Talkin’

I got home from Beaumont a bit after 8:00 Sunday night drained to the marrow, ripped off the uniform for my comfortable garb, and collapsed into the recliner comatosely, which was too bad, given that the darling had cooked up a beautiful roast and I could only nibble at it (though one man’s nibble might be another man’s feast, as Lazarus lay begging at the rich man’s gate). The reason behind this wholistic emptiness lay in my decision on Wednesday to preach about the ‘spiritual meaning of the election’, though I didn’t come up with that phrase until the terror of writing the sermon itself forced it out of me—’Call it spiritual, Keene, and maybe it won’t be heard as partisan’. Theology is done, as they say, in the trenches. My current trench is in a town that experienced the violence of the civil rights fight firsthand; the mentality—and occasional behavior—of the kkk still exists in some of the little outlying burgs. The geezer portion of the church was raised when segregated drinking fountains and the like was the way god wanted society; they’re still scratching their heads over what they’ve been through. ‘Course the oil industry brings in people from all over and some of ’em ended up in the church, so the congregation itself has a pretty good global awareness. But they’ve also been through a bruising civil rights battle among themselves, though dressed up in theological garb called ‘the issue of homosexuality’ which resulted in about half their members leaving, rupturing precious friendships and even family ties just a couple of years back. I announced my preaching intent at the midweek pastors’ bs session, earning their shock and awe: ‘Jesus, Keene. You’re out of your fucking mind.’

To which I wholeheartedly agreed, even echoed, as I stepped into the pulpit on Sunday.

But there y’ go. We’re held hostage by what we fear to speak out loud; by what we’re afraid to name. That’s why confession—identifying as it were the demons—to another person brings freedom; by naming them they are no longer hidden, they lose the power of secret darkness by being exposed to the light of day, to the eyes of all. You don’t get anywhere as a preacher by ignoring the obvious. History was made with the election of Obama, say, the incarnation of the Emancipation Proclamation; there’s no way not to preach about it, just as there was no way not to preach about 9/11. Here I stand; I can do no other; I gotta call a spade a spade, though aware that one man’s spade is another man’s fucking shovel, humming ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’

I don’t care for church parades, preferring to visit among the congregation until somebody tells me it’s time to start. Chatted a bit with the retired submariner who’s trying to raise two autistic boys on his own while mourning the death of a third and working full time at the post office, and with whom I occasionally have breakfast. He told me he was planning on getting a gun because he feared for the safety of his kids. ‘Do you have it with you?’ ‘Haven’t bought it, yet. Why?’ ‘You’re gonna love this sermon.’ There are times when I experience what I call ‘free-falling….into the arms of Jesus’ ’cause ya just gotta let go and trust you’ll be caught and so it was when I stepped into the pulpit and thought about the heart nitro I’d left in the pickup (like always, actually). I preached the sermon while watching for suspicious activity among the flock, dancing, as it were, on a highwire. Said I thought it was evidence of the work of the holy spirit throughout human history in lifting up the oppressed and creating a shared human dignity begun when the Israelites were led out of slavery in Egypt and such as that. (If you want the actual sermon, email me.)

In our worship liturgy, a few rituals after the sermon comes what’s called the ‘passing of the peace’ in which folks wonder around and catch up on the news from the people they had coffee with thirty minutes ago and share recipes and sometimes even the peace as well. I’ve learned to pay attention to the tone of that time, so I do a quick up and down the aisle peacing on them and then go back to the pope’s chair to watch for a couple of minutes. I headed out on the hand-shakin’ gauntlet and it came to feel like a victory lap, with folks thanking me and clapping me on the shoulders and even my gun-toter-to-be buddy telling me how much he appreciated it. I wobbled back to the throne and watched what I thought was a bit more joy, maybe even more openness expressed than normal but it might just have been my relief at still being alive. Later, at the meal I have with the fifteen or so folks working on the church’s transition, they talked with a new sense of enthusiasm for their future; the meal meeting ended in a kind of impromptu celebration.

I’m pretty sure it was not the mere content of the sermon—they’re used to brilliance by now anyway. But preaching is a community event. The manuscript (which I always use) might be flint against the stone, but it ain’t the whole fire. Without the community nursing it into flame it’s a fart in a windstorm. You can enjoy reading a sermon, but it ain’t the same as being there. I’ve changed my approach to preaching considerably under the example of New Testament Ray’s professoring, understanding especially the gospels as part of a huge occasionally rabid political debate within cultural/tribal Judaism about what it means to live under a conquering empire as the people of God; essentially, how, then, shall we live? Now my preaching is done more in the tone of ‘well, let’s think about this’ than in the proclamatory style of great oratory held up to us as models in seminary when Christendom still existed and the biggest job we had to do was to get people’s theology straightened out. I asked a fella once, ‘What was your last pastor’s preaching like?’ He rolled his eyes, ‘Same old thing, Sunday after Sunday: God loves you.’ Shook his head, ‘Big deal. Now what?’

