The Road To Recovery Is Paved With A Blog (5,000 “Thank You”s)

Something happened the other day that kind of caught me off guard — having not written anything for awhile, the stats for this blog were toodling along slowly. Then, suddenly, something I’d thought would happen in 2011 happened about a week into the new year — the “stats” counter on my blog went wild and I shpt across the 5,000 + line.  What that means is that, since July of 2010, five thousand people have checked in this blog!

It breaks down to: 5122 views, 176 posts over 29  months or — on average 29  readers for everything I have written, some far more and some far less. In case you’re curious, these are the Top 10.  Posts in general have more than the numbers listed there, because “home page” — whatever was posted that day–  has about 1,800 hits.  Still, here they are:

Title		Views
Guess Again: The Top 100 Albums of All Time		99
What If Good News Prevailed?		89
Do Your Own Theology — The Bible and Its Authority		79
South Church — Better Than It Has To Be		76
Liner Notes — Beebs and Her Money Makers, “Welcome to Barter Town”		63
Surprise! People Are Mad! Oops, Wrong People!		59
I’m sad, but this IS America…		53
A Theology of Ordination		53
Trucks Going Both Ways — Maine and the WHOLE gay thing…		52
Didn’t See That One Coming…		48

The reason I tell you all this is that I like numbers. Numbers are facts. Numbers are markers. Numbers are somehow more real than feelings, thoughts, etc, even if they are not more important.

So what does this have to do with recovery? 47 years ago, when I was 4, some God-awful things happened to me that kind of turned my mental world upside down. I don’t find any reason to say more than that, because, as of Tuesday, January 10,2011 — when the numbers hit 5, 000 — I am officially back from those events.

The long and short of how it all affected me is this: My good side became my “Shadow” and I unwittingly hung out an invisible  ”kick me” sign, which people have taken the opportunity to use over the course of my lifetime.  For those of you not acquainted with the concept, Carl Jung coined the phrase, “Shadow” to describe the part of ourselves which we don’t acknowledge or accept.  So, for about the last 47 years, I could acknowledge that there was Good in the world, but mentally I couldn’t accept that it could come from me.  This blog — your readership — helped me change that.  So, for everyone who ever cared enough to read my work, I owe a profound “thank you”.

For probably the first 10 years after what happened, I was the kid that people (I think) loved to hate. I was awkward,” too smart” for some, too nerdy for others, too greasy and too smelly for others,  too “gay” in Junior High (I didn’t like to beat people up and –more often than not — couldn’t).  And somehow, it all made sense to me, because I was those things.  If it was bad, I was it. Everybody said so, so it must have been true.

An experience with God and my mother’s insistence  kept me interested in church, and I almost had a girlfriend — (a girl who didn’t laugh at me when I hung out with her in the nursery, named Lynn Anderson), but I remained — for most kids — “weird”.

Freshman year in High School promised much the same thing. Even the kids no one would hang out with wouldn’t want to hang out with me. Then the world changed. We moved to Wilbraham, Mass (in the suburbs)  just up the road from Springfield (the  city, where we lived), which was just up the road from Chicopee (the poorer, smaller city where we had lived for my childhood).  School wasn’t really different, but the Wilbraham United Church certainly was. There was a healthy, fun-loving Youth Group and short curly-haired Youth Minister named Bob Kyte.

One day, Bob showed up at our house and asked my mother if it was OK that I go to “Leadership Camp”. As recently as a few months ago, I thought that Bob was BS-ing my mother.  Today, I consider the possibility that he might have actually seen something. In any case, that visit to the house sent me to Deering, my spiritual and emotional home for all-time. The Deering Camp and Conference Center’s Sr. High Camp #2 stunned me. I honestly didn’t know what to think for the first few days, because I had never seen such a community.  They didn’t think I “had five heads”. The campers and the staff treated me like an actual human being. They loved me — not because I was this or that, not because I earned it or didn’t. They loved me simply because God created me and that was good enough for them.  I don’t remember a person, for the entire week, picking on me. Not one.  While I probably thought I had five heads, they wouldn’t have cared if I did. In addition to my call to ministry happening that week with the wonderful Peter Wells there, I cam across a book that would change my life: Peoplemaking by Virginia Satir, which I somehow connect with Mike Gatchell (maybe he brought it there or something. I don’t know). Satir’s book changed my life because it said that families could be whatever they wanted and they could be happy. I had experienced a new world at Deering, and I could dream about a new world via Peoplemaking. (Yes, I’m sure I thought the book was about sex. What else does a 14-year-old boy think about?)

From that time on, I knew there could be Good in the world,  and I was determined to make it be that way.  But my spirit remained the way it had always been: There was Good in the world, but somehow — no matter what they said — it didn’t apply to me. I could soak up the holiness at Deering,  but in my heart of hearts, I “knew” I didn’t fit there, with those wonderful people.

But I made it to seminary, Gordon gave me a good recommendation, and I was on my way.  I didn’t really fit there, either. I wasn’t female enough, gay enough, foreign enough, Black enough or whatever to understand what life was “really like”.  I was, as Charlie Crook and I used to say, “The White Male Oppressor”.  But, for a guy who was racist, sexist, homophobic and whatever I was believed to be, I suddenly had friends — Todd Farnsworth (who was really holy) and Joe Tripp and I became fast friends. Without really knowing what I was doing, I was leading the biggest prayer group on campus — and the only one, I gather for years before that.  I thought that’s what you did at seminary, and so it’s what we did at seminary. And I knew in my heart that I wasn’t any of those “isms” because I had learned about Women’s Liberation and Men’s Liberation ten years before that at Deering.  And I knew what health looked like from Satir’s work.

But I still believed I was weird — lucky to be surrounded by friends — but generally weird. My first internship confirmed that, but I sent my first bunch of kids to Deering and they were changed, just as I knew they would be. I had done something right.

I talked with my friend Leigh McCaffrey (from Prayer Group) one night about the dreams I’d had every night since I was a kid, when she said, “That’s not normal” and my past demons sprung to life. All the love that Deering-ites had shown me was now being changed with something new — honesty.  While Deering folks would have liked me if I had five heads, I didn’t like myself having them. I wanted to be “normal”, whatever that was.

For a year I was out of the Parish and wrestling with those demons while attending school and being miserable. I was ready to drop out. Maybe I was wrong about God’s call. Then Gordon showed up and gave me perspective. Later,  Todd called me from his former internship and asked if was interested in a staff position at Centre Congregational Church in Lynnfield.  This, too, changed my life. Having done some good for kids prior, I was confident I could do something there. The staff there was wonderful. Mark Strickland let me do my own thing. Marilyn the Associate Pastor didn’t “get” me, but she realized she didn’t have to. The kids and I clicked and I have been absolutely blessed to have them and their families in my life since then. At my ordination, they were there. At my wedding, they were there. When they go married, I was invited. Bob, Derek, Dawn and the rest of the Cunninghams, I owe you soo much. Rob and Bill McCarthy, I can’t imagine life without you. Matt and Camille Utterback , the same. Lisa Dodge, Ken Warnock, wherever you are, I have been soo blessed by you, especially at my first church in Upstate, NY when you came up to visit. Oh, and special “Hi!” to Shawn Murphy and SAC. In seminary, when my peers told me I wouldn’t be a good minister because I didn’t think like they did, that Youth Group proved otherwise. They were changed and I was changed by that ministry — by the grace of God, not me, but God in me. And, yes, they too made the Deering connection and were changed.

In my last semester at seminary, a woman from one of my classes — Mary Dean-Lee pulled me aside and said, “I’m sorry to have missed you before this. You’re not who people think. You’re going to be a great minister”.  And my outlook about myself — because she had nothing to gain from that comment — began to change.

