Profiles -- Ned Wyse

The following story was written for "Mennonite Weekly Review"

Visitors from the past

by Duane Johnson
The last strains of “Open My Eyes, Lord” die away, leaving only the fire’s crackling to punctuate the chapel’s quiet. A few of the assembled campers gaze out a window to catch a final glimpse of the mountain glen, where colors and shapes are beginning to fade in twilight; several others glance expectantly toward the entrance. A figure dressed in a biblical robe enters and begins to speak before many become aware of his presence.

"I am weary of the struggle and I have long since grown tired of bloodshed. Why do we kill them?  For what great purpose do they give up their lives?” He continues mumbling to himself as he shuffles to the front of the chapel. By the time he passes the hearth and faces his listeners, even the children are transfixed.

“I have been most zealous for the law. But am I so committed as to be willing to give up my life for what I believe to be true?….I hardly think that I have that kind of courage.”

As they continue to listen, the campers soon learn that this man from the past is Gamaliel, rabbi and great teacher. They also notice that Gamaliel bears a close resemblance to Ned Wyse, who, along with his wife, Debbi, are the camp’s worship leaders this week. But for the moment, Gamaliel takes them into the past as he shares his troubled thoughts about one of his most brilliant students, a young man named Saul, and the followers of a recently crucified preacher from Galilee.

“What did I say as he sat at my feet that would cause him to go to such extremes to preserve our customs and our ways?  Is it possible that, in his mind, he has confused loving the Lord with all his heart with loving our traditions?  Have they become one and the same to him?"

An early love of poetry

Ned and Debbi Wyse have led evening fireside services each year since 1992 during the second of three annual family camps hosted by Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp. Many families time their annual pilgrimage to this retreat at the foot of Pike’s Peak to hear the preacher/farmer from Camden, Mich., perform his original first-person sermons portraying characters from the Bible. Lovers of poetry also have a chance to hear Wyse recite many of their favorite Robert Frost poems.

It was his love of Frost’s poetry that eventually prompted Wyse to wed the devices of drama and theater to his calling as a minister. Wyse was born in 1951 on his parents’ Archbold, Ohio, farm, the eighth of 10 children. He still recalls the day during middle school when a recording of Frost reciting his poetry stirred him.

When his high school class studied Frost a few years later, the farm boy again was drawn to the poet, and that evening he began to memorize “Mending Wall” as he fed his father’s cattle.

“He talked about things I was familiar with,” Wyse says, speaking deliberately, as though contemplating the impact of each word. “He was a keen observer of nature, both human nature and the natural world.”

Sharing Frost with others

After Ned and Debbi married in 1975, the couple began a tradition of going out for dinner each January to set goals for that year. During their January 1983 dinner, Ned told Debbi that he would like to do readings of Frost poetry.

Debbi encouraged him, and he began memorizing poetry in earnest, utilizing the time he spent on his Allis Chalmers preparing the soil or sowing his corn and soybeans to plant Frost’s verse deep into his memory.

During these simultaneous journeys into Frost and his own fields, Wyse became more aware of his similarities with the poet — their bond with the soil as farmers, their love of nature, and their keen interest in and concern for others.

Soon, he was sharing his love of Frost with classes of high school students in nearby schools. Word spread, and over the years, Frost readings have become a normal part of his schedule; he often combines trips to church conferences and other church business with trips to nearby schools. He now has recited Frost in 24 states.

“Last week at a middle school in Indiana, sixth-graders amazed me at how they get into it,” he says. “They hear little things I wouldn’t think they’d catch.”

Culture and language also have turned out to be less of a barrier than he expected, as he learned when he presented Frost to children at the Hopi Mission School in Arizona, where his son Lowell, his daughter, Julia, and Julia’s husband, Chris, are doing voluntary service.

“The kids surprised me,” he says. “It was difficult knowing whether they would relate to Frost’s New England images. But, everyone understands something about walls.”

