Winter Solstice, 2008

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Today is the Winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. At 3:30 am Eastern Standard Time there was a live webcast of the Solstice sunrise at the megalithic tomb of Newgrange, in County Meath, Ireland. This tomb is over 5000 years old, older than Stonehenge or the pyramids of Egypt. Barring a cloudy sky, at sunrise a shaft of light will have stabbed through an opening above the tomb entrance, down a 19 meter stone passageway, and onto the floor at the base of a richly decorated stone. 5000 years ago it would have illuminated the stone itself. To see today’s webcast prepared by The Office of Public Works of Heritage Ireland (58 minutes long altogether) go here: http://www.servecast.com/opw/211208/archive300.html

Our season of Advent owes much to the Winter Solstice, that time in the northern hemisphere when the world gets colder and darker; the night grows longer and food more scarce; when our ancestors’ very survival became less certain and the sun had moved far away. No wonder that the Druids very carefully noticed that on this day the sun stopped moving away and started to return.

The Solstice became a sacred time, promising that life would be renewed. It became a time of celebration, too; not only because the sun was returning but, as my seminary liturgics professor said, “Because nothing beats back the chill of a cold winter night in northern climes like generous amounts of feasting and singing and drinking, and other forms of carrying-on!” To make a long story short Christians, in order to enjoy the fun but also to take the guilt out of behaving like the pagans, layered the celebration of the birth of the Incarnate Son of God over the pagan celebration of the rebirth of the immortal sun. And Saturnalia became Nativity.

Today we don’t fear the dark, we flip a switch. We don’t freeze from the cold, we bump up the heat. We don’t hunger for food, even if we do pay a bit more for strawberries! And because we so strive to control our world and environment, we forget that ultimately we do depend on God for our very existence. As a result the short season of Advent, with its encouragement to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’ nativity as well as for the ultimate consummation of God’s will on earth, is easily overpowered by so-called “Christmas” parties, “Christmas” programs, “Christmas” shopping, and other cold-weather carryings-on.

In my parish we tried to help folks be a bit more intentional about Advent during these past few weeks. Using that hauntingly beautiful medieval hymn, O come, O come, Emmanuel, one of the clergy offered a brief meditation on one of the verses at the beginning of each Sunday Eucharist, inviting folks to read and pray – not sing – the words throughout the week – words of hope and joy, of wonder, of promise and strength. We wait for feedback to see how it worked.

Today is December 21, 2008: the 4th Sunday of Advent; the Feast of Thomas the Apostle (my anniversary of ordination to the priesthood) is transferred to tomorrow. But today is also the Winter Solstice. And if it takes a Druid to notice that and remind us moderns about the promise of returning life, then certainly the Christian can and should assert that that promise is transformed by the reality of and meaning we find in the birth and life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I would fail to make a good Druid because you have to get up too early. But I can be more intentional about living out my faith in Christ. And so can we all.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

Carhenge

Just outside of Alliance, Nebraska is a unique, unexpected and quite delightful sight. In that part of the country where center-point irrigation makes those perfect green circles that you see from an airplane cabin window as you fly over at 30,000 feet, you don't think about how the corners of those fields or other non-cultivated areas might be used.

Prairie grass, mostly. At least that was Patty's and my guess as we drove southeast from the Black Hills in South Dakota to the Pine Ridge Reservation to see the Native American art at the Red Cloud School and visit the memorial at Wounded Knee, and then scoot into Nebraska and the vicinity of the North Platte River, Chimney Rock and Scottsbluff. Prairie grass mostly ...or memorials.

Carhenge was not on our original itinerary but, hey - when you realize you're that close to something truly quirky, you just don't pass by on the other side. We arrived later in the afternoon, on a warm mid-October "t-shirt weather" day. The one other car in the lot was just leaving so we had the entire site to ourselves...an introvert explorer's dream!

We learned that the original henge is the work of Jim Reinders and his family, and is a memorial to Jim's father who died in 1982. While gathered for the funeral the family conceived of the idea of replicating the original Stonehenge of Salisbury Plain, which Jim had studied while living in England, as a memorial. The clan agreed to gather back in Alliance in five years to copy Stonehenge right there in Nebraska, duplicating the physical size and placement of the Salisbury Plain stones. They would adjust for local latitude and longitude to keep proper solar orientation and, in place of monoliths use full-size American cars, recycled from back lots, junk yards and old sheds.

