
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 7, 1995                   TAG: 9503070067
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHEN TO SMILE? WHEN NOT TO?

It takes practice for us to control our facial expressions. Sometimes, they give away what we are thinking, whether we like it or not. But sometimes, perhaps, they should not be controlled but should be given free rein.

Especially if we are talking about a smile.

The Rev. Steven Ridenhour, who had been pastor of Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Pulaski about 10 years before moving to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Wytheville late last year, gave a good example of that while sharing some of his experiences from a recent trip to Papua, New Guinea.

He was part of a Lutheran delegation participating in a companion synod program with churches in that part of the world. Among other activities, the group took part in the first worship service to be held in Rabaul since the Sept. 19 volcanic eruption which buried the city. Every one of its buildings was leveled, Ridenhour said, except for the church. Like the Old Courthouse in Pulaski, following the 1989 fire which burned its interior, there was enough left standing to repair.

But even more impressive was Ridenhour's recollection of the power of a smile.

It happened before a service when hundreds of children came pouring into the open-air church, probably wondering how to react to these strangers from another country across the sea. Like the shot that started the Revolutionary War in Lexington, Mass., no one knows who fired off the first smile as the adults from the United States and the children of Papua regarded one another for the first time.

But someone did. And another person smiled back. And then, as Ridenhour described it, the smiles spread from one child to another, and then to the adults from Papua who were attending the service. If there was any level of hesitation or distrust between the groups from two countries, it must have pretty well vanished at that point.

It makes you wonder: Suppose, at the recent ``doughnut caper'' hearing involving how a Pulaski County teacher should be disciplined over a dispute over how many doughnuts a motel should provide her students at its continental breakfast, someone on one side or the other of the issue had cracked and smiled? Would it have spread? Would it have prompted anyone to say something like, ``Hey, this is foolish, let's take another look at this.'' Well, probably not. The battle lines in that dispute had been drawn pretty firmly. But who knows? Certainly the potential for humor was there, as the proprietor of Pulaski's Main Street Station doughnut and coffee shop must have realized when he sent 10 dozen doughnuts to the drama students at Pulaski County High School.

Of course, there are times when a smile is out of place. I still remember the only time an Army drill sergeant addressed me by name during eight weeks of basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.: ``Wipe that smile of your face, Dellinger.'' I still have no idea what I could have found humorous in those rather grim weeks but apparently, even under those conditions, there was something worth smiling about.

Paul Dellinger is a New River Valley bureau staff writer.

by CNB