When the Phone Rings Late at Night

Spirituality Column #105
November 11, 2008
Current in Carmel (IN), Current in Westfield (IN) newspaper

When the Phone Rings Late at Night
By Bob Walters

Without my glasses I can’t read the small text on a cell phone.

So it had to be a God thing a year ago when in the wee-est hours of Sunday, Nov. 11 – at 1:10 a.m. – my cell phone rang and, even with sleep in my eyes, I could clearly read the Caller ID name:

“John Samples,” my close friend and minister at our church.

I knew instantly, even before “hello,” why he was calling.

In his comforting, preacherly baritone, John told me that our mutually dear friend and Christian brother Russ Blowers had, as we say at church, “gone home to be with the Lord.” John didn’t apologize for waking me up; I was immensely grateful he had.

Russ was a World War II veteran (U.S. Army Air Corps in England and Germany) who in June 2007 visited Normandy Beach for the first time since 1945. He went with his sons Phil and Paul, and his teenaged grandson – Paul’s son – Collin. I drove them to the Indianapolis airport to begin their journey.

It was a fabulous, meaningful and high-energy trip for the Blowers boys. They saw London and Normandy. They worshipped in Westminster Abbey, with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams presiding. Russ picked up some small Celtic Crosses in the Abbey’s gift shop; one of which he gave to me as gift that I wear on a white gold chain around my neck.

Russ of course was the long-time pastor of the enormous East 91st Street Christian Church in the Castleton area of northeast Indianapolis. He returned from the war to his home near Dayton, Ohio, married Marian, got a Journalism degree from Ohio University, went to divinity school at Butler, and was a stalwart and vigorous Christian fixture in the Indianapolis community for 56 years.

After a three week stay at Carmel’s Clarion North facility that began Oct. 20, Russ died Nov. 10, 2007, a scant few minutes before midnight,  He felt ill when he returned from his summer trip to Normandy, and gradually his body shut down of unspecified maladies.

He died at 83; a veteran, a great American and a preacher of the Gospel.

Marian died in 2004, and I know they are together and joyous “on the other shore.”

The rest of us remain here in this mortal coil, wondering always when the phone is going to ring late at night.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is just one of thousands who mourn and mark Russ’s death, even a year later. Russ helped us know and understand Jesus Christ.