I had my first church and — somewhat because I wasn’t used to “normal” —  I failed.  Looking back on it, the church was working through a trauma of its own and I made every possible mis-step I could. But the Youth Group was wonderful. The Sloths, the Christensens,  (all of them), the Ripleys  and Lisa’s family were great and remain treasured friends to this day.

A few years after that, in Rochester, I came into contact with AA and the 12-Step model and began to realize that God could forgive whatever I done in my lifetime — whatever that was, and I was sure I’d done something.

Years later, I went to grad school, tried a new-church start, and in each place, my sense of self (my IALAC sign, for those in the know) got stronger.

I wrote a book (Thanks Liz and Leigh. I sold another one this month!) and later decided to write a blog. With Liz’s and Cathi Chapin-Bishop’s help, I began doing this. I thought I’d write one thing, get it off my chest, and go on with life. Alas, it didn’t work out that way.  People began thinking I knew what I was doing as a blogger!

In 2010, something changed, finally. I had begun to write this blog around that time, and I found myself with my very own “in-care student” (someone on  their way to becoming ordained).  Char Corbett is a fantastic, holy person and yet, here she was coming to me for guidance. I began to think that I might actually have something worth giving. After all, you can’t give what you don’t have. When Char got ordained, the blog had continued to grow. Now, after all those years in the parish, I was a minister.  Thanks to Char who never realized what I secretly believed — that I had nothing to offer her, because she was a better minister than I was.

And the blog grew. Bob and I fought. Val and I agreed. Bob and I agreed. Rob wrote in. Cathi wrote in.  I was someone, sort of, and not just in my own head. The numbers proved it.

Then my friend from California, Craig Hames, called and told me that I was some sort of holy person to him — the person who said the right thing at the right time, even if I didn’t know it.  A while later, I figured it out. While I was never going to be the Gordon Sherman, I fit the same function for Craig: the one God sends to help when in trouble.  I wasn’t the real Gordon, but I was somebody’s “Gordon”. All of these things integrated into my being and I was nearly recovered after 46 years of trying.  I was blessed, fresh on the heels of my triumph wih Char, with Carrol Cyr as a new “member in discernment”. And the blog continued our development. She could argue with it, get mad at it, agree with it, “wonder where that came from” or whatever, but we both grew because of it.  In a few weeks, Carrol will probably get to be a Commissioned Minister in the UCC.

Finally topping  off the ministry thing was Susan Townsley at Ron Brown’s installation. I had known Susan from Bridgeport where — while I did some good work, I felt like a colossal failure. She had been on the church and ministry committee when they had put my standing “on the back burner”. There were two possibilities here: 1) They were organizing and had to because I was out of state or 2) I really was a bad minister and they were trying to cover themselves by politely withdrawing my standing.  That day, she was there and gave  me a hug and seemed generally glad to see me.  She gave no sense of “ooh, what an idiot”.  Maybe I’m conflating events, but I think that members of the Bridgeport Church were actually there that day, and they were happy to see me — or at least didn’t vomit or run away.  However good or bad I had been, I had not been evil or destructive. I hadn’t destroyed God’s gift.  If I wasn’t evil and I was doing something good in the world, maybe I was a good person. Maybe I did fit in the church. Maybe I did fit in with the Deering folks — and what could that mean but that I was a human being after all?!

The Deering Reunion this year and David Hauser’s just simple acceptance made me know that it might be true. It turns out that David was in my very first living group all those years ago and he remembered me as a seemingly  normal person –even back then! If I have even some of the spark within me that Paula Richards and Sue Tatem and Buzz and Gary have, it’s possible that I’m way more human than I would have guessed. It astounds me that it’s taken me this long to figure it out, but that’s what abuse does, I guess.

In any case, I was ready to say I was back to full human status at the end of last year because people thought highly of my blog when I ran out of steam at year’s end. Then something happened that I didn’t expect — even without writing, the stats took off. Somebody was reading this. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I hit the 5,ooo mark!  Looking back, my wife has liked it, my friends have liked it, Helen Caldicott liked it for goodness sake! Ed Smith said some nice things the other day. Clients have seen it and liked it.  People I don’t even know have liked it — not always, but that’s to be expected.

It shouldn’t take 47 years and 5,000 people reading this blog for me to get over my past, but it did. For those of you who have read it, each little click of care, every good comment, every reasonable argument or simple “huh?” meant my ideas and I mattered. Every passing comment of “I like your writing” or “I like your blog” put back a piece of me. And so, I thank you, for all you have meant to me, readers.

And as it has been for me, I remind you that no kind word, gesture, or action ever goes un-noticed. It may confuse people. It may even, when people are really twisted, anger them. But it never, ever goes un-noticed. Know that all your kindness, your care, your support have helped me like myself and feel human. For people that already start off as human, your words, your kindness, your caring propel them into the stratosphere of love.  You are truly miracle workers in my life and the lives of others. I’m good for awhile. Whether you ever  read this blog again or not, keep up the good work.

Peace,

 

John

P.S. Since they weren’t explicitly mentioned in here, Thanks to my best friend Alan Bercovici for all the golf games through the years and thanks to Tony Briand for always being sane during High School. My brother’s a great guy and my sister rocks. And my kids love “Florida grandpa”.

Five and Ten and A Hundred-Fold: The Deering Reunion

“Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown”.  (Mark 4: 18-20)

 

There is a type of theology that says, rather than waiting for Jesus to return at the end of time and establish his Kingdom\Reign, Jesus’ resurrection has already changed the universe. It’s our job to start building that Kingdom\Reign ourselves, now. This kind of theology is not thoughts “out there” somewhere, it is experienced “in here”. Almost impossible to explain, it is also nearly indestructible, because it is reality – a memory lived that cannot be taken away.  It changes a person.

Some people I know – some I just met, some I have known for years, and some I am now reacquainted with – live that theology. It is who they are, and it changes their world and everyone around them wherever they go.  Yesterday, in Concord, NH, at a retirement community’s public hall, those people gathered in a room and I was lucky enough to be in the room with them. My skin tingled just sitting in a room with them as I remembered that I, too, was one of those people (the experiential people, not the retired ones. In fact, nobody in the room was retired in any meaningful way from a life of ministry).

In this room of 30 to 50 people, there were professors, nurses, world travelers and people who lived in the same place for years, elementary school teachers, teachers of the mentally challenged and the hearing impaired, musicians who have probably caused the hearing impairment of others in their time. There were landlords, and people with landscaping businesses, people who designed tools to make quilts, people who made light bulbs, and people who sold T-shirts. There  people all the way up to age 70-something. There were adoptive parents, gay parents, heterosexual parents, single parents, divorced parents – and they were builders, all of them. They have been busy for the last 40 years or so building the kingdom.  Some have built it in Columbia, and some in California, and some in Massachusetts, some in Connecticut, and many in New Hampshire. And beyond the walls of that room, there were people from all over who Skyped in (or tried) who were also Kingdom builders wherever they went. As someone there noticed, there were no stockbrokers, no investment bankers, no builders of weapons. There were only people that cared for others and made the world a better place, because they had experienced a “better place”, they had helped to create a better place for the humans they met, and they received from that better place while they were there and years later. That “better place”, that bit of the Kingdom here on earth, was the Deering Conference Center, in Deering, NH in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Yesterday, those people experienced a reunion.

The camp was led by Gordon and Cy Sherman and Bill Salt over the years. The reunion was organized by Em Ross and Cy and pulled off by them, with Gordon and Bill. The reunion was scheduled to start at 10am and finish at 6pm. I don’t know if it worked out that way, because my family and I arrived at 1 and left at 4, but in my 3 hours I (and my children and my wife) got to experience the incredible power of people who have experienced Deering.

