David Frederick Hall - A Man in Full

    A number of years ago, in fact every year at this time going on close to 10 years, I sit down on this very chair at this very computer and try my very best to string together even one coherent sentence about David Frederick Hall. You see, May 3rd is the anniversary of his death and I thought how appropriate it would be to have something ready. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I have failed miserably time and time again...for a variety of reasons. More often than not, however, I would end up typing 3 or 4 sentences and immediately hit the delete button because, well...I suck. I would then take a walk and move on to something else. But I always felt like I had an out. I knew that May 15th, the anniversary of his birth, was right around the corner and maybe it was more appropriate to commemorate a birth rather than a death. So, for the umpteenth time, with one of his favorite (and mine) selections, Bach's French Suites, playing on the Bose...here goes. I leave to the reader, the opinion of its success...

    

    On May 15th in 1937, David Frederick Hall entered the world and proceeded to grow up in the bowels of Detroit, Michigan, right down the street from old Tiger Stadium. By any definition, his physical surroundings were not much different than inner city Detroit is today. The dilapidated row homes, the poverty, dare I say the hopelessness was overwhelming...just as it is now. Immediate, as well as future prospects were...well...pretty bleak. Hope may be a good thing, even the best of things...but it can be, at times, teasingly out of reach.

    His parents were hardworking and by all accounts loving, and deeply spiritual. This spirituality manifested itself in ways that were not, how do I put this...normative. The otherworldly hovered everywhere for David. God and man; angels and demons. The battle was constant. And David knew where the lines were drawn. Anyway, as time went on David became the oldest of 8 brothers and sisters, with one sister suffering from severe autism/Down syndrome that went untreated for years at a time. The upside to this hellish part of the story is that he escaped. With the help of a minister/friend of the family, David made his way to college in New England and embarked on a career as a preacher. 

    It was at this college that he met his future wife. They proceeded to fall in love and upon graduation moved to Kansas City, Missouri so that David could attend seminary in order to fulfill his life’s dream of becoming a minister. Although he did not come from a family of preachers, his family had that streak of spiritualism. To this day I don’t know what his influences were back then, but like most young pastors, I’m sure he loved his God and believed he had been called. (Although, as I've said before in this space, I’m utterly convinced that a great number of men who believe they have been called, grossly misinterpreted the message. But that’s another story for another day.)

    As I said, the calling, for lack of a better word, led to Kansas City, Missouri. His wife, with her nursing degree in hand went to work at a local hospital and David studied his ass off while also holding down a job. I can’t imagine the blood, sweat and tears that went into this new venture, but I do know that it all paid off with the birth of one, Peter Brent Hall in June of 1962! That's right, your faithful correspondent. 

    Time goes on and my father graduates, gets his ministerial degree/license, has the aforementioned angelic first-born son and is given his first pastors' assignment in New Egypt, New Jersey. Because of his success in growing this small church (with the aid of others, including, but not limited to, Wes and Sally Erbe, whom I have written about before in this space) the denomination decided to give the young Rev. Hall a promotion to a somewhat larger, more established church in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Not long after that came a second son and what seemed to be the beginnings of a great career for the Lord. What could possibly go wrong?

    Well, what went wrong was a marital scandal, a loss of his minister's license, the shame that goes with all of that, two families destroyed, and divorce. My father became a cautionary tale that would rival any of those moronic television evangelists like Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart. The details of the scandal are unimportant for this piece, but suffice to say, I'm working on the book. It'll be a great movie! 

    But out of the ashes of this domestic conflagration came a second act. Maybe not the "Hollywood" redemption we are often accustomed to, but an embracing of who he actually was. And what he actually was, to no one's surprise, was a teacher; and for me, a good friend. 

    He taught me the game of chess with all of its intricacies. He bought me books. Granted the first two post-divorce books he gave me were Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Daniken (who could be called The Godfather of those Ancient Alien dopes) and The Prophet by the esteemed Arab poet Kahlil Gibran. But he was making the fatherly effort and was trying, in his own searching for truth kind of way. Fortunately, his literary choices got better as the years went on! He taught me about having a musical ear and to listen to different harmonies and movements. You see, not only was my father a wonderful baritone singer, he was was also an accomplished trombonist. And lastly, my father had perfect pitch. I would play a note on the piano when I was younger and he would tell me what note it was. If you're a music person, you know how annoying that gift is when you don't have it!

    As I grew older, after the once-a-month Sunday father trips to the zoo, miniature golfing, bowling, chess, riding the Philadelphia subway from one end to the other (and you've never really seen Philadelphia until you've seen it from a Philly SEPTA subway car!)...high school and college came and went and we reunited, as it were, living in the greater Boston area. And much to my surprise, this man, part father/part stranger/part destroyer of families, became a friend. Dinners at local restaurants in Boston and Cambridge; sitting in each other's living rooms playing chess and talking well into the evening about various political, religious, philosophical, and social topics. And trust me, that was tough at first. You see, my father was brilliant. And I don't mean brilliant in a, he could do the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle without working up a sweat, kind of way. I mean, brilliant in an Immanuel Kant kind of way. It was somewhat intimidating. But it pushed me, in the same way playing sports against someone better than you all the time pushes you. And I think he knew that and enjoyed the process. At least I hope he did.

