’s church, we went up as families, lit a candle, and placed it on the communion table before the creche. When our candle was placed, Frank reached out his hands, and we stood in a circle as a family while he prayed. He said, “Eternal Creator, we know that the candles we have lit will soon go out, but the love they represent will burn in our hearts forever.” I’ve used those exact words in a hundred Christmas prayers.

Frank was one of two pastors who officiated at our wedding. He prayed to Eternal Creator at that celebration. He encouraged us, as seminary students, and helped us plan our Ecclesiastical Councils and our Ordination celebration. He inspired the congregation to host an Ordination Conference. They paid for some of our teachers and mentors to address the gathered church. They selected meaningful gifts for the occasion. When I knelt, closed my eyes, and listened to the ordination prayer, and felt hands laid on my head and shoulders, I recognized Frank’s touch. When our son was born, Frank drove 300 miles each way to officiate at his baptism.

I have been blessed with many good pastors in my life. I have learned about being a pastor from many of them, but perhaps none was a better model for me than Frank. He was entirely at home in a circle of pastors and theologians discussing nuances of scripture. He loved the life of the mind and intellectual discussion. But he also put on his jeans and invested weeks serving as a camp counselor. He reminded junior high boys that they needed to take a shower and was firm when it was time for lights out. Those were skills I imitated when I became a pastor and cabin counselor. I also learned to step back and let campers show leadership, as he had when I built a fire.

Frank taught me a lot about being a pastor, but he didn’t teach me about how to be a retired pastor. His retirement was short because heart disease took him from us too soon. Frank is a saint that I remember today.

I had planned to write about several saints, but other stories will have to wait for other days. When I sing a song about the saints of God, in my mind I’m singing about Frank.