After my first week at Deering, in 1975, I knew that I would never have to settle for “the way it is” ever again. I can remember after one of my weeks at camp, coming home and having my mother say, “That’s the way things are. You just have to get used to it” and I knew she was wrong. I knew we had choices about the way things are because we had choices about the way we saw people and the way we acted toward them.

My first week at Deering, I went because my minister, Bob Kyte convinced my mother that it was a “leadership camp”. Having been an outsider to my peers for all of 6^th, 7^th, 8^th, and part of 9^th grade, we moved to Wilbraham and I knew people, but I still didn’t have a lot of friends. I was a nerd, a little low on the hygiene, suffering from depression already and “that guy” that others picked on in school – even if they didn’t know me. When I arrived at camp, it took me at least 3 days to feel much of anything, but then I realized something was different. I was being accepted – not because I had anything or did anything, but because I was a human being and these people assumed that God had created me. I’d been to church for years and believed that God created everyone, but somehow, I didn’t think that included me. These people acted like it did. They never said anything, exactly, that I remember. They just assumed I knew it and – after awhile, I did.

Gordon, the thin guy who put out his cigarettes in an orange juice can, spoke about teaching Sunday School on Long Island and thinking, “Hey, what if we actually did what that Jesus guy said? What would it look like?”. He said that he and  his wife had decided to move their family up to New Hampshire for at least summers, and hopefully full-time at some point. People talk about living for Christ. Here was a guy who had actually done it.

Peter, the crazy elf with the very good heart, was a minister and the scales fell from my eyes about my calling to ministry. It occurred to me that the kind of people who were the epitome of joyous Christians, were probably the epitome of Christians – ministers.

I remember John and Dave, two of the campers, simply accepting me, and the girls not recoiling at the sight of me for my zits. People gave hugs all the time. Becky Johnson, my “living group” leader ( a type of small group we broke into), acted like we were normal teens and were expected to be full of life, happy, enjoying ourselves. I was considered “normal” and full of hope for the first time in years. After jumping on mattresses yelling “I am somebody! You are somebody! Together, we are somebody!” the spirit was rising in me and I was willing to be brave – I showed my smile and wanted to share the feeling. By the time the week was over, I knew I was going to be a minister and was asked to be on the state-wide United Church Youth Council. I had changed – from loser to leader and – if I could do it, so could anybody else. I really believed that then, and I believe it now. It only takes a spark to get a fire glowing… You want to pass it on. But I’m not the only one.

There was a woman yesterday at the reunion (Sarah Dunklee) that had “intentionally taken the camp experience to Columbia and tried to create it there”.  My friend Dave was involved in taking handicapped city kids to ski in Massachusetts, I think. He talked about it as a “calling”. And, in keeping with the Spirit of Deering, the kids who went helped change the mind of the mountain staff – they were going to lose money now by doing more, but they didn’t care because they looked forward to helping the kids. A mutual friend, Sue, is helping veterans who have lost limbs to ski again in Vermont.

Teachers around the circle at the reunion weren’t just teachers – they were teachers of special ed, or teachers of autistic kids or deaf kids, teachers of little kids – working with people with no voice in the political arena but affected by it – and people with even less voice than that.  They tried to create the camp experience by treasuring all of these people – and seeing them as people, loved by God.  Years ago, Gordon had shown me the story “Ragman” in a book. “Ragman” is about Jesus taking the time and seeing everyone for all they were – with whatever pace they had.  No one who reads that story leaves unaffected.

When Bill Salt talked about Deering and camp staff, it became clear that he had brought the staff that brought me. Missing were “kids” who I sent there – 4 “generations” of Deering ran through my head at the same time, while my children ran around playing with the daughter of another Deering-ite who was there.   When Roger Goode showed up, you could see the love in the faces of his friends.

When Gary Ciocci, Heather Bordeaux, and Gail Hegeman started playing “(All My Life’s A) Circle” by Harry Chapin, my mind wandered to another Harry song, “I Wonder What Would Happen to This World” which has as its lyrics, “If a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died what one man’s life could be worth… And if a woman tried to make her lifetime something more than a servant, mother, wife time, I wonder what would happen to this world”. As Cy told me how proud she was of Gail and her professional drum kit back at home, I knew the answer was that it would like this.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve seen postings from a person I sent to Deering as a youth minister and wanted to go back, and a friend who sang Big Band music in the Southern US who also wanted to be there. I’ve seen postings from pastors who are changing the world in their little corner of it who also wanted to be there. The reality that was Deering and the building of the Kingdom of God continue on as the people talked about planning another get-together another time. God’s Deering lives on around the world and Paula Richards is selling Deering T-Shirts for it. : )

One last thing that more than just I noticed: Deering closed more than 20 years ago and the people who were at the reunion should be – as I am – getting on in years. At my 30^th High School reunion, all of the men had put on weight, lost some or all of their hair, and generally seemed like “mature” adults. Even the people with grandchildren who attended this reunion didn’t look old there. Blaze looked great (no surprise there), but everyone had the glow of youth in their eyes, giving them far less gray hair and far fewer pounds somehow. There is a belief in Greek Orthodox theology that says that sanctified people’s bodies don’t disintegrate – even when they are dead. I assume that means that good, loving and sanctified people age slower as well. At Deering’s reunion yesterday it showed.

It’ll happen again, as it has continued to happen daily since Deering existed – friends will meet and share visions and do the work the Spirit and their experiences call them to do,  because the Kingdom never goes away.  Once you’ve experienced it, you want to pass it on – really.

 

Peace,

 

John

The Quiet, Humble Church

Matthew 6: 5  “When you pray, don’t be like those show-offs who love to stand up and pray in the meeting places and on the street corners. They do this just to look good. I can assure you that they already have their reward” — Jesus, in the Contemporary of the Bible

I drove two hours to see my friend Charlie preach this morning and had an interesting experience — or maybe a couple of them.  I had asked my iPod for directions to his church, but somehow got directions to another Baptist church nearby — in a local industrial park. It was the kind of New-Style church that I imagine is popping up all over America. Once I realized there really was a church behind what looks like an office door, I entered and met a very nice and helpful man. Though tall and muscular, he wasn’t particularly threatening as he tried to get directions on his Blackberry to Charlie’s church. As we walked to the back of the building, I saw that it was a huge place, and very modern. There were signs for the “Cafe” and the “Auditorium” and arrows to the Sunday School rooms. The auditorium was incredible — with lights and theater seating and a sound system and a stage.  The people inside were tuning up their acoustic guitars and having a sound-check. As we walked down the hall, the Sunday School rooms all had cool names and Star Trek symbols, indicating that faith for children was an exciting journey into unbelievable worlds. As we got to the Cafe’ (Yes, it was like a coffee shop with stools, the kind you see in a modern movie theater), there was an old woman who looked out of place, but probably new her way around the city and a truckload of young, white kids with tousled, spiked hair looking cool and discussing things. What caught my eye was a giant poster of “Call of Duty” the video game — or maybe it was a summer camp, it was hard to tell. It was a giant poster of an army guy straight out of the game.  But in the world of Cool Church there are posters of crosses made of drumsticks with Biblical quotes underneath it. Beyond this room, there was a youth room of some sort with kids laying on couches playing with their iPods or texting their girlfriends or whatever. On the wall was a giant, painted word “BARCODED” . For those of you out of the loop, there is a fundamentalist theory that in the End Times, people will branded with bar-codes (aka the mark of the devil). Beyond that, there was a room on the left. My guide knocked on the door and there was a board room or Bible Study of all adults.  A woman offered directions to this place nearby … downtown, maybe, where there was a church on the corner. The men in the room didn’t really know, but there might have been one. They located it on their cell phones and away I went.

