Sermons have ended, but Ceres man fills void with humorous and touching blogs
He finds a wealth of material – and crucial social interaction – as a driver for Uber and Lyft
55-year-old finds it harder to not be brought down by the difficulty of the job search
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Steve La Farge of Ceres, a longtime pastor who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease seven years ago, on Wednesday stands by the car that is now his primary source of income. The diseases has “settled” in his voice, he said, making it impossible for him to preach. So he began driving for Uber and Lyft, and blogging about it.
CERES
Parkinson’s
disease took away Steve La Farge’s calling and career – 35 years as a pastor –
but it hasn’t robbed him of one of the things he loved most about being at the
pulpit: sharing stories.
Today,
his outlet for that is a blog titled “Searching for My Voice,” which
he began in March. And a sharp left turn in occupations – La Farge now is a
full-time driver for Uber and Lyft afternoons and nights after days spent job
hunting – provides plenty of material.
His
blog entries, 17 of them since March, run from laugh-out-loud funny to
tear-inducing sad or heartwarming. Each drive can be an adventure, as he rarely
knows anything about the people getting into his 2005 Toyota Camry.
He’s
written about taking an “escort” to meet her client; about being the
months-long regular driver of a single mother and stripper who worked in a
Stockton club and the boyfriend (later fiancė) who helped her get out of the
area and the business; and about posing as the dad of one of three girls to
scare off a “tweaker” who hassled them during a midnight convenience-store run.
In
a May entry titled “The Purse of Great Price,” La Farge tells of driving a
woman on a roughly 90-mile round trip from Ceres to Lodi so she could sell a
purse she’d posted on Craigslist. “The deal was made and my passenger got back
in the car with a fist full of cash. She had sold the purse for $100, a price,
which I gathered from the broad smile on her face, she was very satisfied
with,” he wrote.
Problem
is, she didn’t calculate what the trip would cost. “When the total fare
appeared on my screen (I am not making this up), it read $99.76! You did not
need to be a math wiz to see that her net profit for the sale of her purse,
even if she received it as a gift or found it in a parking lot, was 24 cents.”
A FLAT VOICE IS THE KISS OF DEATH FOR A PASTOR.
Steve La Farge, on how Parkinson’s makes it difficult to be
expressive
Sitting
in the living room of his Ceres home Wednesday morning, 55-year-old La Farge
exhibited hand tremors, one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s. But
that’s not what led him to step down as pastor of Grace Community Christian
Church in January. No, the tremors he could have dealt with.
The
problem is what the disease, diagnosed about seven years ago, has done to his
voice. As he began the morning’s conversation, his speech was a bit soft and
rough, as allergies or a cold might affect someone. But heading into an hour of
fairly steady talking, it was much weaker, to the point he wouldn’t be able to
speak much the rest of the day.
“It
turns out that Parkinson’s can look and act differently on every person,” La
Farge wrote in his initial blog post in March, after saying his doctor called
it a “boutique” disease. “It can basically do whatever it pleases to whatever
part of your body it chooses. And my version has decided to settle in my
voice.”
La
Farge and his wife, Barb, moved to Ceres in 2008 after he was hired as pastor
of Grace Community Christian. Before that, he was pastor of a church in Pasco,
Wash., for 17 years.
Toward
the end of his time in Pasco, the pastor developed a tremor and went to to see
his doctor. “He diagnosed it as just that, a tremor, and gave me beta blockers.
He said it wasn’t Parkinson’s.”
After
the La Farges moved to Ceres and he’d been working a while, Steve noticed
persistent arm stiffness and soreness. Because he used a computer and mouse
frequently in writing sermons, he self-diagnosed as likely having carpal tunnel
syndrome.
He
went to a neurologist and underwent electric stimulation tests. La Farge was
told it wasn’t carpal tunnel, but the doctor wanted to do more tests because he
suspected it could be Parkinson’s. “I’d rather have had the carpal tunnel,” La
Farge said dryly.
