Something Was Wrong

By Lyman Hafen

Just so you’ll know, the following lines contain references to faith, belief, and matters of the spirit, all of which, for me, are integral to my health and wellness.

Recently, I was driving up Flood Street toward St. George Boulevard when I felt something wrong. Flood Street is 400 East, though I’ve never known it as anything but Flood Street. It is the street where great torrents of water used to run wildly southward toward the Virgin River during rare summer cloudbursts. Sometimes you could catch a wave on an innertube and ride it for a block. It is the street I walked up as a boy from my house on 600 South to get to the city park, to the Little League field, or all the way to uptown on those rare occasions when I strayed that far. Driving up the street the other day, my eyes were locked on the traffic light up ahead at the Boulevard. I wondered if I would hit it green or as is generally the case, be stuck there at the longest red light in all of St. George.

It was when I passed through the intersection at 100 South that I felt something wrong—something very wrong. And then, like cold water in my face, I realized what it was. The Flood Street chapel was gone. From my earliest memory, a handsome red brick building with white trim and a tall steeple had always stood there, right there on the northeast corner of Flood Street and 100 South. And from my earliest recollections of mortality, that building had been standing there as steadfastly as any landmark in my life. It had been standing there since my earliest moments of coming to understand who I am in this world. And it was no longer there.

I drove on up to the roundabout at Tabernacle Street, rounded it the full 360 degrees, and rolled back down the street to confirm for certain what wasn’t there.

What wasn’t there was the place where my parents dragged me to church every Sunday from the time I was three years old until I was old enough I didn’t have to be dragged anymore—the place where I was expected to sit perfectly still for an hour and a half while Bishop Olson, President Reichman, and a long list of other stalwart men and women spoke from the high pulpit while I sat on the hard bench with my dad’s muscular arm clamped around my shoulders. From time to time, I’d crane my neck and look back and up at the windows of the “cry room” hanging like an enclosed porch a full story above the congregation at the rear of the chapel. That’s where my mom was most of the time, watching through the window and listening on the intercom as she consoled my noisy baby sister behind the soundproof glass.

And it was all gone, nothing but air in the space where I first learned to worship God; the place where I first learned about my Savior, Jesus Christ; the place where His countenance first began to take shape in my soul, due in large part to a glorious painting that hung on one side of the wall behind the podium. The painting depicted Jesus blessing a group of children congregated about him just inside a stone archway. There was a pastoral scene of the Holy Land in the background. The cumulative time I spent as a child taking in every detail of that painting during long, long worship services would rival my Sunday screen time on my phone more than sixty years later.

And it was all gone, nothing but air in the space where I first felt the subtle comfort of the Holy Spirit.

As I sat in my car and looked at the pile of rubble that once was a chapel, I remembered those interminably long meetings and how looking at that painting gave me hope and solace—not so much the eternal hope and solace inherent in the image (“Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”) but the solace and hope of a diversion from suffering through the words that kept coming and coming and coming from the pulpit—the hope and solace that at some point, the meeting miraculously would come to an end and I could fly fleet-footed back down Flood Street and return to much more pressing matters, like the building of my hut in the backyard.

As I sat in my car and looked at the pile of rubble that was once a chapel, I remembered going there on Tuesday afternoons after school for Primary. I would storm into the Primary room with many of my friends, and we would sing our hearts out as Sister Harmon taught us the most awesome song of all time, “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree.” I remembered how one day when Sister Esplin was leading the singing, she informed us we would all need to sing our best because she had a frog in her throat. I didn’t sing a word because I was so worried about that frog, how it got in there, and how she was going to get it out.

And it was all gone, nothing but air in the space where I first sang the second greatest song of all time, “Give Said the Little Stream.”

As I sat in my car and looked at the pile of rubble that was once a chapel, I wished that I could sit once more on one of those benches and hear all the words that were spoken there by people whose lives, love, and support have blessed and inspired me beyond my ability to describe. I wished that I could hear the glorious singing and sense the feelings of brotherly love that filled that space. And I wished that I could just once more look at that wonderful painting of Jesus blessing the children.

It is popular to think that the days of miracles have passed. I’m here to assure you they have not. On the Sunday following those few minutes in my car looking at air where once stood a chapel, I sat in another beautiful neighborhood chapel among young parents where dads with muscular arms held their little sons tight to the padded bench as words and words and words cascaded down from the pulpit. I sat there with gratitude in my heart as I realized how fortunate I was to possess the faith that my parents so sincerely and lovingly shared with me as a child, knowing that the place where that happened was now only air— air that was soon to be filled by a new municipal fire station.

The miracle occurred as I felt a vibration in my pocket. I pulled out my phone and tapped on the text. It was a photograph. Beneath it were the words of a life-long friend explaining that before the old Flood Street chapel was torn down, he’d gone in and taken photos of the paintings that had hung there since we were kids. He said he thought I’d like to have a copy of this one.

I sat there on the padded bench and my heart filled with hope and solace as I stared at the screen of my phone. It was the image, in full and glorious detail, of Jesus blessing the children. I studied it with all the intensity of my soul. It was exactly as I remembered it.

When I finally looked up, the meeting was over.

About the Author

Lyman Hafen

Lyman is the author of a dozen books intent on connecting landscape and story in the American Southwest. He is executive director of the Zion National Park Forever Project, and is past president of the national Public Lands Alliance. He’s been writing and publishing for more than 35 years, with several hundred magazine articles in publications ranging from Western Horseman to Northern Lights, and was the founding editor of St. George Magazine in 1983. He’s been recognized on several occasions with literary awards from the Utah Arts Council, and won the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He lives in Santa Clara, Utah, with his wife Debbie, and together they have 6 children and 18 grandchildren.