After a guided tour by a local policeman straight of a Ben Affleck movie, I found Charlie’s church. I didn’t get the full experience because Charlie wasn’t there. It was the summer and he was away for two weeks. It was hot, so the crowd might have been thin that day. It’s hard to know. But this church reminded me of The Church as I know it.  Both Charlie and I grew up in old mill towns — poor and working class folks, so there was some familiarity with the kind of people who were there. But the church looked like it could have housed any mainline denomination — wooden pews, stained glass, an old organ and a piano. It had a small pulpit on one side and a lectern on the other. This building was what I was used to. Because denominations are supposedly dying off, I don’t expect that my children — or their children anyway, will ever see a place like this and think of it as church. The timeless message of the church is being brought to life in NEW, EXCITING ways with NEW and EXCITING buildings with hip, pastors who know how to speak the language of the new generation. Now, I’m all for pastors who can translate the timeless message into a timely one. People have done that throughout the ages and that got us here. There is a saying that “The Church is always 150 years behind and out of breath”. Generally, we move slowly, even with an educated clergy that understands quantum physics. We still like hymns of the 1930′s or 1850′s for the most part, in your mainline denominations. When Jerry Falwell said, “The mainlines are now the sidelines”, he wasn’t wrong. I just don’t think that’s good news.

But here’s the thing: It wasn’t the sermon or the building or the theology that struck me. It was the people. The people who sang, sang out of tune. The people in the pews were old, and blind, and wearing worn jeans, and some were African-Americans.  They were a scraggly bunch. Some with eye patches. some with long hair in ponytails and polyester suits. They sang  ”Happy Birthday” a capella to an old lady in the congregation who was an old member. One of them gave me a gift for coming — nothing particularly cool, mind you but nice nonetheless. It was a coffee mug with the name of the church on it, wrapped in a net of some kind, filled with all kinds of things. As I left, there was a welcoming note about the church in the rack — a tri-fold piece of paper with a picture of Charlie on it, welcoming people. A balding man, in black and white and photocopied -not exactly cool either, but the words were welcoming, warm, and friendly.

It was while I was looking at the congregation that I realized what it was I liked about the place. No one here was a TRIUMPHANT Christian — young, and beautiful, and wealthy, without a zit anywhere on their face, Large and In Charge. And yet, the words of the their faith told them, and they believed, that they were triumphant in Christ. The fact of the matter is that most of life isn’t exciting and that life happens to people and makes them scraggly and old and pockmarked.  We aren’t always new or exciting. And when we get that way, then we need a church for the rest of us.

People of The New Church are the type who EXPECT A MIRACLE! People of Charlie’s church hope for a miracle. If you can expect it, it’s not out of the ordinary and miracles are — kind of by definition — out of the ordinary. And if it’s a big miracle, people of The New Church do expect it, because — as Peter Gabriel sang — “I will worship in the Big Church/My heaven will be a big heaven/and I will enter through the front door!”. People of The New Church are WINNERS! and they make a STATEMENT by being in church. People of Charlie’s church would be told by the world that they are losers, but their faith tells them otherwise.  There is an old piece of liturgy that says, “we come to communion, not because we must, but because we may, not to make a statement, but to seek a presence”.  That’s what people of the old church, the quiet, humble kind of people attend. This is Christianity as I understand it. It’s not for the perfect. It’s for the trying. It’s not for the certain, who always know what’s right. It’s for the hopeful, who know they get it wrong sometimes, but follow Christ anyway, because they’re forgiven their faults. It’s not for those who expect that God will give to them. It’s for people who expect to give to God. It’s not for people who have it all now. It’s for people who hope they’ll be worthy of it all later, but trust Jesus’ words that they are and will. I like that kind of church, the old church, full of real humans. I worry that it’s passing away, but as I think about it, it’s been here this long — 150 years behind and out of  breath. Maybe The New Church is a passing fad. I can only hope so.

Peace,

John

New Faith in The Old Place — Todd and BUCC

I haven’t seen my friend Todd in 20 years or so since ministry took us in different directions: Him to Vermont and where ever, me to Bridgeport, California, and the Hartford\Springfield area.  I have thought about him on-and-off for years and vaguely considered reconnecting for years. It turns out that he’s been serving a church in Belchertown, near where I work, and where my best friend, Al, lives.

When one of my counseling co-workers (Janna) and I were talking about church a few weeks ago, she said she went to a church in Belchertown and said her pastor and I would probably get along. She continued on, “his name’s Todd…” and before she could finish, I answered “Farnsworth” and I told her that he was a fine minister. She agreed and said he reminded her of me. Not totally sure what that meant, I nonetheless agreed when she said that I’d “have to visit the church and Todd sometime”.

Last Sunday, after 20 years of missed connection and broke the fast.

From my house to Belchertown is about an hour’s drive through every kind of road imaginable — 4 lane highways in the city, toll road connectors, back roads through the suburbs and narrow roads into the middle of nowhere. Out in the middle of what I’m sure is beautiful view come Autumn, the back roads broke out into the center green — a standard design in New England and for the UCC, where we are “the big white steeple in the center of town”  in nearly every town in Mass. and Connecticut.

Belchertown UCC (or BUCC, as it’s called) is a huge, old church, building-wise. There are at least three buildings to it — the church, a fellowship hall and another building that does something else. The building looks old because it is — and because they haven’t painted it in a while. Inside is a huge sanctuary with an all-around balcony. On the ground floor is also  a huge piano — not just a baby grand piano, but an actual grand  piano that’s apparently been on loan from the town library for some 30 years.  There’s a high pulpit in the center of the church and a circular choir area. Inside the building, you can easily picture the church having one of those traditional congregational meetings which are the center of New England democracy or — more likely, a Mass Conference Annual Meeting where the whole Conference  sends representatives to discuss big items in the UCC.   By now, I hope you’re getting a sense of the triumphant seriousness and rich historical tradition of the building.

But here’s the thing: The congregation and Todd don’t use the space that way. It’s still there , they’re not tearing it down or railing against it. They love the majesty and rich history of the Old Building and the old town that surrounds it.  They understand that it was great and served its function for God in the past.  But they’re new here, in some sort of weird way, so it doesn’t exactly fit for them.  And “newnes”s isn’t a function of age, but Spirit. Even though I was greeted by a lady in her (what?…) 70′s with a steel grip after coffee hour, I never once felt like there was some sort of hierarchical power trip happening.  That lady may have been at the church for years, but she wasn’t your typical “Cranky Yankee” who demanded respect via her stoicism or silence. She was a nice lady who was happy to see me. In the land of “God’s Frozen People” she was warm — the kind of people I like to go to church with.

The choir — plenty strong at about 15 people — didn’t sing classical arias with descants and arpeggios and other things I can’t pronounce. With their huge grand piano they sang simple songs that everyone could sing. They sang familiar songs that conveyed timeless messages without being schlock. And the choir enjoyed themselves.  Worship began and a man with some sort of handicap led the opening part of worship and led Todd and the  kids in a “mother-may-I” meets  Madonna-esque “strike a pose” version of the Lord’s Prayer.  Janna took the kids off to Sunday School.  Though new there, she said she felt like she had something to offer and that she “fit right in”. So away she went.

Someone collected the prayers and brought them forward and Todd led the congregation in prayer. Watching Todd pray is a fascinating experience. Many Pentecostals and Charismatics get lost in prayer and raise their hands as though they are catching the Spirit like a baseball. Often-times, though, there’s the feeling of “Seig Heil” about it.  People seem to be saying “bless ME” ,  almost as though they’re taking gifts from God.  Todd, and I don’t know if he’s a Charismatic or considers himself Pentecostal, but his hand just couldn’t stay at his side. He looked to be deeply connected to the Holy Spirit while caring for all the people in front of him. It was liking a TV preacher who was also a pastor who actually cared for a flock.