And so they did. Thirty eight automobiles duplicate the placement of the standing stones on Salisbury Plain in a circle about 96 feet in diameter. Uprights were set five feet into the ground, trunk end down. Cars forming the lintels were welded into place. Full sized cars replicate three standing trilithons within the outer circle as well as two station stones and the slaughter stone, and a 1962 Cadillac replicates the heel stone. All were painted gray (now gray-green), and the memorial was dedicated on the Summer Solstice in 1987 with champagne, poetry, songs, a play written by members of the family and, one can imagine, an abundance of good humor and satisfaction with, perhaps, even a few tears. But there's more.

Over time a full ten acre tract was set aside and donated to the community. A parking lot, small visitor's center with restrooms and souvenirs and a couple of outdoor picnic tables were added. Additional sculptures have been introduced in an adjacent Car Art Reserve. Now visitors can get up close and personal with a prize-winning spawning salmon by Canadian artist Geoff Sandhurst. There's a ten-foot high dinosaur, a "covered" station wagon, a giant sunflower, and a large "Ford Seasons" portraying Nebraska wheat growing through the year, from tender green shoots through two car-lengths-high fully mature plants to harvested grain and, finally, bent-over winter stalks. There's even an "Auto-graph" car where visitors can satisfy the need to leave their mark while at the same time preserving the original artwork.

Coming forward to today, it must be said that originally some folks in Alliance thought the project an eyesore and tried to have it fenced in as a junkyard, but in time and with good dialogue a "Friends of Carhenge" group was founded and they now care for the property and see it as a community asset (enjoying over 80,000 visitors a year!). If you want to know more you can google Carhenge (where I got my back story) or the Alliance, Nebraska, Chamber of Commerce.

Bishop Cate Waynick shares a definition of liturgy that rings true for me: Liturgy is private work for public good. Liturgy, according to this definition, is not just Sunday worship, which is how we usually understand it, but is personal effort and substance given for the benefit of all. So a Carnegie Library building is a work of liturgy, as is the bread that our parish baker prepares week-by-week for our Sunday Eucharists, as is the self-offering of Jesus on Calvary.

Private work for public good: that'd be hand-tied fleece blankets, decorated stockings and luscious snacks for Jubilee Christmas, or the skill and experience of a food-service professional volunteering in the kitchen at the Community Thanksgiving Meal (to say nothing of the musicians who make the music while others dine), or the effort of the grandmother who made the fifteen children's activity bags hanging by the door of our church, most of which are used by someone else's grandchildren every week, or the folks who hand iron our altar linens or bake and serve cookies at a funeral visitation in the parish hall.

Private work for public good: giving something at personal cost, to the benefit of others. Cate's definition invites us to stretch the traditional understanding of liturgy as Sunday worship, and in a good way. Oftentimes (and I'm as guilty of this as any) I think we too easily slip into doing what we do on Sunday mornings primarily for our own satisfaction and that of our parish friends. Cate's definition reminds us liturgy is not something we do for our own satisfaction.

Private work for public good: it's not simply the same as making a monetary contribution toward the support of the local church, or any other not-for-profit, I think. Those are good, important and necessary things, certainly. But this understanding of liturgy takes us deeper. Deeper because too often - especially in these busy times - we think the monetary gift is enough. In point of fact, money might be a fairly easy thing for many, even in these present economic times, to give, whereas time, personal effort, attention and focus are much more precious commodities - much more a measure of self. My own parish struggles for people's time, and we are not the only parish I know of with this struggle.

Private work for public good: I bet they had a blast conceiving, executing, and dedicating Carhenge. It sits on the high plains of western Nebraska as a great big grin to God and Jim's grandfather; and I believe God and grandfather are smiling back (and I bet a lot of visitors smile as well). I bet the champagne was deliciously chilled and sparkling, the play outstanding, the poetry and songs heroic, the solstice a crowning touch, and grandfather was delighted. No doubt it broke their hearts that some townsfolk said it was junk, just like when parishioners criticize the liturgy of those who arrange the Christmas or Easter flowers. Maybe that's the best test of when an offering is true liturgy - when it's rejection breaks our hearts.

