Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do
A tribute to my friend, Rev. Peter Aberle, upon his retirement after serving one congregation as their youth pastor for 38 years
In honor of Peter Aberle’s retirement as the Pastor of Youth and Family of Lanesville Congregational Church after 38 years of service, June 3rd, 2023.
~~~~~
In the summer of 1992, Kirstan and I arrived in Massachusetts after a rough few years early in our marriage largely due to unexpected Army deployments. We were still trying to figure things out, so naturally, we headed to seminary. We ended up arranging rent for childcare in the second floor of a little house in Pigeon Cove. After years in the Georgia swamps and Saudi deserts, Cape Ann seemed like another world, a hidden shire. It was cool and green and quirky, a mess of lobster pots and abandoned quarries; houses that leaned on one another out of old age.
And it became for us a place of grace. At the center of that grace was a church called Lanesville and a wise, joyful family named the Aberles.
Our pastor down South had told us we should check out Lanesville to hear the outstanding preaching. And since it was just down the road from Pigeon Cove, we visited our very first Sunday. We never left.
He was right about the preaching. That first Sunday, the Youth and Family pastor, a skinny guy with tiny glasses and a plain black suit got up to give the sermon. He did not raise his voice much or get overly excited (we would only see that later playing Spud at Family Fellowship). But as he brought us the Word of God that morning, it was evident that here was a man who was as sincere and humble as they come.
Peter’s sermon, along with the full drum set and the Bruce Herman paintings at the front of the beautiful sanctuary told us that the Orthodox Congregational Church in Lanesville was not just any old church. This was a church comfortable in its own skin. It had character, something different, something special about it. And we could tell these people really loved one another. So, we were not too nonplussed afterwards when Greg Beale apologetically cut the conversation short because he said you all had an excommunication to do, the first in 150 years. On our first Sunday. You can’t make this stuff up.
But here is the point. All of that is Lanesville. And Lanesville is Peter and Nancy. And Peter and Nancy are Lanesville. You all are in each other’s blood, inviolably. I think you know that.
It did not take long for Peter and Nancy to take Kirstan and me under their wings. They modeled for us what a healthy, happy marriage looked like, a place of love and service and endurance. They had us over for dinner, they let us play with their kids, they brought us into Family Fellowship, the oddest gathering of authentic, loving misfits we have ever been a part of. Which is why we fit right in. We had found our place of healing and health, and it was Lanesville. And it was the Aberle family. Every hit of the tetherball brought life.
But let me tell you something else about Peter in particular. Not only did he model for me what a godly husband and father should be, he became for me the model of faithful pastor. We had been members of large, urbane churches, and I wondered if I could pastor like those put-together men. Well, Peter is many things, but he never pretends to be more put together than he is. And I said to myself, well, maybe I can do that. Maybe I can pastor a church something like Lanesville and be a pastor something like Peter. I am still trying.
Oh, Peter had his moments. I loved seeing him get frustrated at Saturday morning men’s prayer when someone would say something wacky about the end times or Ross Perot. But he always answered in his wise and loving way. Those three years I spent sitting in that little office eating Dave Harling’s donuts and under Peter’s gentle guidance were life changing. I am still sitting there.
On other days, Peter and I would go on long walks through Dogtown past all those strange carvings with their jolting, unsolicited laws: “Courage!” “Keep out of Debt!” “Get a Job!” Peter would hush those quarried voices over me with a listening ear and Gospel advice. Peter opened up his life to me, always as real as dirt, wise as an owl, and steadfast as the ocean tides. I found in Peter a man of principle, a man of perseverance and a man of service. And somehow, a man who took an interest in me, pouring himself into me, as he has done with so many others.
Peter modeled this life of service to me even more after we moved, when I would return now and then for a visit or men’s retreat. As Nancy’s pain worsened, I saw a husband who loved his wife before himself, helping her persevere through many long and hard years – a man true to his vows, as she was to hers. As I now face my own chronic illness and pain, Peter and Nancy’s example has helped me to carry on. What else can I do? What else can any of us do? To die is gain, but to live is Christ.
It’s been almost 30 years since we’ve left, but every couple of years Peter has called me. Not with any agenda, not with any wheel that needed greasing, but simply to see how we were. Who does that anymore? Peter does. Make no mistake, when I would ask about Hillary or Christa or Josiah and their wonderful families, he would give me the latest with joy – you could almost hear the gleam in his eyes. But he would always bring it back around to why he called – to care for me. That’s a pastor. That’s a brother.
Do you see now how Lanesville became a place of health and healing to us? And how Peter and Nancy are at the heart of that?
Because there is one last thing that I want you to know. It’s not just about Peter and Nancy and their family. It’s about all of you, and the encouragement you have been to them. I have often regretted we did not find some excuse to stay, some way to make our way back to Lanesville. But we must not try to create heaven before its time, nor hold onto a place longer than we should. Perhaps it is no accident that the apartment we moved to over a pizza parlor in Magnolia is now burned to the ground. All that is left is a set of concrete steps that go up to nowhere. For here we have no lasting city. One cannot return to the past, only be faithful to the present, wherever that finds us. As Gordon and Peter would often quote to me, “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”
And so here we are, Kirstan and I, in the mountains of Virginia, not a lobster pot in sight. But I often hear from visitors what an odd, quirky, special place our church is. They tell me they see in it a humility, a realness, a love between the members they don’t often see in other churches that are perhaps a bit more driven, a bit more accomplished in the things that can be measured.
I often tell them – and I always think – for my part, I know where that came from. You see, we never left. You’re still with us.
It’s not just about Peter and Nancy. It’s about the family of God. It’s about all of you. We cannot create heaven before its time, but in Christ Jesus, heaven has a way of breaking in here in surprising spots. That’s what Lanesville is by the kindness of God. So, thank you to Peter. Thank you to Nancy. Thank you to Hillary and Josiah and Christa and their families. And thank you to the whole Body of Christ. At Lanesville.
~ Chris Hutchinson,
Blacksburg, VA
GCTS ‘95