Rollin Davis’s physical life of 79 years came to an end 19 years ago. Even though nearly two decades have passed since that sad day, Rollin often crosses my mind. I am sure that the reason for the frequent crossings is that during the latter years of his life, Rollin had made his way into my heart. As I think of him, Rollin is not only ageless, but also wonderfully present.
Our relationship was such that in the hours before Rollin’s death I was invited to be at his bedside. We prayed together and talked of the most important things, things like family and faith and enduring friendships. We also spoke, as we always did when we were together, of Rollin’s passion for electric trains.
Actually, the far better way of expressing the level of Rollin’s involvement with electric trains is to say that he was an accomplished model railroad enthusiast. Rollin’s model train layout (which occupied the entire area of the upper floor of the home of which he and his wife, Betty, were so very proud), was a magnificently engaging sight to see.
I never tired of seeing the complex and engaging marvel of Rollin’s creative model train work. I also never tired of watching him run the trains around and through his intricately designed layout. There – up in his train layout room – Rollin was the master craftsman, creator, and operator of a model world of which he was fully and unquestionably in charge.
If we are wise in the living of our days, I think each of us needs to create such a space where creativity can be expressed and over which we have unquestioned authority. Without such a space or place the world, which is not of our making, can take a heavy toll on our spirits.
Sitting by Rollin’s bedside in the hours before he died, Rollin added an element to the conversation about which we had never spoken. At one point he asked me to hand him a folded envelope on his nightstand and said, “Ken, I have something I want you to see.” Rollin opened the envelope and handed to me the neatly folded paper which was inside.
I unfolded the faded paper. It was Rollin’s army enlistment document that was prepared in the days after Pearl Harbor when he – like hundreds of thousands of other Americans before any draft – signed up to serve this nation in wartime. But Rollin’s enlistment paper had a glaring difference that MADE a great difference in how Rollin was treated and in the manner in which his service would be used.
On Rollin’s enlistment paper big, black, letters spelling out the word “NEGRO” were superimposed over everything else on the standard enlistment document.
That identifying word of race mattered more than any of the experiences, training, and abilities Rollin possessed. That word was to be read within the military of this nation at the time as a limitation as to where and how Rollin could serve. That word meant that regardless of aptitude or ability, Rollin’s likely area of service would be as a kitchen attendant, a member of some custodial crew, or – as it worked out for Rollin – service loading and unloading supplies on ships in the European Theater of the war.
Rollin told me that the stamped word denoting the color of his skin and race meant that in the weeks following D-Day, Rollin was working in the cargo hold of a ship moored off the beaches of Normandy. Rollin said, “Ken, there is nothing dishonorable about those jobs. But… I have always felt myself dishonored that a paper stamped with the word NEGRO meant that serving in that capacity was all I would be considered able and called upon to do.”
In a world so very often that is not of our making where various ‘stamps’ are placed as limitations by others on us, it is important to trust in and cultivate the truth that each of us bears the liberating ‘writing’ of God’s eternal value on our hearts and minds. It is the essential message of the oldest story in Genesis; namely, God breathing God’s presence within us. It is the continuing liberating truth of such affirmations as Paul makes thousands of years later writing to the newly formed church community in Corinth. Paul writes:
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known, and read by everyone. It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
II Corinthians 3:1-3
Nurturing this truth in our lives enables us to refuse to be defined by the limiting and demeaning stamps which the world so often uses to label or define us. Rollin knew the profound effects of receiving a stamp meant to restrict, segregate, and demean all those years ago. He also felt that stamp across the years of his life after returning to the always race-divided nation in which he was a citizen.
He told me in the last hours of his life that his strength to resist the stamp NEGRO used by too many whites to limit him all the years of his adult life came from his deep belief that God’s stamp on his life and presence within it was liberating and indelible. Rollin knew in his heart, mind, and soul that he was God’s child.
It was Rollin’s source of courage for living through all the difficult times and enabling us, no matter what, to run a far better railroad.
I want to be on that train.