Todd preached shortly after that and he preached from a short podium-type thing on ground level. He preached, not from the lectionary, but about the Lord’s Prayer. He told the people that it wasn’t a thing-to-be-said word for word, but rather that it was a form, a guide to prayer. After doing his homework about early languages, debts, and other things, He encouraged the congregation not to argue about the “correct” translation or even the name of God, but to see God in whatever metaphor (lover, peace, mother, father, judge, etc.) that worked best for them. He exhorted them to find a real relationship with The Living God.  In short, Todd gave the congregation meat – intelligence, , Spirituality and something to do with their faith, while teaching them the basics of it. He gave them God from every angle and they got it.

There was a calm about the place, a homey-ness to it.  I had gotten dressed up in my tweed coat and nice pants, but debated in the parking lot about wearing a tie. I felt like I would choke, so I left it in the car. Luckily, everybody else must have done the same thing because, as far as I could tell, there wasn’t a tie in the place except on Todd (who was only slightly more formally dressed and without a robe or stole.) So here’s the vibe of the place and Todd’s worship in a nutshell: It felt like a house church surrounded by tradition and  BIG piety. As I thought about it on the way home, I realized that it reminded me of my idea of what church should be — the early church mentioned in the book of Acts: “2: ⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” .

It was like they met in the Temple Courts. They all devoted themselves to worship as they listened to the basics of the faith. The church’s mission work –as displayed around the walls via T-shirts  – was for anyone who had need — the church is Open and Affirming and they do a support group for Veterans. They do a Hunger Walk and support the Mock Trial Association in town.  Handicapped people, the old, the young, the educated and not-so-educated are all treated as the equals they should be because Todd has the ability to see the world through God’s eyes, and he’s teaching his congregation to do the same. They act like a little faith community, with the emphasis on community. As far as “saving” people, they seem to save them all,  in one way or another. And while Todd is definitely “set apart” as it’s pastor, he is never “over and above” them.  He wouldn’t do it and they wouldn’t want him to. It’s not that he lowers himself to their level, It’s that he raises them to his.  They don’t have it all down yet, but they don’t  ever expect to, this side of heaven.  They are on a journey together, they are still “living into” their faith, as it should be.

It’s a wonderful church and a wonderful congregation led by an incredibly spiritual, connected-to-God, pastor. If you don’t mind being there for 9:30 (I hate getting up at 8 am on the weekends, which I had to here) , I encourage you to attend Todd and God’s big little church on the green and in the middle of nowhere — Belchertown, Massachusetts United Church of Christ.

Peace,

John

A New Category: The Good Church\Real Christianity

This past weekend, I visited a friend’s church and thought I’d write something about it, then thought about my wife’s experience with another site last year. Apparently, someone visits churches like a restaurant critic and picks apart the service. She spent quite some time worried about what this person said. I thought to myself at the time, “Why does she even worry about this idiot, who doesn’t even dare show his (or her) face?” But she did and it was needless suffering. I say “needless” because the people who wrote whatever didn’t need to do it. My grandmother used to say, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”.  This blog isn’t always nice, but it’s usually about opinions rather than personal attacks.  I might have hated George Bush’s politics, but I never would have said, “oh, and I don’t like the color of his suits” because it’s picking on personal details that have nothing to do with what’s important. When I started this blog, I wanted to write about important things, not trivial ones.  If you want trivial in your news, you can get that in soooo many other places. As it is, I generally write only when I’m passionate about something — when I feel compelled to write or say something about a subject. I am amazed (and a little embarrassed, frankly) at the number of things I feel compelled to write about (thus, even, the title of the blog…)

In any case, you’ll hear me complain or get angry about theology, about ideas, but seldom against a person who dares to create or is honestly trying to do Christianity. But bad theology, things that make Christians look like heartless idiots with no relation to Jesus as I understand him — those things will show up elsewhere –mostly under the “do your own theology” or “ethics” sections.

As I start to write Todd’s piece, I remember that I have written a few pieces about people doing work that Jesus (and a whole lot of other people) would recognize as Christian work. I have written a few pieces about South Church when it’s great, one about Celebrate Recovery, and one about Gerry Claytor’s ministry, and a couple about Camps and Conferences for Youth.  You’ll note that none of them are about “good” or “bad theology”. Each of them is a more personal story of life-change happening via the Christian faith. It’s not about right,left, or center. It’s about what happens when the Spirit shows up in the world and people are reminded of Jesus or God and how they make the world better.

I thought it would be nice if people could find those stories all in one place when the world or other images of Christianity make the faith look bad or  when they’ve just had a hard day and need to be reminded of the good that ordinary people do in the real world. So, welcome to a new category on my blog: “The Good Church\Real Christianity” . The first piece will about the Rev. Todd Farnsworth and his little church in the-middle-of-nowhere, Belchertown UCC located in Belchertown,MA.

The Best Money The Church Ever Spent

It’s almost March and it’s getting to be that time when people in churches start thinking about summer camps and I, for one, want to support them. They are, by far the best money the church ever spent because the tangible buys access to the intangible. I’m not exactly sure how it happens, but over and over and over again, I have seen lives transformed forever because of a week at camp with a Christian them. What I am sure about is that Holy Spirit is at work in the combination of time away from “civilization”, time away from “real life”, time with a community and  time with a decidedly Christian intent.

In my time, I have seen and\or worked at Deering in New Hampshire (where my life was changed), Silver Lake and Camp Wightman in Connecticut, Warner Farm and Bement  in Massachusetts, and Skye Farm in Upstate New York. I have been a camper, an advisor, staff, and Dean and — in each case I have seen people learn about Christianity in the best way possible — via experience. For those “not from here”, none of my camps have ever had a day where you “Come to The Loooordddd!” are baptized and\or “saved” publicly. That kind of thing is about theology, about what you think. I know people who have been, but this is not that. You can argue about what people think and whether it’s right or wrong. You can’t argue about experience. The kinds of camps I am talking about offer experience of God in ways that no form of intellectual Christian Education could ever match.  That part is hard to explain.

Now, as far as I’m concerned, any camping experience is a good one.  Aside from the mosquitoes, time away from The World is great. No news, no loud noises, no arguments, no pollution to speak of, no phones or computers — no extra stimulus of any kind. It’s just you and nature and whatever else you bring with you.  Well, OK, the large drunken family two sites down with every piece of technology at top volume can ruin your time out there, but they’re not supposed to.  To the extent that time camping doesn’t include them, any time away can be a transformational experience.  The ability to hear yourself think, to not have the crush of an agenda or schedule is an experience we don’t get very often in modern society. Quakers do it as often as they go to worship, but they are an unusual sect.

It also doesn’t hurt that the places I’ve listed  are all in beautiful country in the middle of forests or woods. The hills of New Hampshire are by far the most gorgeous to me, but each of the camps I have mentioned has it’s own peak time — summer or early fall — when it is especially nice. If you’re one of those people who like nature, Christian camps generally offer that, as well.  That is one part of what makes these places life-changing, but it is only one part. And that may be why camps are so expensive to own — because of the views and the cost of the land that goes with those views.  I don’t know, but it is one part of the magic.

Sitting around thinking about the Bible or praying is also a good thing that can transform a  life. These things happen at each of the camps I mentioned. Usually, they are a part of morning worship or evening vespers put on by the people that attend that session. For instance, the 4th grade staff and campers might do worship one day and the 9th grade campers might put on worship another day, with less ministerial-type help. The thing is, that, for once,  worship actually comes from the people involved.  It says what they want it to say. Faith is expressed in ways that mean something to the kids, then the teens. Original songs appear, people who never thought anyone would listen are suddenly talking, people who never thought about worship are suddenly leading it.  In many churches, the kids and teens are shuffled off to Sunday School, so they have no experience of worship except for Christmas and Easter.  For others who do see it in church, it’s that boring thing that the old people do.  But here, at camp, expression of religion takes root.  People actually experience and express the Spirit for the first time.  This is a part of the magic of Christian camp that secular or regular camp misses.  Anytime in life people can come across the Holy Spirit, it’s a good day and it happens daily there.

