I owe this story to my friend, life-mentor, and master storyteller, Dale.

Back when I was Dale’s pastor, he used to share with me from his treasure trove of “Dirk Peerenboom” stories. I’ve always loved this one especially, because it proves the crude proverb that circulated through my crowd in junior high, and still is instructive today:

“You might think you’re hot snot on a silver platter,
but you’re really just cold boogers on a paper plate.”

In church, though, you would need to say, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom (Proverbs 11:2).” For me, the booger-proverb sticks better. 

Dale told of how Dirk Peerenboom was a committed churchgoing man. Dirk was regularly elected as an elder in his church. He lived in a rural Christian Reformed town, and performed most of his infamous feats in the 1970’s.

Poaching deer by night in a suit and tie (Dirk in the tie, not the deer) after an elders meeting and getting chased by the cops out in the pitch-black cornfield. Lighting fireworks, one of which, having been poorly grounded by Dirk, launched sideways, burning his neighbor’s shed to the ground.

Dirk was a character, alright. He threw his weight around as a self-perceived know-it-all. He was easily piqued. How a man-child and a blow-bag like this ever got elected to his position by the church, I’ll never know. 

Those were the days when OPEC had imposed an oil embargo, and gas prices in the States soared to a whopping fifty-three cents a gallon. In response, rather than just persisting with their gas guzzling cars and trucks, rather than just pressing the metal and belching out more angry cloud, people set their jaws and buckled down.

They car-pooled. They sacrificed their travel plans. They junked their large, lumbering vehicles and bought compact cars. It’s a foreign concept, I know, but people limited themselves. They tried to squeeze the most out of every drop of fossil fuel they could.

Dirk started his own program of squeezing by tinkering with the engine of his of old Ford pickup truck. Which was a good idea, except that he started bragging about his successes at the coffee shop. The door jingled every morning at 9:30, and Dirk strode in, sat down with the men, and there, perched on his chair, started talking about his latest improvements.

“Yep,” he would say, “I got ‘er up to eighteen miles per gallon. The secret, see, is the carburetor…” and he would elaborately describe his intricate mechanical process. A week later, Dirk had gotten ‘er up to twenty miles per gallon, because he knew, he said, how to attain precise tire pressures. A week later, he was up to twenty-three, because of his self-proclaimed mystical knowledge of spark plugs. Then he began giving un-solicited advice, in a condescending tone, to the other men. 

That’s when, Dale said, they began sneaking into Dirk’s barn at night and adding fuel to his Ford. Soon, Dirk was at the coffee shop, loud and expansive in his descriptions of twenty-five, then twenty-eight, and then thirty miles per gallon. He was in full glory, flying that Ford too close to the sun.

The crash came when the guys starting sneaking in to siphon gas out. When the door jingled in the morning and Dirk slid into his seat, he seemed less verbal than usual. Eventually, someone would lean forward and excitedly ask, “So, Dirk, what’s the latest with the Ford?” Dirk would furrow his brow and massage his jaw, and say, “Well, it’s possible that I’ve maxed her out, but I’ve got a few more things to try.”

Morning by morning, the guys, having been out late the previous night, would press for specifics. “Waddya runnin’ per mile with the Ford, Dirk?” He never did say, exactly, and was quick to change the subject. Silence was golden at the table, not only because Dirk was throttled and choked, but also because the guys could hardly speak, given that if they had let out even one word, had even just for an instant caught another guy’s eye, they would have exploded in laughter.

This story came to mind, for one thing, because Dale died a week ago from this writing (late April, 2025). The congregation, for good reason, always voted in Dale as an elder, and the council always elected him president. He was a high school teacher. His wisdom and gravitas were all the more beautiful because early in their marriage, Dale and his wife Faye had lost three daughters, two of them to Cystic Fibrosis.

I was with Dale and Faye in the emergency department just moments after their third daughter had died. There we were, in a little room with their daughter, Anna’s, body. As a pastor, maybe I should have prayed right then, but all I can remember is sitting on the hospital floor and weeping. For years after, I would stop to see Dale and Faye and was always lovingly stricken by the picture hanging in their living room – three little girls in white dresses, barefoot, playing in a stream.

Each Sunday, after church, I would hear Dale’s hearty laugh echo from the narthex walls over the crowd, and I would marvel at how anyone who had suffered so much could still be so cheerful among us. And how he could be so patient with us all, and with me as the pastor.

Dale knew the human condition, and he knew the intricate mysteries of how to diagnose people-problems, and how to navigate human dysfunction. I depended on Dale, and loved him.

I also mention Dale’s story because we live, now, in an era fueled by pride. It’s not just small-scale hubris from a goofy church guy and his Ford truck in a small town. We are afflicted by hell’s pride, fanned into full flame in the hearts and minds of those who claim to lead our country, and who claim to rule Christianity.

Everybody seems to think they’re hot snot. That they have “Truth,” and so can force themselves on others. There is something smug and punitive about it all. I am calling out each day, waiting to see if God will start sucking fuel from the spirit of this age, from this diabolical political and religious machine, and deliver us from the danger and disgrace of this regime.

In the meantime, while waiting, I think of Dale. He was smarter than anyone in the room and could have thrown himself around. Instead, he stood, after the church service with everybody else, talking and listening and telling stories, balancing his cake or his cookie on a little paper plate, fragile-like, all the while stooping to offer you something good and holy, as if on a silver platter. He led our congregational meetings with a gentle, humble presence. Dale was a leader. He was a servant.

I miss him.

Header Photo by Visual Laurence on Unsplash