Another Nice Mess He’s Gotten Me Into

Two pastors on study leave can manage more mischief than you might imagine.

My friend Chris and I uncovered that truth early in our ministries, which is why we continue to spend several days together each year to read, write, and renew our spirits. Our time together always sparks new brilliance for my work, and I give Chris all the credit for that.

Of course, I also give him all the blame for the mischief we have gotten into over the years.

The William Black Lodge in Montreat, North Carolina has served as the setting for most of our shenanigans. Several years in a row, we would arrive at the lodge on a Thursday and depart on Saturday morning. We always had the place to ourselves, which meant that as the lodge director got to know us over the years, she invited us to make ourselves at home. That meant that we could spread our books and notepads and calendars on the tables in the main meeting room, and leave them throughout our stay.

After lunch in Black Mountain on Thursday, we would move to our place of study, arrange our sermonizing tools, and then work until dinner. After our meal, we returned to our work, but we did so with a wee dram of twelve-year-old scotch.

On Fridays, we began after breakfast, and from then on, our schedule mimicked the day before.

But one Friday morning, the lodge director told us about a church board that would be arriving after dinner for an overnight retreat.

“You can work here throughout the day, but they’ll need this room later,” she said. “Let me show you another room where you can work this evening.”

We followed as she led us up the stairs to the second floor. We turned down a hallway with guest rooms on both sides. At the end of the hallway, she opened a metal door that led us into a small tiled area beside the living quarters we had just passed. We then walked through another door into the room she had chosen for us.

After dinner, we stopped by our rooms to gather our supplies for the evening ahead, including the whole bottle of our favorite scotch, the Balvenie DoubleWood. As we trekked from our rooms to our new place of study, each of us carried an armload of books. Chris also clutched the bottle of scotch encased in its cylindrical container with a metal bottom.

We worked late into the night. We drank deeply from our shared insights and plans, as well as from the bottle of scotch. About midnight, we packed our belongings and walked through the door back into that tiled space just outside the hallway we were about to enter, the same hallway in which the board members were now attempting to sleep.

“We need to be quiet now,” we whispered.

As I opened the door, Chris lost his grip on the bottle. The sound of that container crashing to the floor was so loud that I imagine the echo still resounds in the mountains surrounding Montreat.

Between fits of stifled laughter, we agreed that entering the hallway was no longer the wise option. Instead, we decided to open a side door so that we could slink down the fire escape to the landing below.

We heard the door lock behind us as we crept down the stairs. We intended to walk around the building to the front door, as we had a key with us. But we couldn’t do that, because we had landed in a courtyard. And we could see no way out.

Like a hamster surveying the edges of his cage, I tiptoed into the darkness toward one end of our enclosure. Fallen leaves crunched beneath my feet as I made my way past one room. Through the closed blinds, I spied the shadow of an unfortunate board member whose room was on the ground floor. I spun around, shuffled back to the landing, and announced, “We’re doomed.”

We figured our only option was to call the director to plead with her to let us back inside. But just as we were about to call her, Chris noticed a ladder propped against a nearby wall.

As pastors, we know a sign from God when we see one.

Chris handed me his armload of books, and he moved the ladder to a place where he could scramble over the wall to freedom. He disappeared into the greener grass of the other side, leaving me to wait for him to return by another way, from inside the building.

He took far longer to return than I expected. I stood there on the landing, peered through the window in the door, and began to wonder whether he had abandoned me. I didn’t put it past him.

When he opened the door, he said: “I almost died.”

Even though Chris is prone to melodrama, his words rang true as he described the thirty-foot ledge he almost fell from as he had stumbled through the darkness. As any good friend would do in a time like that, I laughed at his near-death experience. “You’ve got to admit, Chris. It would have been a great story had you fallen.”

Chris muttered something as he put the ladder back where he had found it. As I watched him, I pondered the phrase we have said to each other so often through our thirty years of friendship: “Receive the grace.”

I didn’t get it in that moment, but I’m beginning to realize what the grace of friendship is. Your friends not only get you into some nice messes; they also get you out.