Private work for public good: May it be that we always accept the liturgy of others, and that our liturgy and offering of self is always acceptable, that others are served by it, and that it brings a smile to God and all who stop by.

South English, Iowa

The English River drains into the Iowa River just south of Iowa City and then into the Mississippi. Its branches lend their names to two small Iowa communities, North English and South English.

In 1896 Walter T. Coffman lived in the area of South English and was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Lodge #268. At some point after 1896 Walter left South English and eventually found his way to Salt Lake City. We don’t know if he headed straight there or if he meandered, but when he got there he was married to Bertha Cecil, and was a pharmacist who owned his own drug store.

Walter and Bertha had one child, Eleanor May. Eleanor’s memories of her early life in Salt Lake were colored by resentment and even bitterness because of the effects of the Great Depression: Walter lost his business and he and Bertha moved to southern California. Eleanor was in High School at the time, and chose to stay in Salt Lake.

I know something about the effect of family dislocation on children. My own family experienced a divorce of parents, followed by mother’s remarriage and our subsequent move from upstate New York to the west, eventually settling in Salt Lake City ourselves. My brother was three years older than me at this time, and it was not until I was an adult that I came fully to understand how he understood and experienced that series of events. He felt his community had been taken from him, and to a great extent he romanticized the life we had left behind and the people in it. Perhaps underneath her determination to stay with her friends and social life, something like what my brother internalized was going on in Eleanor.

In time Eleanor married Lynn Searle, who loved her very much and who had courted her for quite some time. Patty was their first child (and became my wife in 1967) and Lynda their second. Walter died in 1944, before either of the granddaughters were born and had the pleasure of knowing him. Bertha did not talk much about him, and Eleanor’s recollections tended toward her own sense of dislocation and personal loss.

When Eleanor died Patty came into possession of a medallion with Walter’s name and the number of that South English IOOF lodge on it. Living in Illinois at the time, she determined that if the opportunity ever arose she would find and explore South English.

And so we did, on a lovely golden and warm day in early October of 2008, more than twenty years after Patty made that promise to herself.

South English (population 213) is not far from Iowa City in the rolling farmland of south-central Iowa. The largest Amish community west of the Mississippi is not too far away (is the “English” of area names the customary Amish designation for the non-Amish?). Having driven through many towns like South English before, I imagined a tattered brick building with some kind of worn sign announcing that this is (or had been) where the Odd Fellows gathered. It was better than I imagined. We found the original Opera House right there on Ives Street: brick, two-storey, with a still legible sign announcing that it was the Odd Fellow’s hall as well. And just next door, the Post Office (Zip 52335).

Briefly explaining who we were and what we were up to, the postmistress said “Well, I’m a Coffman.” The conversation became more interesting as the postmistress made a few phone calls to relatives asking if anyone could remember having heard of a Walter T. Coffman. No one could. The town librarian came in to drop off her mail and check out who had parked in front of her house and taken a picture of the Opera House (maybe we were going to buy and restore it somehow?). The conversation went on, email addresses were exchanged, and eventually we were urged to explore two nearby cemeteries to check out headstones.

The first cemetery yielded no Coffmans. The second, on the grounds of the English River Church of the Brethren, was fertile ground, a mother lode. It’s a lovely little building, built in the sixties probably, though the congregation is much older. And as luck would have it, the church secretary was in getting caught up on some things. “I’m a Coffman,” she told Pat.

We went through the same explanation and phone calls, but again to no avail. And again, email addresses were exchanged, and then we went out to explore the cemetery. Very well cared-for, it was being mowed even as we explored. We found plenty of Coffman markers including several from the general time frame of Walter, and others quite recent. Others were new stones with dates from the late 1800’s indicating that the stones were tended and as necessary replaced.