What happens when the Spirit moves, you are able to feel and hear it, and you are surrounded by beauty? You find the beauty in yourself. That is the beginning of the transformation that camp allows for. But wait, there’s more!!! What happens next is the final thing that happens to change the world– community is created and imagination becomes experience.  For some of us, not-even-imagined reality becomes experience.

When I arrived at Deering for the first time at age 14, I was a city kid in the midst of depressing times that my family had come to accept as normal.  I was geeky and depressed and not all that into hygiene.  This either made me the brunt of  people at school’s jokes or was a response to them. Jr. High had been hell, and I didn’t expect anything more from High School.  And yet, somehow, Bob Kyte, our youth minister convinced my mother that I could go to camp because I was somehow going to be important.  What he didn’t mention was that, in his eyes, everyone was important. And that was the where the transformation started. Deering was a 6-day-long camp and, for the first 3, I felt out of place and strange — not bad, but not all on-board, either. But three days of living in a non-judgmental community began to stir something in me and I began to note something was different in this little world in the New Hampshire hills. About mid-week, I figured out what it was — people assumed I was human and that was all I needed to be to be accepted there!  Why? Because they assumed — and acted like — the Spirit was in me, just as it was in everybody!  What a radical concept!!!!  To this day, I see people’s lives transformed when I simply treat them like human beings and assume that means something to them. How do I do it? It’s easy because I have experienced this little community of 100 people as a teen and it seemed like the real world. Never again would I settle for what school taught about the way the world “had” to be. Never again would I settle for what Bruce Hornsby says, “That’s just the way it is”. In fact, I remember being at peace, almost high, for the first week or so after I got home and being angry when my mother said, “welcome to the real world”.  I knew, on a gut level, that we had choices about how to live, and that the community of Deering Sr. High Camp was just as real, if not more so, as the depressing world my mother knew.  I chose to live like I was worth something, and that others were, too from there on in.

Of course, I didn’t always succeed, but that spirit (or Spirit, if you prefer) and my love for community has always gotten me through. In college, I helped to organize an anti-nuclear power\pro-alternatives group. In seminary, (with absolutely no knowledge of what I was doing, mind you), I started a prayer group that was incredible. In my classes now, I see the class as a community, and tell my students that we’ll all get through this together, because everybody has gifts and the reading might be too much for one person to take in. Over the years, I have led various youth groups, and community has come out of them, as well, leaving me friends for years to come. In fact, for a brief time, I started a small church with friends that impacted my life and (I think) theirs as well. I say this not to brag on myself at all. It doesn’t seem like me that has done these things, but the Holy Spirit working through me, and it has been my pleasure to be a part of each of these communities as well. I have been lucky to be part of them, as much as people tell me they’ve been happy to be a part of the group.

But here’s the thing: this is what I have done with my life and I guess it’s pretty cool.  But I am nowhere near the only one affected by these experiences of Christian camp. If you multiply what I have managed to accomplish by thousands and then make it exponentially stronger, you have the effect on the world that church camps have had. I personally know of “truckloads” of ministers who got ordained after experiences at Deering, Skye Farm, Silver Lake, etc. The former Conference Minister of the Connecticut Conference trumpets her time at Silver Lake as an incredible part of her journey.  For the church’s investment of one week of camp, the church received a lifetime supply of ministry hundreds of times over.

Did I pass the gift on to my Youth Groups and my own children? You bet I did, and I still do. One of the things my wife and I shared when we first met was experiences of church camp, the letdown after coming home, and the hope that someday others would experience what we had known. Has it paid off?  Oh, so very much.  The people that I have sent to Deering came back having a wonderful time as well. And those who didn’t do ministry as a job, use their lives as ministry.  Sometime last year, I wrote a blog piece called “For Friends” and it was this huge list of the accomplishments my cohorts at Deering had accomplished in their years since being there.  I also wrote about Camille Utterback and Gordon Sherman and all the incredible gifts they have given to the world.  Daily, some part of their world is changed because they were changed all those years ago. All for the cost of a week’s tuition at camp.

It is years later, and Deering has faded into UCC history because the denomination thought it couldn’t afford it.  I’m sure that Silver Lake and Sky Farm, and Camp Wightman struggle to this day to keep cabins fixed and usable, and have a director on-site. I’m sure that equipment still costs money and paving, plowing, and plumbing still needs to be dealt with. And I’m sure that denominations and Conferences consider their ministries as something else that “needs” to be cut as they struggle financially. I want to say that this would be a grave error because Church Camp is the best money the church ever spent.  It did and does things on scale that’s hard to imagine.

But, since the denominations are struggling financially, there are other ways to keep this incredible gift alive.

1) If your church has kids that want to go Church Camp, for goodness sakes, send them!  Send as many as you can!

2) If your church has money to give, send donations to the camp that’s near-by or sponsored by your denomination.

3) If you can volunteer there, do so.

4) If they have clean-up days, take your youth group, both to connect them to the place and to help keep it up.  Best friends of mine have gone to Deering reunion weekends and have understood what I meant just by hanging out.

5) And if your denomination thinks about cutting necessary funding (camps don’t need all the latest and most expensive technology, but they do have needs), say no.

With the world’s tangible money, the church’s camps create the intangible — a world that’s better and community of the Spirit. It’s what we do as a church and it’s one of the best ways we do it.

Peace,

John

What If Good News Prevailed?

It’s no surprise to anybody that the world seems to be getting worse. In fact, it seems so bad that many of us (including me on a bad day) think this era might be coming to an end.  For some of us, that means the fall of the American Empire.  For others, natural catastrophes and for some of us, that means Jesus returns. Those of us that take the biblical book of  ”The Revelation to John” seriously think it means both those things — plus gross, disgusting wars, with mayhem and chaos beyond imagination. I like the “Jesus returns” part, but I have a real problem with the whole “death, mayhem, chaos, and blood” part which takes the whole “joy” part out for me.

Still, there’s a part of me that hopes it’s not as bad as all that — that it’s simply a matter of perception — it seems bad because we only see the bad news on TV or in the newspapers or it’s because we have mass media at all. In former times, we didn’t know if there was a war in East Timbuktu or a genocide in the mountains near the Amazon. Now we have mass media, especially CNN, so it seems worse.

I work in a world where evil and its subsequent pain is rampant.  There’s an efficiency to evil — one can destroy a life in events which take next-to-no-time.  A drunk driver runs over a pedestrian in a second, sexual abuse and rape — which mess up people’s lives in so many ways — takes as long as the act itself. An angry word stings for more time than it took to say. An angry sentence can take a lifetime to undo.  Violence can leave people scarred for life.

Good doesn’t seem to have the efficiency behind it. It’s slower and usually far less sensational. It takes longer to heal. It’s quiet  and strong and powerful  in it’s own way. OK, that’s not always true… Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Libya, …Wisconsin?  Has anybody noticed that democracy is coming through and toppling governments much faster and much cheaper than our weapons brought it to Iraq? Still, this is an extreme period and no one knows how long it will last or how many lives will be better because of it.

Anyway, it seems like it takes a lot more work to make the world decent than it does to destroy it. And it seems like it takes fewer events to mess it up.  Confirmation of this in the psychology world comes from a man named John Gottman who says it takes five positive strokes for every one negative stroke to keep a marriage alive.