‘Now what’ is the fucking shovel I named on Sunday in a desperate attempt to try to find a language that gets beyond partisanship while aware that I myself am partisan (and a mouthy one at that), a way to speak that recognizes differences and transcends them to the shared humanity and personal dignity that is expressed through them. ‘Ah, Keene,’ the answer came. ‘Call it ‘spiritual’, that way, nobody will know what you’re talking about, though it sounds good.’ And it has the added advantage of being true. What mattered and was appreciated by the folks was the attempt to do it. Because with all the screamin’ and shoutin’ and spittin’ at each other that’s gone on over these recent years there is this desire to find a way to speak peacefully to each other even in profound differences. The attempt to do that is a vehicle of grace, freeing people from the fear of mentioning it, overcoming walls of suspicion and hostility with respectful speech. But the ability to do that is learned through blunders; so for the public guy to take the risk of the blunder encourages others to take their risks At least, that’s what I think today.

It wasn’t however quite enough that I’d decided to take on the election as a sermon topic, because coming up later in the day was the monthly “Prayer in the Style of Taize” service which, this time, was marking the anniversary (since it was) of Kristallnacht—that night before WW2 that the Nazi government officially unleashed public and national violence against Jews which would result in the Holocaust by destroying their synagogues and businesses all over the country; gangs rampaged and terrorized the Jews while police stood back and watched. I’d also been asked to offer some reflections about that. So I spent my three-hour break dozing and reflecting on the horrors of the time, sliding between dreams formed by the way too many books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen about it and waking to wonder what can be said. Let me observe: there is no lightness of being, as it were, to be found in reflecting on the Kristallnacht horror; it ain’t a happy time of walkin’ and talkin’ in the garden with Jesus. Matter of fact, ain’t no god to be found around anywhere; just the godless savagery of human nature which leads only to a kyrie, a plea for mercy, which is how we ended the service, after I mumbled through some comments beginning with the human arrogance of religious uniqueness and rambling from there for a few minutes, glad when I could end it, oozing into a metal chair to let them carry the songs and the prayers to the end ’cause there comes that point where there’s nothing left. You don’t go from the tightrope-walking high of the morning’s spirit to the utter desolation of genocidal evil without paying a price. You reflect on that, and it sucks the life out of you, just as they do of their victims. I started the trek home hoping I could stay awake; but there was heavy traffic and I was as usual the designated target poking along at 75, so that kept me alert.

Monday was, natch, a day of no energy, what I’ve come to call a ‘nothing day’ because I have nothing to give, no hospitality of the spirit, especially not the energy to extend a charitable thought. I know from experience that this is the time I’m most apt to take things the wrong/negative way, and thus should be cautious about sending out huffy responses. But it being a nothing day, I also had no energy to resist the impulse, so fired off a pissy response to Pennsylvania Dave about a comment he made.

Now, PA Dave is a childhood chum with whom I ran the streets of our neighborhood and the halls of Moxham Lutheran Church the last year or two before my family went to CA in 1961. He’d only been a childhood memory of Johnstown (western by god redneck Pennsylvania, the home sweet home of John Murtha) until we got magically reconnected a few years back, during a time of strange parallelism in our lives: both of us had been through heart surgery, and both of us had just left our jobs following a bruising (as they say) political battle, him as a teacher. We’re both family men, too. But whereas I bopped around the country, he stayed there; even still goes to old Moxham Lutheran. It’s the bends in the road which make all the difference as the poet puts it, I guess. When I was up there visiting a couple of years back he caught me up on the history of the place and we cruised the city and the country roads and the forests catching up on our lives in his red Jeep with an NRA bumper sticker, and that’s a pretty good sign of where we might differ. My worldview/politics makes him crazy, and vice versa, so that our reacquaintance time has also been marked by bouts of political snarling.

Which was why he had to calm me down on Tuesday with the gracious assurance that the quip was only a jest; in fact, now that I recall it, having recuperated from nothing day, it was really clever and funny. (Alas, too late does he get the punch line.) It took a few emails to smooth all the feathers, but the final words were no matter how difficult the blunders, we gotta keep talkin’. Our common humanity is expressed through our vibrant differences.

Copping to an old spiritual, ‘He ain’t redneck, he’s my brother.’

Thus defeating Kristallnacht.