Our mission accomplished with a sense of personal satisfaction, we got some pictures, and some literature from the church, and headed back to Iowa City for the night. Since then my thoughts have strayed in this direction:

Church of the Brethren … I knew a clergy couple in Peoria days who were members of the Church of the Brethren. The husband was instrumental in forming a colleague group, the first ecumenical colleague group I belonged to. I have come to value tremendously the benefit of such groups in my personal and professional life. Thanks, Terry, for that. In that group, he introduced all of us to the Brethren manner of celebrating Maundy Thursday with a meal and foot washing. This was just as The Episcopal Church was beginning to rediscover foot washing in its own liturgical life, and the experience has served me well since then.

In my current parish we are raising up a generation of children who think the foot washing in an integral part of what we do on Maundy Thursday. How subversive! Thanks again, Terry; you, and all the Brethren.

English River Church of the Brethren … the sign on the highway has the name of the church as well as what might be their mission statement: “To The Glory of God and My Neighbor’s Good.” I wish my parish’s mission statement were that short and to the point (it’s good, but far too long). Was Walter a member of the Church of the Brethren? Did he incarnate any sense of giving glory to God and seeing to his neighbor’s good? Pharmacists of his day were certainly far more than the retailers they seem to have been forced to become today. Did he miss the Coffmans who stayed in South English to work and worship and live and die, and along the way to praise God and serve their neighbor? Did he keep in touch with any of them? We cannot say for certain.

I remember Kathleen Norris, in one of her books, saying something like this: It is not by accident that the word “heart” is part of how we describe this section of the country … the people who live there have it and live it … “heartland” describes more than a region – it is a way of living, of understanding yourself and what is important about life. The heartland doesn’t have spectacular mountains, or beautiful coastlines, or the vibrancy to hold a lot of young people close. But it’s a good place; in ways that sometimes only time can help us understand.

I’m glad we finally made good on Patty’s promise to go to South English. And if we didn’t find Walter, I like to think we found his people. They’re still there in and around South English, praising God and caring for one another and tending graves, or resting in them. And witnessing to a continuity that is too much missing in our day. I will share the pictures we got with Patty’s sister Lynda, and with the great-grandchildren Annie, Christopher and Stephen. None of them live in the heartland, though I would suspect that each of them searches for it in some inner way.

I don’t know exactly how or to what extent those who have died and gone before us into the nearer presence of God know of life in this life. But with All Saints’ Day and the Commemoration of All the Departed coming up I believe that they do. So I believe that – in one way or another – even though he never knew them directly Walter knows of those grandchildren and great-grandchildren, of their accomplishments and their joys and their hopes. And he holds them in his heart.

For Starters

We're back from the traveling-out-west part of our fall vacation, and now turn our attention to some work around the house. In this phase of vacation 2008 we practice puttering-in- retirement.

Before attacking the work of winterizing, though, I decided to quit thinking about a blog and act to get this venture started.

My parish is reviewing how we communicate and exploring the possibility of more communication via email or the web page, rather than relying so much on snail mail and so forth. This review of course includes The Eagle, our monthly newsletter. One of the major elements of the present newsletter is the piece by me under the same title as this blog. I've written this piece more or less monthly since 1991 and have found that most months I enjoy doing so. I've discovered over the years that it is less an exercise in information sharing and more an exercise in sorting out and sharing some of my thoughts. My sense is that many of my limited readership are quite tolerant or even appreciative of this but that sometimes my style may be too wordy or too conversational (as opposed to conforming to standard conventions of writing) for others. More to the point, it may be that my "piece" binds The Eagle to a certain format. I'm wondering if inclusion of my piece doesn't hinder more full exploration of our possible options in the parish.

And so here I try to kill two birds with one stone. I offer this blog to see if it scratches the itch I have to share my thoughts about the life of the local church or my own faith exploration or what quirky things we found on our last trip, and to see if it opens more possibilities for our communications review. Indeed, it may even model other possibilities, and isn't that what leadership's about?

AND, if it does those things it might suit me long after I no longer have the responsibility to communicate in a parish newsletter.

So I'm about to hit the Publish Post command. I hope you like the This Day in History feature and will bear with me as I learn and tinker more. I do want to learn how to get photos up here - I have great shots of Patty and me at Car Henge in western Nebraska!

Now to the joys of home owning: caulking the cedar trim to keep the ladybugs out, plugging the holes of woodpeckers who come looking for ladybugs, and patching a bit of bad wood on the northeast corner. Carry on...