Dr. Kalas or “Ellsworth” left an esteemed institution such as Harvard in obedience to his District Superintendent’s request for a pastor to go serve at a small church in rural Ohio. Not many know this story. The reason he shared this with me was in the context of an informal mentoring session, one of many that I was pleased to share in as an eager mentee, where we used to discuss and pray about what it meant to heed God’s call, among other things. Dr. Kalas never failed to exemplify the life of one called to serve God by serving the needs of others, be it as a pastor, a professor of homiletics, or as the interim President of the institution where I had the brilliant fortune of meeting him and learning from him as a student in the two courses that I took from him. Apart from the classroom, we met several times either over coffee or a meal at the local coffeeshop.
Dr. Kalas never failed to let me know how special I was. He did this over and over again through his gentle speech, emails, handwritten notes in my SPO (personal post) box, and comments on my papers. The note here was penned in the front page of a book that he wrote and that I requested him to autograph on 11 May 2004.
He writes, addressed to me:
In thanks to God for his investment in you–and the faithfulness with which you will treat that investment.
If there is one word that qualifies what the vocation of teaching should be all about, it is faithfulness. Dr. Ellsworth Kalas exemplified this characteristic quality: faithfulness to staying true to the God of his calling, and thereby faithfulness to stewarding each person as a precious gift of God, inspiring them, nurturing them with the knowledge of the fear of God. These are beyond-this-lifetime investments that never fade away, which/whose value never diminishes.
As I reflect on this Teacher’s Day, September 5, 2020, and I look around me, my family, my teaching office, my books, the journey traversed thus far, and the privilege of having so many great students and colleagues–fellow learners on this faith-journey of life, I am so grateful to God, for the life of Dr. Kalas and for the inspiration of God that he bequeathed to me, a gift that I will cherish till my dying day and thereafter into life forevermore.
May God grant me, and to all called to a vocation of teaching, either in academia or as parents and professionals serving in our homes and workplaces each day, the gift of faithfulness; faithfulness to a purpose and a calling that is beyond what this world can offer or contain, the reward of which is nothing short of peace with God in this world and the next.
Dr. Kalas was a excellent speaker and writer. I remember how he once explained what an opening or introduction to a talk should be like. I thought the opening para of his book, Get Wise, captured Dr. Kalas’ winsome spirit.
A Poetic reflection on heeding your call
When you call
I must go
Your voice speaks
To my soul
Though the storm
Through the night
On the horizon
Rests my sight
Where you call
I must go
Your consolations
Cheer my soul
Until my voice
No longer heard
Beneath the ground
I hear the sound:
Come unto me
My precious one
My work you did
Is not undone
Like gold, through fire purified
The cast the Cross
My love defined
Why you call
I do not know
Nothing to offer
This to show
But my name
Your lips have stained
Your hands formed me
not in vain
For in the stillness I do hear:
Whom shall I send?…
Here am I,
When you call
I must go
~ Uday Balasundaram| September 5, 2020