I THINK IT HELPS US ALL TO REMEMBER AS CHRISTIANS, NO MATTER
WHAT WE DO IN LIFE, WE NEED TO ALWAYS BE SHARING OUR FAITH WITH OTHERS, AND
STEVE IS ABLE TO DO THAT EVERY DAY THROUGH HIS WORK AND BLOG.
Rick Story, Grace Community Christian Church elder
Once
he realized his “version” of Parkinson’s was crippling his voice, La Farge
suspected the writing was on the wall, as it were, for his time as a preacher.
“I’m not a screamer in the pulpit,” he said, “but even with a microphone,
you’re required to project your voice. I can go about 20 minutes or a half an
hour and get hoarse.”
The
church members are compassionate and bought him a new style of microphone and
pumped up the sound system, hoping that would do the trick. But he knew some
congregation members weren’t able to hear him well and were considering leaving
the church. “I didn’t want to do anything to hurt the church’s ability to reach
people,” he said, adding that it was his idea to step down, and that no one
ever hinted he should.
To
help the couple, the church even bumped up Barb La Farge’s part-time office job
to full time when Steve left, he said.
Rick
Story, an elder with Grace Community Christian Church, called La Farge “one of
those rare preachers who can take a story either first-hand or straight out of
the Bible and bring it to life and in a way that you really can relate to. ...
Losing him to this illness has been a tough change for the church, but I
believe God has a different ministry in mind for Steve, and he is able to share
his work in his new ministry with others through his blog.”
In
August, when he knew his days at the pulpit were coming to an end, La Farge
started testing the waters of driving for Uber and Lyft. He’s been driving
full-time since February, usually working 4 p.m. to midnight after days spent
searching for a job. “One of my goals is to not have anybody throw up in my
car,” he said, explaining that he quits at midnight to avoid the hard-core
drinkers who are at bars right up till last call.
La
Farge drives for the money, of course – it takes up a lot of the slack in the
household income. “I know what I need to make – $700 to $1,000 every two weeks
when that’s doable,” he said.
But
driving also is his primary social interaction these days. “Job hunting is a
pretty solitary, lonely pursuit, filling out job applications, submitting
résumés.”
And
fortunately, the Parkinson’s has had no effect on his cognition, he said, or
his ability to drive. He has good reaction time, La Farge said, and a good
driving record. The disease’s “effect is on dexterity,” he said. “It’s not big
muscle movement like steering; it’s things like writing.” His handwriting is
getting pinched and harder to read, he said.
SO MANY PEOPLE HAVE TOLD HIM HE SHOULD WRITE A BOOK. I HOPE THAT
SOMEDAY WILL COME TRUE.
Barb La Farge, on her husband, Steve
La
Farge started his “Searching for My Voice” blog as therapy. It was hard to shut
off after years of preparing sermons. “I see it as a release valve for the
ideas still swirling in my head,” he said.
The
driving and the writing have dovetailed nicely. “It certainly is a source of
interesting stories. I meet people in Uber driving who would never set foot in
a church in a million years,” La Farge said.
Not
that he greets passengers with “Hi, I’m Steve and I’m a former pastor.”
But
some riders like to chat, and if they ask how long he’s been driving, if he’s
moonlighting, etc., he shares that he was a pastor. That disclosure typically
results in one of three scenarios (see blog excerpt).
He
has never been susceptible to depression, La Farge said, but the toll of
Parkinson’s and the difficulty of the job hunt sometimes put him in a funk.
“It’s getting harder to bounce back. ... It’s been so surprising how hard the
job market is. My expectation was that I would find something without any trouble
at all, like at Amazon – anything.”
Barb
La Farge noted that a 35-year career as a pastor doesn’t easily transfer into
other professions. “That’s been hard, going to interview after interview,” she
said. “I think a lot of it was the way he was raised. His parents really
instilled in him a strong work ethic. So as man of the house, it’s been hard on
him.”
Said
her husband, “I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cause me to question sometimes,
to ask, ‘What’s going on, Lord?’ Not that I expect him to owe me anything.” But
he said he finds himself asking, “What’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn? I’m
still going through that every day.”
Deke
Farrow: 209-578-2327
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