Memories

The memory of the righteous will be a blessing...

Proverbs 10:7

 

This past weekend was Alumni Weekend at the parochial high school that I attended back home in Arizona.  Called Back to the Classics, it was organized by a couple of members of the class of 1967, and featured a huge party at a nearby Scottsdale hotel on Saturday evening.  It appears that everyone brought their cameras and all had a marvelous time.  My e-mail inbox has been flooded with pictures of the event, and plenty more pictures can be seen on Facebook.

It was on Facebook, while perusing all of the alumni photos, that I came across the above photo as I scrolled down the listings.  It stopped me in mid-mousing - I would know this structure anywhere!  This is the old Phoenix Central SDA Church - the church home of my childhood.  Sitting at the corner of Ninth Street and Garfield, this grand old lady looks better today than she did back when I raced down the halls in the basement to reach my Sabbath School room.

Every Saturday, my mother would dress me up in some fluffy number that she had made by hand, then she would drive the old stationwagon downtown, arriving at the church about 9:15 a.m..  Sabbath School was at 9:30 a.m., where I would sing songs, listen to stories, and place stick figures of Bible characters in the sand box that our teacher used to illustrate her Bible lessons.  After S.S. was over, a trip to the two-toilet ladies room and a stop at the drinking fountain completed the pre-worship ritual.  "Church" started at 11:00 a.m., and I eagerly took my place on the hardwood pew right in front of the choir.

 

Central Church was where I was baptized, where I learned about Jesus, where I sang my first church solo (at 2 1/2 years old), where I joined my first choir, and where I accompanied my first Messiah rehearsal.  So many memories are packed into that tiny structure.  How wonderful it was to run across this picture and be reminded of the very beginning of my walk with the Lord.