I was a student of Prof Stuart's at Greenville College in the early-mid 1970s. I took care, or baby sat as they call it, for the kids sometimes, and hung around the house on other occasions. I remember standing in their kitchen, relishing all the activity with the kids and family, and Prof coming in shortly before leaving with Ingrid for some other campus event or commitment. Ingrid and Prof Stuart introduced me to Nutella which was not available in the US at that time.  Ingrid's family would send them some from Germany. It was the first time I ever had anything chocolate on bread-which is now very common in the US. And Toblerone!  I remember the pet guinea pigs and soccer matches and classes.  And I most treasure his wisdom and advice when I had serious personal decisions to make. He was not judgmental. He was helpful, spiritual, calm, thoughtful, compassionate and persistent, all things I needed at those times, whether while at GC or later in my life. He demonstrated excellent ways of handling crises, ways I internalized and use to this day.

He also gave me an opportunity while at GC that taught me many things. It was the experiential learning that I craved, constantly nagged at GC for, and he was good at. He received a grant to help a small group of minority families living in crowded trailers in the middle of a cornfield near Greenville. They had been ripped off by a land development scheme. They were impoverished families, trying to escape the crime and despondency of East St. Louis IL. The grant was for three actions: 1) legal action against the perpetrator, 2) provide gas money for GC students to tutor children from this group who were falling behind, and 3) get some neighborhood development and infrastructure. I was one that would go to the school 1-2 times a week for a semester to tutor a second grade boy. He was smart but underprivileged.  He taught me what that meant, what it means to grow up without the exposure to society and opportunities that I had, as poor as I thought we were.  I have stunning, simple, gut-wrenching stories with that boy that imprinted on me deeply. Prof Stuart leveraged that grant into trips with the children from this development to eat at a restaurant-which they had never done before. They didn't know what a menu was. We took them to Southern IL University dental school to get dental exams, cleaning, toothbrushes and toothpaste and learn how to use them. We took them to the St. Louis Zoo and other places to show them life can be better. They never received mail-they didn't know what a letter was. So I sent mail to my student and his family. Through Prof's persistent initiative and pressure on government agencies the neighborhood got electricity and sewers, a basketball court, a geodesic dome neighborhood center designed and built by SIU, and roads to their homes so the kids didn't have to trudge through muddy fields to get to the school bus. He brought some dignity and hope to them. I don't recall what happened in the legal case, but I know Prof did all he could.

This was a profound experience for me and I have shared it many, many times to help  the rest of us understand, even a little bit, what it is like not to have what we take for granted. I have had opportunities to do similar things, and I am happy to say it saved human lives, wildlife and farms, and the environment for military veterans, immigrants and others. Not that I didn't have compassion before, but Prof showed me other ways, higher ways to recognize opportunities to demonstrate it and use it for greater good. 

My own mother passed away 7 June 2021. She also was an outstanding example of how to live and serve, and how to move on to heavenly rewards. She went easily and happily, looking forward to having my father help her across the river, as she tends to stumble alot. She said Jesus and my Dad had to wait a long time for her and she was ready to meet them again and get on with it.

I have just retired and, of course, been thinking about what I have accomplished in my career and life to date. The opportunities from Mom, Dad and Prof Stuart are the highlights of my life. All my education was but the backdrop, a resource, for the true life tools one gets from experience and people such as them. Tools we can use to contribute and be a good steward of our world, and serve God. The world was a better place for having them all here. There is a huge void now that we must fill with wonderful memories and the lessons and examples they taught us. 

"Perhaps they are not stars but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost one pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy." Inspired by an Eskimo legend.

I remember visiting Jim in Aukland back in 1984 and he took me to a black sand beach and several other cool places. But the amazing thing was that he thought to include me in an overnight at a Maori maera, where we were treated with such wonderful hospitality, respect and grace. Even though I was relatively young and clueless (21), I was aware enough at the time to realize it was a very special experience and that I should be very grateful to have the opportunity to be a participant-observer in the community's meetings and rituals. What a precious memory that was, and it has stayed with me over these past many decades. It made me want to be hospitable to and welcoming of strangers - to treat them as occasions for joy, just as the people at the maera had treated me. (I'm sorry for any mis-spellings.) 

Jim had a capacity for connection and inclusivity, a passion for justice and mercy. (When he found out I was going into clinical psychology after graduating from college, he encouraged me: "Yes, you will learn some techniques, but never forget to be compassionate.")  Jim's qualities have both challenged and inspired me over the years, especially because he lived them out - he embodied them - and didn't merely espouse them.  

I had some contacts with Jim in the course of collating material for my journal Music in the Air.  He shared the stories of his  ministries in inner city African-American congregations, where there had been a move by White families to the suburbs, and later, to a rural country congregation in the Appalachian mountains.  Jim told me he was always happier in small size congregations at the margins of society, than in big city congregations full of academic people.



In an issue of Music in the air Winter 2004 he wrote the story of his ministry in Hardwick Creek, population of around 1000 people where the members referred to their Sunday worship as ‘meetings’ in ‘the little brown church in the valley’.



The article is titled ‘Stumbling into Grace’, and was published in Music in the Air Winter 2004.



I want to share his encounter with Joe Mountz, senior steward at the Hardwick Creek church, who introduced him to the church and its people. Joe,known as ‘Mountain Man Joe’, was a busy man who ran a delivery service, but he gave some time to make Jim feel at home in his first weeks of ministry.



‘In the period of a few short weekends he introduced me to just about everyone in the region, taught me to what he knew about local customs and practices of the mountain folk, and along the way, pointed out to me where the local stills were in the hills and warned me about entering those areas unannounced. Joe listened intently to my first three sermons after I arrived, but from then on began to fall asleep when I was preaching. One day I asked him why my sermons were putting him to sleep and he smiled and replied, ‘Well, preacher,’ he said, ‘I listened carefully in your first three sermons and figured you were all right.’ After that , I didn’t need to know about you.’ As far as Joe was concerned, I knew the Gospel and he could rest easy in church after a week of long hours and hard work delivering goods.’



Apart from us both sharing a progressive theology, we also felt the gospel strongly in the arts of music, story and  poetry.



I shall remember my short times sharing with Jim as fellowship in depth.



Haere Ra, e hoa



John  Thornley, Palmerston North