His name is Carl Storck – a 50-year-old with Down’s Syndrome who belongs to Holy Communion. Carl is one of our ushers and does a pretty good job with that – and once in a great while he prevails on me to let him sing a solo for church. He even serves as lector from time to time- usually assigned to lead the congregation in reading the day’s psalm in unison. He also performs a great public service on those Sundays right before it’s time to either set the clocks back or ahead – making reminder announcements which over the years have become more and more imaginative and less and less decipherable, but they are endearing all the same. There have been a few bumps along the way, as well- incidents where he was asking people at church for money or getting just a little too persistently friendly with certain young ladies at church- but those sorts of headaches are pretty much behind us and Carl is really seen as a treasured part of our church family.
It’s always interesting when Carl sings a solo- and the one coming up on December 30th will be a doozy. He asked if we could do “O come all ye Faithful” – and although he sings with absolutely no sense whatsoever of pitch or rhythm (he matches pitch on maybe 2 notes out of 100) I have managed to get him to sing the refrain – the “o come let us adore Him” part – with the escalating dynamics that most of us are used to. That’s one thing he can do and I think it makes him feel like he is really doing something special. And the folks of Holy Communion are great about it (I wonder what visitors think- but it helps that I always have Carl sing from the front of the sanctuary, which helps them figure out pretty quick why that kind of solo singing is happening.) They seem to appreciate Carl’s obvious pleasure and pride in offering up his own sort of joyful noise to the Lord- and they’re also amused and perhaps impressed at my efforts to follow Carl with my piano accompaniment.
One tradition that has been going strong for over a decade now is that I am Carl’s ride to church for Christmas Eve afternoon church at 4. I have absolutely no recollection of how this got started, but it’s become a date that neither of us wants to break. Carl is actually a lot of fun and also very appreciative; he never fails to say thank you – which is more than I can say about a couple of Carthage students I know. It is also not a bad idea for me, in the midst of all that makes my life so rich right now, to cross paths with someone who has lost both of his parents and sees rather little of his remaining relatives – and who lives in a tiny foster group home and lives a most spartan existence. On our way home from church, Carl asked if I could stop by Walgreen’s so he could buy a couple of bottles of soda. It turns out that for shoveling the walk the other day, his foster mom gave him three dollars – which allowed him the chance to get an unexpected extra treat. I wish you could have seen the look of pride on Carl’s face as he walked out of the store and to my car with his two bottles of diet pepsi. (I asked Carl what his favorite soda was, and he replied “anything diet.”) That was his big Christmas treat for himself, and that really helps put things in perspective for Kathy and me and the mountain of presents that we will be opening later today. Thinking about Carl and his life – and how delighted he is with so little – is a tremendously valuable lesson.