Luckily, I think that more good, small events happen by far than mean or evil ones. Unluckily, the seriously bad ones ones make the news.  We cover the one traffic accident, whereas ten million people drove well enough to not have one.  Still, people are polite all the time under all kinds of situations. That’s a good thing.  Then sometimes, it rises to the level of intentional goodness — people helping out the old person walking across the street, people saving others from burning buildings, pastors or congregants holding someone’s hand in the hospital or feeding the homeless or whatever.  Do we — especially those of us who work with trauma or tragedy — know about these small events enough to make a difference? How would we?  Do senior citizens stuck in their apartment worrying about the alleged crime in the streets hear about all the nice people below? How would they?

Well, it turns out that it’s possible now.  The pastor of South Church, George Harris has begun talking about a thing called “salt and light” on the internet.  It can be found at http://saltandlight.crowdmap.com/.  A fuller description of it can be found at George’s own blog: www.pastorgharris.wordpress.com As I understand it, if you go to the salt and light website, you can leave a mark on a map of where a good event happened — from a small, subtle one to a big political one.  Hopefully, there’s a “billion” of them near every church in America. And of course, hopefully there’s a billion more out in the rest of the world.

Maybe it’s not the end of the world. Maybe it’s not even a bad day. Maybe it just looks that way from where your sitting — or standing, rushing, falling, sleeping, etc. But if it seems otherwise, and you need encouragement or a reminder of how good people can be, you can look at this website and get a different perspective.

Peace,

 

John

In any case,

South Church — Better Than It Has To Be

I  live  in the “real world” every day — the world where people get what they need and deserve based on their actions. I work, I get paid. My kids do good things and my wife and I support them. Things happen because they should and don’t because they shouldn’t, at least most of the time. Tires wear out on someone’s car because they have 60,000 miles on them. The sun rises and sets daily, as it should.   I am aware of what life should –and mostly does– hold.

I work in the really real world. Again, I am aware of what life should –and mostly does outside of there– hold.  In my work world, I see people who don’t hold to those standards and the devastation that brings.  I see men who have children and don’t give them what they need. I see spouses who can’t understand why, if they put nothing into their marriage, their marriage is failing. I see people who can’t imagine that their nasty actions make other people sad. I see people who don’t the hard work of parenting and instead either neglect their children or buy them –seldom listening, seldom actually knowing their kids, often wanting what’s best for them, seldom wanting what’s best for their child or — worse yet — children.

Then, there’s my church world. I am a member of South Church UCC in New Britain, CT and today the church made me proud, even as I grieved for it needing to.  South Church, like many churches and organizations we all know is “downsizing”  – not to give profit to our stockholders, as they do outside of the church, not to to give an extra bonus to our CEO as they do in the corporate world, not to become a “more efficient” church, as though efficiency was the hallmark of an organization.  Today, South Church in New Britain CT downsized because we had to.  Quite simply, when the stock market crashed a few years ago, our endowment took a hit from which it hasn’t ever rebounded.  Now, in order to survive, we have decided to downsize the staff at the church and cut back in various areas of the church budget which mostly centered around people — staffing cuts, salary and benefit cuts for staff, etc.

The church also lives in the real world where, like it or not, bills have to get paid and people have to eat. I have sat through enough Trustees meetings over the course of my lifetime where people speak of running the church “like a business” to know just what that is. Today, South Church did just that — only better. We ran the church as a church — a business where people matter.

Two or three months ago, I was asked to serve on the Personnel Committee for the church because the employees wanted to be taken into account and the church wanted to take them into account as decisions progressed.  We listened as people talked. We did our homework and found that standard handling of a situation was one-month-salary-for-every-one-year-a-person worked. There were special circumstances involved in our decision and we sought — out of justice — to rectify issues the church felt bad about.  The Committee recommended a certain amount to be more than fair — we wanted to be just.  We wanted to take responsibility for our actions and give what was appropriate. The Finance Board at our church heard our recommendations and did even better than that — three months plus benefits for two-and-a-half years of service.  It wasn’t an incredible package, but in  a world where labor laws allow factories to close without warning and offer no benefits at all, this was not business as usual. The church was better than it had to be.

During today’s meeting and vote, it was discovered that one staff member had agreed to voluntarily do her part-time job at the church rather than let the work be left undone.  Even if we were cutting the money, she was going to do the job. Another staff member — rather than cutting the salaries or positions of those under him — took a cut in his own salary and benefits.  Can you imagine what the world would be like if a CEO said “rather than cut our work force, I’ll take a cut in pay”? The church’s people again were better than they had to be.  Two pastors at the church are going to shoulder more of the burden because the work of the church needs to get done — people need to get visited, youth need to be taught, and so on.  Volunteers on Committees effected by staffing cutbacks stepped forward and are doing the work,  because they also care for the church and its ministry.

Finally, at the end of the meeting, someone suggested that the pastor being “downsized” be acknowledged as doing good, creative, and at times, hard work and that the church didn’t want to make these decisions but felt it had to. Yours truly seconded that motion and it was agreed that the motion to discontinue the position could be amended to say that, but there was a better idea. Not on the agenda, but nonetheless planned in advance, a co-moderator read a page-long tribute to the outgoing pastor and her hard work. That was made into an official motion and put into the church record, as well as an acknowledgement that the church grieved that we had to let go of anybody. Once again, in the final analysis, the church — the body of Christ — it’s people, acting like Christians — was better than it “had” to be. South Church, in making a horribly difficult decision, acted graciously and -surpassing even calls for simple justice — was better than it had to be.

I am honored to be a member of such a loving and caring church — one which does the best it can in hard times, caring for people and living out the message of the gospel. I just wanted you to know that such things existed. It certainly exists here in New Britain and it probably exists at many churches. Among the news of mean-spirited theology, egotistic hate-filled pastors who encourage violence against others, and churches fighting against scholarship, which fill the airwaves and the press, I thought a reminder of what churches can be might be a reminder of why we Christians go in the first place.

Peace,

 

John

Light in the Darkness?? — A Christmas Reflection

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” — The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, verse 5

[For the P.C. police -- I'm conscious of the way "darkness" has come to mean "bad" and that this was used for years to say that Blacks were less than Whites. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are plenty of Black men and women who are worth far more in my eyes than some White folks I know -- and vice-versa.  What I mean hear is more like "radiance" or "glow".  Black women get "that glow" about them as well when pregnant. These thoughts were, in fact, sparked by the sight of a young black woman and a few white women today.]

It has been a really horrible period for babies in my practice as Christmas approaches.  This week, I saw a pregnant addict; a pregnant women whose “Baby Daddy” is a “playa” , in and out of jail, and certainly not taking care of her; a baby recently born to a couple who are now miserable (unrelated to the baby); and a newly pregnant and already miserable couple.  So much for God giving people a baby born into a beautiful world of innocence when the loving couple is ready.  Who would want to bring a child into this? Why would God possibly bring a child into a life with little or no promise to start with?  I can’t imagine bringing a child into any of these situations, and I know that each of the women would be sad if — now that they’re pregnant wouldn’t want to bring the child to term.  Is God really that poor of a planner?  Does God really like to set kids up for failure?

The answer came this evening at South Church in New Britain, CT’s Christmas Eve service in which the congregation met and then walked through the streets of New Britain to the nearby  Homeless Shelter to finish worship. It was during the walk that the answer came.  As I walked next to Rev. Ben Doolittle down the street, people grabbed their boyfriends and yelled, “Hey, there’s the Father from the church up the street!”. Ben’s not a “Father” (a priest) in that sense, but they knew who he was.  Winos came from bars to see him and wished him a “Merry Christmas!” Others stared in happy disbelief as this man in his black robe and white stole walked down the street. They were just about cheering for him.  At the other end of the line, our pastor, George Harris, probably drew the same response.

As we walked, I remarked that had we been walking down a suburban town nearby, they would have thought he was simply late for something and hadn’t changed. He would have gotten no response, no calls, no cheering, no notice at all. But here in the city, amongst the winos and drug-addled homeless, they got it, because God isn’t supposed to go down there in their minds. Why would God want to know them? People in the suburbs already have everything they need. They expect God to want to be there. Those people deserve miracles, so to have The Holy among them is no great shakes.