When he performs, his relationship with his audience is symbiotic. He draws energy from both the poetry and his listeners even as he shares with them Frost’s plain-spoken wisdom.

“It always surprises me that I can be really tired prior to a program, but I get energized reciting the poetry. It’s still fresh to me,” he says.

He does not consider his rendering of Frost as acting or impersonation; instead, he delivers the meaning and power of the language by tapping his own emotional and intellectual connection with the poet and with an intuitive understanding of how Frost intended the rhythm of his verse to follow the patterns of every day speech.

From Frost to the Gospels

When Wyse’s mother, whose ability to memorize Bible verse is a family legend, discovered how much effort he was putting into memorizing poetry, she challenged him to put that same kind of effort into committing Scripture to memory. He accepted the challenge, becoming more acutely aware of the human drama portrayed throughout Scripture as he did so.

“I’ve always been interested in studying the Bible in an historical context, to view it first as a human story, and second, for what it teaches us about what God is like and the relationship he wants to have with us.

In many ways, recreating biblical characters was a logical merging of his ministry with his fondness for reciting Frost. Yet, though he obviously enjoys it, his ventures into the thoughts and feelings of biblical characters are not an entertainer’s self-indulgent pastime. The farmer in Wyse intuitively remains loyal to a productive work ethic, what Frost might call “significant toil” whose purpose is to nourish and sustain others. His spiritual soliloquies are not merely performances that he “test drives” behind the pulpit or that evolve as extensions of Sunday morning homilies. They are, in fact, a unique and distinctive collection of his sermons that are a part of, and inseparable from, his calling as a minister.

“I prefer to call them first-person sermons,” Wyse says. “They originate as Sunday morning messages. It’s just another way of ‘carrying the mail.’”

His original first-person sermon grew out of his concern for the children at the church and his memories of his own efforts as a child trying to pay attention during Sunday services. But his characterization of a distraught Simon Peter voicing his anguish between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus also struck a chord with adults, and members of the congregation encouraged him to do more.

The priest Gamaliel, Simon Peter, Jesus’ grandfather Jacob and other biblical characters now began to visit Wyse and Frost in the cab of the orange Allis Chalmers. As he worked his fields, the farmer also worked his fertile imagination, peering through the dust of time to develop and nurture his understanding of what these men must have felt and experienced, then putting it into a contemporary context.

 “I usually like to look at minor characters who are part of the situation but for whom we may not have preconceived ideas,” he says. “These were real people with real emotional struggles. Hearing the word of God couldn’t have been as easy as what it appears when we read the pages.”

He soon learned that he could often make his message more palatable through first-person sermons.

“I can hide behind the character in a way I couldn’t in a sermon,” he says. “I can say things I might not say in a regular sermon.”

Wyse’s ancient cast of characters now usually accompanies him when he travels on church business, and they have been a key part of his repertoire most years at Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp. Leading the evening fireside worships are a family affair. Debbi, who has been a college choir accompanist and piano instructor at Hillsdale College for 20 years, leads the singing and music portions of the program, aided by some combination of Layne, 18; Lowell, 21; and Julia, 24, in years when they can attend.

After the singing, someone from the Bible, looking suspiciously like Wyse, will visit the crowd and reveal to them that the questions that he faced and the spiritual problems he grappled with centuries ago were very much like their own today.

On this particular evening, it is Gamaliel who visits the campers. As he nears the end of his message, he utters words that could cut to the heart of many in his chosen profession.

“It’s an awesome thing to be a teacher, for one never really knows who it is that is sitting at one’s feet.” He then peers thoughtfully at his listeners.

“Have we as a people been fighting against God? Is it possible that I, a teacher of the law, may even be leading the struggle against God?  Am I any nearer to 'loving the Lord with all my heart' than I was when I, as a young boy, sat in the synagogue?"

The rabbi begins walking toward the door, leaving them to ponder these questions. Then, just before he reaches the door, he turns back toward them.

"God, have mercy upon the young man, Saul. God have mercy upon me. God, have mercy upon us."