The Pastor is In

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I met up with Pastor Gregory Fryer from the Immanuel Lutheran Church on the Upper East Side.

Each week, Pastor Gregory puts out a stand on the corner of 88th and Lexington Ave and offers to dispense advice for a nickel. (Actually, he says he never takes any money.) 

I was walking by so I had to stop.

He said he’s been preaching for forty years, spending the past 30 at the church on the UES. 

Pastor Gregory said he loves giving sermons on Sundays, but the highlight of his week is sitting on the corner and listening to the concerns of passersby, some of them from his flock.

He got the idea six years ago to sit outside and “meet people where they are.” He said he modeled the stand on the one used by Lucy in the Charlie Brown comic strip. Each week, he spends an hour on the street, all year round. 

He said many of the people who stop share real hardships. Some are struggling after being laid off, others are going through divorce. One woman recently had cancer. He offers solace. Talking seems to help people with troubles.

Despite material affluence, people are more stressed than in the past, he said. There are more pressures from money and jobs and less community support. He said that is one way the church can help.

He’s planning to retire next year when he reaches 75. There’s no mandatory age in the Lutheran Church, but he said it felt like time. He expects to continue living in the Bronx, where he currently resides. 

One plan is to spend his time digitizing his sermons to make them available to younger pastors. He said that was one of the ways he could “pay it forward to the next generation.”

He will also need to spend time finding a new church since Lutheran pastors aren’t supposed to continue to attend their previous church. The idea is to give the new person a chance to bond with the congregation.

Pastor Gregory said one of his proudest achievements was in training the deputy pastor at the school. He said the church will be in good hands.

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BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

FRANZ KAFKA: “Wrote nothing.” Kafka’s diary will make anyone feel better.

JOHN STEINBECK: “I’m tired of living completely tired.” Novelist John Steinbeck is a bit more optimistic than Kafka, but not by much.

JAMES JOYCE: Everyone needs an editor. But this is a lot.

HEMINGWAY’S READING LIST: Hemingway’s reading list is heavy on the classics: War & Peach and Brothers K and Wuthering Heights.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: I didn’t know Fitzgerald coined the word “to Cocktail.”

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