    But the most important thing he did for me, was to instill the necessity of questioning. And I don't mean studying your grocery receipt like it's some kind of physics problem to make sure the $67.21 number shouldn't be $66.89. I mean, the big questions in life. The well-lived life; the faiths and the philosophies that ground us; the wisdom of the ancients; what is Truth; Buddhism; the Bible, Torah, and Koran as secular literature; and yes, even the metaphysics of baseball! He held dear the ancient maxim that questioning and humbly acknowledging that we begin by knowing nothing, is the first step to enlightenment. He lived that every day. He counseled that to others, every day. And whether he knew it or not, he was a driving force in helping me find my path, however different it was from his. And for that, I owe. 

    I wish he could have met the people who have become important to me and whom I have loved since his death. I wish he could have shared in the joys and heartaches of my life in the intervening years. I wish we could have continued to discuss each other's journeys...wherever his might have taken him had he lived longer. I wish I could have spent more time with him and told him more often than I did, that I loved him. I wish... 

    And I hope that this woefully inadequate piece gives the reader an idea of who he was - the good and the bad. A man in full. I hope...

    In May of 2000 David Frederick Hall died after what was, for him, an all too brief bout with colon cancer. The vessel in which his ashes were housed was transported to the upper peninsula of Michigan where most of his family, as far as I know, currently resides. If there is a gravestone in a cemetery where the Hall clan bury their dead, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have the lines of remembrance that I would have etched in the stone. At the risk of sounding like a heartless bastard, it should read: “Here lies David Hall. 
Not the best of dads 
and an even worse husband...but a good friend. Seeker of truth and wisdom.” Not exactly Shakespeare, but it pretty much sums up his family life.  

    The last time I saw my father alive he was lying in a hospital bed at Massachusetts General Hospital. He had pretty much lost his cancer battle and he was, to use a sports metaphor, playing out the string. The ironic thing is we both hate hospitals. I don’t like them for all the normal reasons: you’re there because you are either sick or dying and the odds are you’re going to get poked with a couple of needles…I hate that. I’m not a big fan of blood, either.  
    My father’s stance towards hospitals was a little different. He just assumed that the body could heal itself in most cases and that in the end there was really no point in being in a hospital. I’m not sure if he didn’t trust doctors, or he just trusted his body and mind more. Either way, there we were; a father and his first-born son, both knowing we were probably seeing each other for the last time and willing to pay absolutely anything to be having this visit somewhere else.
    That said, it was a good visit. As I’ve written, we had become really good friends. You see, the divorce happened when I was 10 and that special father/son bond never really bloomed. But I loved him and it just killed me to know that a nurse was going to have to come in soon and change his bedpan, not to mention seeing him hooked up to all of those hi-tech monitors.  
    The monitors. There’s a rhythm to them, you know. The screens flash in the rhythm of the heartbeat, and the electronic lines representing that heartbeat or the pace of the patient’s breathing are a pleasant green. But the rhythm is artificial. By that I mean it’s computerized and electronic. And if there was ever anyone who was not artificial or technical, or any other euphemism you care to use when describing the scientific marvels of our age, it was my father.  
    David Hall's whole purpose for existing was to search for wisdom and truth and then to pass that knowledge on to others. In another life (and believe me, my father was certain he had a few of those) he was probably one of those wise sages living in a cave and having pilgrims come to him seeking answers and wisdom. A human oracle – very esoteric. Nothing but the power of the mind and the wisdom of the ancients and sages to guide you. Some basic Judeo-Christian theology, sprinkled with more than a dash of astrology and numerology, topped off with some good old fashion belief in past lives and the obligatory nod to the Eastern religions and we’re ready for the next life, baby! To be honest, I've always thought that if Western Civilization had used Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as its foundation instead of what we call the Bible, the world would be a much different, and better, place. By that same token, maybe if more people adopted a few more of my father's religious and philosophical idiosyncracies there might be a little less squabbling. Then again, maybe not! His philosophy was an acquired taste to be sure, but not without its upsides. As you can probably imagine, all of this was a far cry from his early days as a mainstream Protestant minister. So you see, it was tough to see this man of eloquent words and brilliant mind hooked up to the wires and computers of the 21st century. It just didn’t seem right.
    Anyway, our last visit went as well as to be expected. We tried to laugh and be normal. I was scared to death, though. I had never been through anything like this. I didn’t quite know what to say or how to say it, and I don’t think he did either. We had both come to terms with his philosophy and theology and he knew that although I loved to talk about it and debate it, it wasn’t for me. I mean, my search for truth and wisdom had long ago taken a different path, and even though it didn’t follow my families’ evangelical Christianity, my father knew I had no desire to go down his road of Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, and the numerologists/astrologists. So as he laid there on the bed getting a little weaker as the evening wore on, we skipped the afterlife chit-chat.
    After a few more weak laughs about my golf game, the latest books we were reading, and family, I got the feeling that sleep was near. I told him that I had to get going (I needed to drive back to Philadelphia) and that I would try to make it back at the end of the week. It was a sweet lie and he smiled in appreciation. I think he knew more than I did, even if the doctors and nurses tried to convince me that the end was near. I grabbed his hand, gave him a kiss on the forehead and told him that I loved him. Then, the most amazing thing happened. He said, “Peter, let’s pray.” I smiled nervously and nodded, because I had no idea what kind of prayers came to him these days.
    I will never, ever forget that prayer. The words ‘Our Heavenly Father’ came from him like water bursting from a deep well and it was the beginning of a torrent of words and emotion that transported me back in time. All the way back to 1966 to New Egypt, New Jersey. 

    David Frederick Hall died 3 days later on a Wednesday morning, the 3rd of May, in the year 2000, at the much too young age of 63. 

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,

As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.

They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

 

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,

Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.

They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

 

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost

And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves

And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

 

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,

The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:

Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

 

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,

Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are

And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

- Wallace Stevens

write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com