But to have God appear in the city, where people have no jobs, no money and no hope — when Meaning shows up in a Place Without Meaning, people notice. I recognize this when I work with the mentally ill as a chaplain.  The people know who I am, even without a robe, or stole or the white collar. All of this leads me to … babies.

One of the oddest things that I have learned in my work with addicts is that people with compulsions can suddenly stop in two ways.  Men who go to jail — and could get drugs inside — suddenly don’t use. The restriction of their freedom seems to be enough to prevent them from using. Women who have used drugs for years and years, on the other hand, suddenly stop when they discover that the are pregnant. Cravings, shmavings! They suddenly are able to take care of their babies when they haven’t been able to take care of themselves for years — and their lives turn around.  Instead of bringing an innocent baby into a cruel world which destroys the baby’s life, the innocent and helpless baby brings a reminder of innocence to people who can’t remembering being innocent. When Hope appears in a Place of No Hope, when Innocence appears in a World Without Innocence, people suddenly notice.

Sometimes, just like in Jesus’ day,or in the darkest recesses of the city, people ignore it anyway, because they are simply too far gone. A client told me today about a woman who drank like her alcoholic self all through her pregnancy. It is unrealistic of us to expect babies to do the “heavy lifting” of bringing hope to the world, but it is not unrealistic to expect God to, so God puts that bit of Holiness in each child that is conceived or born or in utero — that little bit of possibility, that little bit of innocence that brings hope of a new life, without the weight of past sins or mistakes.

But I swear to you, it’s not the light that makes it noticeable. It’s the darkness around it that brings out the radiance. It’s the contrast between what is (our way) and what could be (God’s way) that makes the holiness stick out.  The people that need it most see it the best. It’s not that God isn’t holy all the time — just like babies aren’t innocent all the time. It’s just that it makes more of a difference in people’s lives when all hope is gone.  The trick, however, is not to make babies change us. That’s too much work for the little things. The trick is for us to change the world for them before they get here. And, as much work as it is for us, it’s not too much to ask.

Merry Christmas, 2010.

Peace,

 

John

 

A Great and Subtle Day With The Prophetess

For Gerry –

Today, in what appeared to be a bombed-out section of Bridgeport, CT, where The Projects are  separated from the warehouses by fences with circular razor wire, and grass grows wildly through the concrete, God had a good day.  Because of it’s location, and despite the famous people and news crews, you wouldn’t really know God was having a good day, but sure enough, that’s what was happening.

My friend Dave Ratz and I went to see my friend Gerry Claytor — Prophetess Gerry Claytor — open up her food pantry, with help from the Mobile Food Pantry or Mobile Food Kitchen or some such organization that knows a good thing when they see it.  Gerry Claytor runs a good thing.

I have written about Gerry a few times in these pages and so here’s a little background.  Gerry Claytor and her husband Benny ran a primairly African-American church in the city of Bridgeport almost 20 years ago when I was the pastor of Olivet Congregational UCC.  The building they were in was costing them an arm-and-a-leg to heat because there was some problem with boiler and it was leaking oil or something.  I knew Benny from the IMA, the African-American clergy association in town that allowed me — a White Boy — to join. His church was struggling and we had lots of space so, at the suggestion of the Spirit and one of my trustees, Benny and Gerry’s church moved into our space.  They were shocked when we didn’t send them to the basement, but “allowed” them to use our sanctuary. I guess, at the time, White folk didn’t do that in Bridgeport unless it was a big deal and it wasn’t for us. But God doesn’t work so much in the Big Deals as all the little ones before that when no one is looking.  Benny was a quiet, unassuming man with a good nature about him and Gerry was his quiet, unassuming, but very strong, wife.  What most people didn’t know is that Benny was an engineer for 40 hours a week and then came home and ran a church I believe he started, and kept a marraige going in fine health. Any of these could be a full-time job, but they were Benny’s life — all of them in their own ways. I was younger than he was and I didn’t have that kind of steam even then. A few years ago, and long after I had moved away, Benny suddenly came down with stomach cancer and brain cancer and died in a very short time. To say that Gerry was devastated would apparently be to understate the case.  She still isn’t over him and she’s as in love with him today as she was the day they married.

Since Benny died, their church closed, she has taken a vow of poverty and begun to live among the people who have nothing.  Why? Because God told her to. To folks who don’t even believe that can happen: it seems to happen to her all the time. Anyway, after struggling with each and every part of daily life emotionally, Gerry is back to her old self, mostly, and here she is doing a food kitchen. She is noticeably a little more gray around the temples, but we’re all getting old these days, so she fits right in.

When I knew Gerry the first time, she was kind of a community organizer/inter-faith messenger.  When John Fabrizi was mayor, Gerry was the Personal Appointed Spiritual Leader.  She is known all over town down there, and now she says that people in the City Council and various politicians were worried about her when Benny died.  They were worried about her not because she held power in the community, but because she was their friend and people care about their friends — another example of the subtle grace Gerry experiences and attributes to God.

Back to today:  Gerry was there, and Bill Finch, the mayor of Bridgeport was there, and Gerry’s program got a check from an organization “For Life”, and the news crews were there, and the Bridgport Post was there … and God was there, all in the background.

In the background, I met a woman who was just there to support Gerry. Wearing a multi-colored dress, she talked about doing ministry by helping to create non-profit organizations. An accountant, she graduated from High School 2 years early, went to college, has written a book and numerous articles on how to create your own 501 (c)3 organization, re-organizes mortgages for use by the homeless, the addicted, the beaten-up — Jesus’ people. 

Also in the background, Dave was telling the CR story to anyone that wanted to listen, and there were lots  of people who wanted to hear.  Apparently more places than New Britain have addicts and need help. Why was Dave there?  He heard about Gerry and wanted to meet her — more subtle work for God  while we waited around to support Gerry.

After the news trucks left, and the people — a line of them around the block got food — real, good food — for a week or so,  the mayor of the city was drinking his bottle of water and eating his hot dog — and picking up papers some old Black lady dropped by accident.  At that point, he proved himself a real leader. Jesus said “the first will be last and the last first”.  By that standard, the only one worth worrying about — Bill Finch is among “the first”.  More subtle work for God happened because Gerry was having an opening.

During my time there, Gerry introduced me to a White pastor who had given toys to the kids whose parents had to come get their food at a food pantry. He and his wife also apparently support Gerry — quietly and kindly without even being asked.  Even more quietly in the background, there was yet another White pastor involved in justice and peace work helping out with no fanfare. He had on a great T-shirt, about reconciliation and peace and other real Christian values.  He was interested in ecumenism and he was there … you guessed it, because of Gerry.

The reporter for the Post was a young intern with a tattoo on her foot. The tattoo was of rosary beads, so of course, she was happy to support Gerry as well.  Still, if you didn’t pay attention, she was just another tattooed college co-ed. God, no doubt, knew otherwise.

Over on the overgrown concrete were local church people cooking hot dogs, passing out bottles of cold water and just generally helping out.  Behind them were what appeared to be young punks until Gerry asked the church to applaud for them. Why? It turns out that they had worked tirelessly helping out the food pantry after training with Gerry. Who knew?

Also at this thing was an Emergency Psychiatric Mobile Team which was giving out information. I don’t know how they got there, but they too were helping out people Jesus and God cared about. It seems there’s a connection between poverty, addiction, and poor mental health.

At lunch, there was prophecy, people looking out for each other, more stories about people sharing  and pastoral ministry as she spoke about her husband and my mother and the hard grieving involved in dealing with it. It was a subtle, but good day for God.

Peace,

John