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The Story of Ray and Star Silverman

In 1975 I was in my second year as the director of “Kodachrome,” an alternative high school in South Kingston, Rhode Island. It was a school for youngsters who had dropped out of high school for various reasons: some had learning problems; others had discipline problems; others had dropped out of school because they were so intelligent that the normal classroom routine bored them. As director of the school, my job was to put together an educational program that would give these students essential skills for finding and keeping jobs. When our schoolhouse burned down, someone suggested that we buy an old school bus and go to California. Miraculously, I came across an old 66-seater at the Providence school bus “graveyard.” For $200 I bought the bus and took it back to South Kingston. That spring, thanks to the talents of my students, we fi xed up the bus, passed the Rhode Island School Bus Inspection, and were ready for the road. In the fall of ’75 we traveled throughout New England, picking up migrant worker jobs along the way — harvesting peppers and apples in New Hampshire, picking pumpkins in Massachusetts, and chopping wood in Maine. We came back to Rhode Island for the winter where we made plans for our longer, “Cross Country Migrant Worker Expedition” in the spring. This took us to New Orleans to sell T-shirts, to Padre Island to work in hotels, to the banks of the Rio Grande River to pick onions, and on to California where we turned the bus around and headed back east. Along the way we had discovered that we could earn extra income by giving guest lectures on college campuses — especially to education classes that were interested in alternative education. In May, when the lilacs were in full bloom, we stopped at the University of Denver where we had the opportunity to give another lecture.

Speaking to a roomful of graduate students in education (mostly women), three of my students and I described our trip. We spoke about the importance of experiential education, about what could be learned beyond the four walls of the classroom, and about the possibilities that were opening to us as we translated real life experience into academic credit. I explained that young people needed challenges, and that trips like this provided such challenges.

During the question and answer session one of the students asked, “If you had a chance to do it all over again, what would you change?” Answering too quickly, I said, “I suppose if I were to do it all over again, I wouldn’t take any girls.” Then I added, “Well, if I did, I would take the kind who would cook meals and clean the bus.”

Now you must remember. This was 1976. Woman’s Liberation hadn’t really taken off yet, and I was obviously unaware that it existed! I was vaguely aware, however, that my answer was unsatisfactory. But I was not aware enough to let it bother me. I went on to answer other questions until the class was over. All in all, the presentation seemed to be very successful.

As the class ended and the students were leaving, one of the students approached me and said that she had another question for me. “Don’t you think,” she said, “that women need challenges too?” I didn’t know how to answer. This was a completely new thought to me. I knew that men needed challenges. But women? After giving her question serious thought, I said, “Wow, I never thought of that!” That’s the truth. And that’s was how I met Star for the first time.

Star will tell you that she had noticed me before the class began, while I was waiting to speak to her professor. She saw me sitting on some steps near her professor’s office, reading a book. She had noticed the way I turned the pages of the book. My thoughtful, gentle turning of the pages had impressed her. She thought that I was perhaps a psychology student at the university.

Star and I kept meeting each other ”by accident“ over the next few days, and each time we met we both experienced a powerful connection. By the time my week in Denver was over, Star and I knew that something wonderful had begun. Until that time in my life I had always been “Mr. Be Here Now.” Relationships were never lasting, only temporary, and certainly not eternal. But this was entirely different. Even while I was leaving Denver, I could not get Star out of my mind. It was impossible to “Be Here Now.” I wanted to be “Back There Then” – with Star.

When I returned to Rhode Island in May, I completed the school year, and made arrangements to meet Star that summer. We both knew that the love and friendship that had drawn us together was different from anything that we had ever known, and when we met again we began to develop a spiritual relationship. We began to read the Bible together in search of a religious path that corresponded to our inner feelings. We were married in August with the conviction that God had brought us together and that our marriage was eternal.

The idea of an eternal marriage was something I had read about in poetry, and heard about in songs. But I had never seen it explained in theology or described in psychology. In fact, even the Bible seemed to indicate that people are not married forever. “In the resurrection they are neither married nor given in marriage, but are like the angels.” Nevertheless, Star and I were convinced that this marriage would be forever, and that even death would not part us. In fact, we believed that it was this thought of eternity that would—more than anything else—keep us together. So we decided to write our own book about the eternity of marriage. We would call it “Staying in Love.”

As a first step toward the writing of the book, we went to the Eau Claire Public Library in Wisconsin. This was our initial research, our attempt to survey the literature to see if our idea was an original one. We took home about twenty books—sociological studies, psychological studies, anthropological and theological studies—but nothing was even close to what we were hoping to write about. And then we discovered that one of the books was entirely different from all the others. It was a red, clothbound book with gold letters. We opened it to a section called, “Love Truly Conjugial,” and read the sentence, “We are two bodies, but one soul.”

We were astonished. Thrilled. Amazed. Excited beyond earthly excitement. The more we read the more we realized that we had found a book that described a love that we had hoped for in our heart of hearts, and so much more. This was how we found our first book of the Writings – Conjugial Love.

Star’s question so many years ago comes back to me today, with new meaning. She was right. Women do need challenges, just as men do. We have learned that the greatest challenge is to become the finest person we can be – and to do this through loving God and keeping the commandments. Today, after 29 years of marriage, 22 years of ministry, and seven children, we truly feel that the Lord not only brought us together, led us to the Writings and into the ordained ministry, but that He will continue to bless our union forever as we strive to become one soul – one angel. “In heaven a married pair is spoken of, not as two, but as one angel.” (Heaven and Hell 367) “For in the resurrection they are neither married nor given in marriage but are as the angels.”

from the Spirituality and Marriage issue of New Church Connection Magazine