Once when the Bishop was visiting St. Barnabas's, I plucked up enough courage to tell him how depressed I was feeling. "I'm lonely here in the slums," I moaned. "I feel sure God is calling me to work in the mountains!" As he began to reply, I thought he was going to agree with me. "Yes . . . I know . . . your bishop also feels called to work in the mountains!" Then, he added, "but I'm not going, nor are you!" "If you think that way, imagine how these young people must feel who have moved into the city from the mountains. They don't know Jesus as you do, either."
Later, a group of twenty youngsters and I set out to holiday in Kentucky in a little log cabin in the pine forests. Our tassel haired gang scurried across the wide marbled departure hall of the Dixie Ferry Terminal with bags of potatoes and onions in their hands. Pushing past blue suited business people, they hurried to catch the next boat across the river into mountain country. Tin mugs and coffee pots tied up with string clattered together to the obvious astonishment of the regular commuters. The tired kids were soon at the cabin, surrounded by pine trees. Still, they insisted on gathering stones to build a rough altar. These Cincinnati kids found so much happiness there that they renamed it, "Camp Joy." Our theme song was, "Jesus first, Yourselves last, and Others in between."
One evening, at St. Barnabas's Church in our fourth floor apartment, Eric Kast, one of our cadets, surprised me. "Captain Lewis," he said, "I want to wash your feet!" "Don't be silly, Eric!" I retorted with a laugh. Eric patiently kneeled in front of me. "I want to wash your feet," he repeated, "because I have resented certain orders you have given me." He added, "the Lord has told me to humble myself that we may have true Christian fellowship together." I did not know what to say. He then eased off my shoes and socks, and started to lather my feet with soap. The soapy water splashed over my toes into the basin and I chuckled. He was healing old wounds that had separated us.
Someone else was in the quietness of that room that night. My words froze on my lips. "It was Jesus!" Time stood still, suspended in eternity. Later, Eric told me that he too was conscious of the presence of Jesus while washing and wiping my feet. We realized that this was the Feast of the Transfiguration. Jesus was gloriously transfigured before us in a dusty fourth floor room. His attendance transformed it into holy ground. We praise God to know that no walls can keep him out, when He comes to bless.