Good Old Tim Holst

My good old pal, Tim Holst

Now that services at the chapel down the street only last for two hours on Sunday, I have to look back with a rueful laugh at my own worries about keeping the Sabbath. When I joined Ringling Brothers as a First of May back in 1971, and consequently joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while in Winter Quarters, I was on the horns of a dilemma; the circus did two shows every Sunday, making it difficult, at times impossible, to get to my church meetings on Sunday. Way back then there were church services in the morning for two hours, and then church services in the afternoon or evening for two more hours. What with the travel involved, that could pretty much take up my whole Sunday. 

Growing up with a casual attitude towards religion and God, when I was baptized at age 18 I went far in the opposite direction -- becoming a strict Pharisee about things like the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Tithing, the Law of Chastity, and keeping the Sabbath Day holy. I thought I was sinning badly every Sunday when I had to put on the greasepaint and make with the tummlering instead of sitting in a pew in a white shirt with a polyester necktie lynching me. Tim Holst, the guy who baptized me and was my co-worker in clown alley, wasn't bothered by it at all.

"We gotta work on Sundays, Tork" he told me a dozen times. "Just like firemen and nurses. It's part of the job, so we don't have a choice. I don't feel guilty about it at all."

And there were some Sundays when we managed to get to early morning services. But it was never easy. When our schedule allowed, we'd wake up at the ungodly hour of six a.m. (having gone to bed the night before no earlier than 2 a.m.) and go find a pay phone to call a taxi. That was expensive. Our weekly salary was just $125.00, and most of the chapels were located way out in the suburbs, far from where the Ringling train was parked.

Now here's a wonderful thing that happened to us at least a dozen times that season when we wanted to get to church in the morning on Sunday. Some weeks Holst and I were just too broke to afford a taxi. Not if we wanted to eat during the week. So we'd walk to the nearest bus stop, with no idea when the bus would come or if it even would go anywhere near our chapel. But good old Tim Holst would tell me, no longer the Pharisee but a Doubting Thomas instead, that if we had a little faith and said a little prayer, we'd find our way to a chapel.

And by golly, he was right! We'd pester the bus driver to be on the lookout for a 'Mormon' chapel, and every single time we eventually came to one. And then we'd always find a good brother to give us a ride back to the arena in time for the matinee.

Coincidence or luck? Yeah, maybe once or twice. But I'm telling you this happened a good half dozen times during the season. It was something more than luck or coincidence, of that I'm certain. And it had nothing to do with my faith, since I remained pessimistic each time we did it that we would only wind up lost somewhere out in the sticks and never get back in time for the matinee.

Good old Tim Holst is gone now, carried off by a heart attack  while watching a basketball game in Brazil ten years ago. 

And today I live in a senior citizen apartment building where we have the Sacrament service every Sunday right in our own Community Room. I don't even have to go outside to get to church anymore. And it lasts only a half hour.