I once had the privilege of driving Archbishop Desmond Tutu home from the airport. At the time, Tutu was a visiting faculty member at Emory University in Atlanta. We passed a barbecue restaurant that I recommended for a good taste of local cuisine. "But Bishop," I continued, "the best barbecue is in Decatur, Alabama, where I grew up." After hearing me rhapsodize about Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q, Tutu exclaimed, "Sooooo, you have moved away from your hometown with its delicious barbecue? What a great sacrifice you have made for the gospel!!"  I knew he was only half-kidding.
      The memory of this conversation came to mind as I drove home to attend a reunion of the Decatur High School Class of 1974. After crossing the mighty Tennessee River, I rolled down the window to smell that familiar hickory smoke as I passed Gibson's on 6th Avenue. I wondered what Labor Day weekend 2004 would serve up for me in Decatur, sleepy industrial town with American flags flying from every motorboat moored in the marina.
      Our Saturday night class reunion was a rousing success. As I came to learn, many of my 300 classmates are now "The Decatur Establishment" against which we once rebelled. Others of us, scattered from coast to coast, had not been back to town since we graduated thirty years ago. We grabbed hold of each other and refused to let go until each of us had received a blessing.
      Two old friends embraced. One, a millionaire, is also a lung cancer survivor. The other confided to me that he could barely afford the $30 cost of the nights' festivities.
      Several interracial couples attended. In this category, Jimmy and his partner took the cake. Jimmy's male companion, out of no fault of his own, is an alumnus of our perennial cross-town rival. Everyone had a good laugh and graciously accepted the Odd Couple. Thirty years ago, my classmates would have reacted quite differently if they had but suspected a guy's homosexual orientation.
      Kathy Evans, former cheerleader and class sweetheart, has also defected to a school across town. She teaches a Pre-K program, mostly for Hispanic students. They call her "Mrs. Heavens." This steel magnolia stood strong beside her husband Stan when his father was brutally murdered only a few years into their marriage. She stands beside him still, cheering him on when his spirits sag.
      Several of our classmates now call the shots for Decatur City Schools. Jeanne Payne hosted a tour of "the new, improved DHS." One of Jeanne's current goals is for Decatur to be certified for the International Baccalaureate Program from K-12. "Imagine," she remarked. "Folks from all over the country will soon move to Decatur just to get their kids enrolled in our public schools!" For members of the Class of '74, this prospect was almost more than we could fathom.
      We concluded our reunion by gathering in the school auditorium for a service of remembrance. Nineteen of our classmates are deceased, one having died just two weeks before we convened. I had been asked to call us to worship and acknowledge our departed friends. As I spoke each name, a candle was lighted and bittersweet memories shared.
      Marvin Gibson had been our first loss. Marvin dropped dead of an aneurysm on the day after Christmas, 1973. "Gip" was an all-state basketball star with an all-American heart. The entire student body gathered in that very auditorium for a Black Church memorial service -- a cathartic outpouring of anguish like nothing I had ever experienced. I can't pinpoint the particular moment I felt called to ordained ministry; yet deep in my bones, I know that grieving the loss of my teammate that day was a powerful summons.
      David Seymour was likewise summoned to ministry during our senior year of high school. David's house caught on fire one night while he and his brothers were sleeping. When the panicked family counted heads on the front lawn, they realized David's younger brother Don was still in an upstairs bedroom. Always the quick-reacting quarterback, David dashed back into the house to rescue his brother. He could hear Don's voice, but couldn't see or reach him as thick black smoke billowed into the room. The flames began to sear David's arms, so he punched out a window and dove to safety… and to enormous survival guilt. A cadre of classmates sat beside David's hospital bed a mere twelve hours later and wept with him. We wondered aloud how a good and merciful God could allow such a thing to happen. We haven't stopped wondering.
      David currently pastors Victory Christian Fellowship near Chattanooga. For our service of remembrance, he preached for 45 minutes -- brief by his usual standards! -- on the theme of Jeremiah's letter to the exiles: "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope" (Jer.29:11). To inspire hope among us, David related how his wife Beth, also a cherished classmate, had been traumatized after being trapped under water as a twelve-year-old. Only recently had Beth overcome her aquatic fear, through prayer and the steady support of friends. Beth's crowning achievement: a deep-sea dive this summer, photographing 10-foot sharks and "Leviathan," as David jokingly referred to himself.
      "I am haunted by waters," Norman Maclean confessed in the closing line of A River Runs Through It. And so have I been since returning to my mountain home in Asheville, North Carolina. First, Frances dumped bucketfuls into our highland rivers, caused massive flooding, and contaminated the city's water supply lines. Then, Ivan came roaring through, littered the landscape with trees, and left thousands literally powerless.
      The ancient Hebrews viewed the world as a disk of dry land suspended between chaotic waters below (the seas) and chaotic waters above (the heavens). They viewed the firmament as a vast dome damming these primeval waters, occasionally released as rain. The Great Flood occurred, they believed, when God opened both the floodgates of the heavens and the earth and allowed creation to return to its original state -- a "formless void." One tiny vessel was spared destruction. A fragile wooden ark, bearing Noah 's family and enough plant and animal seed to reboot the entire system.
      I would like to think of the world as beautiful and harmonious and even providential. But then a school turns into a slaughterhouse. Lungs blacken from smoke and stop breathing. Planes explode in mid-air. Hurricanes happen.
      And on those days, I think Genesis has it right. Perhaps we really do live on little islands of cosmos in the midst of much bigger chaos -- impetuous swells that crash down upon us in wave after wave, swallowing all life in their wake. And when chaos floods this world, as it surely will, we can only hope we've boarded an ark in time, with our loved ones in tow.
      "God remembered Noah" during flood tide, and brought him safely with his shipmates to dry land. For my part, I'm grateful that Decatur High School was an ark for me and my high school companions, securing us during those stormy teen years. Our weekend reunion took us back to the ark. It helped us re-member ourselves as friends and fellow travelers, across great distance and time, across even that Great Divide between the quick and the dead.
      Christians, Jews, and Muslims are people of history. We remember forwards as well as backwards. It is no small wonder, then, that through remembering ourselves as the DHS Class of '74, we got a glimpse and foretaste of a future day. A glorious day when all of us, with Gip at the head of the table, will sit down and feast together on heaping platters of Gibson's Bar-B-Q.