When I came home after my first year at Penn State in June of 1968 my parents insisted that I accompany the family to church. This would be the first time since leaving for Penn State the previous fall that I’d be going to a church ceremony, and I was in for a surprise.

In the nearly year since I had been gone, the years-long consolidation of the parishes had been completed, and the brand-spanking new Millcreek Lutheran Church had been erected on the road from Richland to Sheridan. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Richland was now being converted into the Richland Community Library.

At the conclusion of the service but before the acolyte got up to extinguish the candles and the choir sang the concluding hymn to begin the exit procession, Reverend John Rodgers walked off the pulpit and a member of the church’s board got up to read a letter.

It turned out to be Reverend Rodgers’ letter of resignation.

As we all filed out and bid a fond farewell to Reverend Rodgers, I heard someone just in front of us tell him that she knew that once the new building was built he wouldn’t be staying, he’d be sent to the next parish that needed help.

As I’ve said many times, I really liked Reverend Rodgers and his wife, and even though I now considered myself an atheist (though in truth I had been an atheist my entire life), I was glad to get this opportunity to say goodbye to this kind, compassionate man.

That was the last time I’ve ever attended a Sunday church service, and other than weddings and funerals, it’s the last time I’ve ever been inside a church. Oh, yeah, I’ve also been inside a couple of those huge cathedrals that cost millions of dollars to build just to look at the architecture.

The Millcreek Lutheran Church did get a new minister, of course, but I don’t think I ever knew his name, or if I did, I’ve long since forgotten it. My parents continued to attend church services for some time while they lived in Richland.

I’ve heard from my sister since I wrote about Sunday school, and she says that she sometimes feigned sickness to get out of going, but that ploy only worked a couple of times. I presume she had to continue Sunday school while she was in high school, but perhaps she got a respite while I was home from Penn State in the summer, but I see on the church’s web site that they suspend Sunday school in the summer. I don’t know when that started.

A few years later in the late 1970s our parents bought a house in Lebanon. My sister and I disagree on whether they continued to attend church services after they moved to Lebanon. I maintain that they did, at least some of the time, she is certain that once they moved, they stopped going to church at Millcreek.

What I can be certain of is that they definitely stopped going to church services at Millcreek after The Incident.

When they moved to Lebanon, my mother got a job as a teller at a bank. She also formed what was to be a lifelong friendship with Mary, another employee of the bank, but that’s another story.

After a while on the job, my mother was put on the drive-up window, and one day who should drive up to that window but the current pastor of the Millcreek Lutheran Church.

Seated next to him in the front seat of his car was a woman who was not his wife.

According to my mother, he seemed very surprised to see her at that drive-up window. Surprised and maybe a bit embarrassed. He did not introduce the woman in the car but transacted his business as quickly as possible and drove off.

Of course, this may have all been very innocent. Perhaps my mother mis-read his reaction.

It sure didn’t sound that way when she related The Incident to me the next time she called me in Philadelphia.

To the best of my knowledge, my parents never went to church services, whether at Millcreek or anywhere else, after that.