Bob Rentz grew up in Berkeley, California, where in those postwar years his father worked for Pacific Gas and Electric, and his mom ran a nursery school. There was ministry in the family – both Bob’s grandfather and his great-grandfather on his father’s side were ministers. And his mother would not have been displeased if Bob had gone a similar route.
So when Bob graduated from high school in Berkeley, and moved north to Canada to major in religious studies at McGill, she was thrilled. In fact, Bob says, it was more to save his behind than his soul: he aimed to gain a draft exemption (and succeeded). He stayed long enough to earn a bachelor of theology degree, and emerged with … a clear view of his purpose? Not exactly. “It actually muddied the water even further.”
(To spend any time at all with Bob is to be treated to his self-deprecating humour.)
Now footloose in Montreal, his future a lump of wet clay in his hands, he landed a job as an orderly at the Montreal Neurological Institute. And he got involved in the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. That experience would help find work in Vancouver with Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood Services, where he organized recreational programs for kids.
Bob had fetched up in the hippie stronghold of Kitsilano – though he would not have described himself as a hippie; the draw of that neighbourhood was the cheap rent in his shared house. He loved Vancouver. The clear air was a tonic, and on long hikes with friends he mused on what his next career move might be.
He enrolled in Simon Fraser University’s teaching program and got as far as his practicum before deciding it wasn’t for him. Bob’s life has been a testament to the Turkish Proverb: “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong path, turn back.”
His next post was as a customs broker (these companies pay import duties and taxes to the Canadian government on behalf of companies bringing goods into the port of Vancouver). He worked that job for a decade, and it led – in no direct line anyone but the gods could trace – to a position within the BC Coroner’s Service. (His brother observed that Bob had moved “from taxes to death” – life’s two immutables.) He then moved to the Public Guardian and Trustee of BC, and worked there for 19 years. Bob seemed determined not to do any job you could imagine when you were ten.
It’s fair to say it was Bob’s avocations, more than his vocations, that truly lit him up. He sang in a choir. He co-founded a Toastmasters club and cultivated a surprisingly dynamic speaking style that belied his mild-mannered exterior. And he took up contra dancing, which would become an increasingly large part of his life.
In the summer of 2016 he found his way to the choir that Alison leads every summer in downtown Vancouver, and (like so many) became ensnared by her charms. He learned that she was music director at North Shore Unitarian Church. “We’d love to have you in the choir … give it some thought…” A charismatic new husband-and-wife ministerial team was in place at NSUC. Bob checked it out. It wasn’t long before he was signing the church membership registry and accompanying the choir on a trip to NSUC’s sister church in Hungary – a crash-course in the roots of this faith.
He’d ended up Unitarian the way most Unitarians do: roundabout. Had he finally found something that was a good fit for his temperament and spiritual yearnings? On this there is no equivocation: “Yes.”
Twelve years into his retirement, there is a service dimension to Bob’s life that would have made his mother proud. He is a contra-dance “caller,” and he mentors other callers, on both sides of the border, who are learning the craft. He makes monthly visits to his sisters in Washington State. He shares his house with a refugee from Afghanistan whom he and a handful of others sponsored to bring to Canada. That gentleman, named Murtaza Mohseni, has already found steady work in the hospitality industry and folded seamlessly into the community. “He’s made a place for himself better than I ever did,” Bob says with a twinkling eye.
That twinkling eye is Bob’s calling card. You cannot miss it on Sunday mornings, as Bob is often poised at the church entrance as a greeter, his warm and open smile a kind of tractor beam. It says: Please come in. It’s lovely to see you.