Each spring along the New England coast, river herring come from far out at sea in large numbers to spawn in fresh water, pushing against the flow of streams large and small, sometimes traveling many miles inland. Mature fish are reputed to return to the same brooks and rivers from which they emerged in a past season as juveniles. If you stand in the shallows at night in just the right place and swing a long-poled net through the water, you will have fish to take home.
River herring are really two species, the alewife and the blueback herring. To a novice like me, they look the same: both are streamlined and silver-sided, about a foot long. The females and males can also be hard to tell apart, though it’s easier during spawning, when the females are plump with roe, the spongy mass of tiny eggs they are coming ashore to release.
Just as herring aim for the places where fresh water spills into the sea, people bearing nets have traditionally gathered there to meet them. No fancy gear is required, and herring make excellent fertilizer for spring gardens. With a little effort, they can be made delectable. You don’t need a permit, either (at least, no one asked to see mine), just access to the shore after dusk, for herring are most active at night. Darkness blots out the typically pleasant coastal scenery, making the fishery secretive, and a little spooky. Night fishing puts you directly in touch with certain strong forces of nature: the rhythmic tides, the ancient urge to hunt, the headlong rush of migrating fish out of the ocean and into your net.
Back in the early seventies, I was still in school and knew nothing about this. Late on a Saturday afternoon in April, a bunch of us were hanging around the student radio station in Cambridge when somebody’s girlfriend, who, it turned out, had grown up on the Rhode Island shore, began to lobby for a road trip to go “herrining” back in her old neighborhood. After a while it became clear that herring were fish that did something interesting in spring, and that she meant right now.
Curious, and having nothing better to do, I squeezed into the back of a car with some friends and away we went. Two hours and many turns later, we arrived after dark at a weatherbeaten old house, a seemingly vast structure that stretched up and away into the night. A single lightbulb illuminated the dooryard and little else. I could hear waves breaking on a beach nearby, but couldn’t tell how close they were. A quarter mile? A stone’s throw? I could smell salt water and rotting seaweed. A cool, insistent wind came off the ocean, and I wondered if I should have brought a warmer coat. I didn’t know exactly where in Rhode Island this was, but it was clear that we were down near the bottom edge of it, where the roads end and the land runs out.
A small crowd of local friends and relatives was inside, everyone getting ready for the herrining, though some would be satisfied to wait indoors in the warmth until we got back. Now came the mild chaos of searching through closets for fishing nets and rubber wading boots for everyone, plus extra hats and coats, the idea being to outfit ourselves as well as possible from a makeshift assortment of vintage, salt-encrusted gear. Please hurry it up, the fish won’t wait! Then back out into our cars and into the night. Our little convoy nosed onto the road we had come in on, then turned onto a side road, then another, until we were headed down a narrow dirt lane towards the sea. When our headlights went dark, there was only the glow of a nearly full moon, partly hidden behind clouds, to guide us. A couple of us fumbled with flashlights but were admonished to “Shut those off! We can see better without ’em!”
It wasn’t a long walk to the beach, or a wide beach to cross. The ocean was waiting for us, beyond a low slope of broken shells and coarse sand. I heard water percolating under our squeaking, wobbling boots, and realized that a little stream originating from somewhere up behind us made its exit to the sea right here. Here is where the fish would come.
In we waded until the water reached our knees. Though mostly still shaded by passing clouds edged with silver, the moonlight was strong, outshining the stars, and the sky all around us was a deep metallic blue. Gentle waves, less than a foot high, passed among us and broke on the beach behind, each with a soft swish. We were hunters now, a mysterious knot of dark, stooped figures, waiting for something to happen.
The wind rose softly. The waves became more frequent, and higher. Something had shifted. The shallows around us were dark as ink, and we couldn’t see anything at all down there, but a few of us tentatively swept our nets through the water anyway. “There!” Someone hoisted a dripping net against the sky; a lively fish could be seen flipping around inside. Now someone else had caught two, maybe three, one of which succeeded in flipping back out of the net.
Moments later, it felt like a powerful searchlight had been switched on and was pointed at us. It was the moon, now free of the clouds, bright as a young sun, it seemed, and exerting its pull on human, fish, and sea. The herring began to surge at us. The water around our boots bubbled and boiled. Fish fins broke the surface on all sides. Behind us, herring beached themselves and somersaulted up the slope, following the thin stream of fresh water. Each time we swung our nets we scooped up three, four, five or more. The plastic bags we’d brought began to fill up. What were we going to do with all these fish?
I don’t need to tell you that life is often messy, and this was no exception. The bottom was mostly flat and sandy but there were rocks here and there, and some of us stumbled and fell, or collided, dropping our nets and soaking our clothes. Often the mounting waves slopped icy-cold into our not-quite-tall-enough boots. There was shouting and splashing and laughter, and the honeydew moon rising over it all.
In less than an hour we had all the herring we could carry. We stumped over to our cars, threw in our gear and bulging bags of fish, and bounced up the narrow lane and back to the house. Bright lights shone in the high-ceilinged kitchen, and everything seemed smeared with seawater, excitement, fatigue, and fish scales. By now, the fish we had caught were no longer very alive, or alive at all. I found out that the next step was to sort them, skinny males over here, plump-bellied females over there. The males were going to be dug into the gardens (by somebody, some time), while the females were going to be gutted for their roe (by us, right now) with sharpened knives. That is, we were going to butcher them.
At this point, I began to be troubled by what we were doing. It seemed cruel and wasteful. What was the point, exactly, of all this catching and killing? Here was a inarguably beautiful fish that had traveled great distances along ancient pathways, using senses we didn’t possess or understand, and, seeking only to propagate, had run straight into our nets, and our knives. Was this even ethical? Sure, people had been taking herring here for a very long time, hoping and trying to catch as many as they could — but because their survival in some way depended on it, not for an evening of primitive fun. And most of our fish never got put away properly, I’m sorry to say, and instead were thrown into the yard, where they began to stink, and so ended up as a free breakfast for gangs of noisy gulls, out beyond the salt-streaked windows.
Yes, we stayed the night. There was room enough in the corners of the old house for all of us to sleep. In the morning, we took turns scrambling eggs over a venerable gas range, and those who wanted to fry up some roe, glistening peach-yellow and ruby-red, could do so. I did. It was fishy, naturally, with a grainy texture, one of those tastes people call “acquired.” Mostly, it simply tasted wild.
The following April, I came back to this place and once again joined an excited crew to go herrining in the moonlight; I guess I must be a hunter at heart. But you can’t re-create such fragile events. Even while they’re happening, you know it won’t be the same again. This time it was a colder night, and the herring, gathered offshore, knew enough not to approach the stream of fresh water, where their eggs would surely go to waste beneath the frosty air. We caught a few strays, and that was all. Before long, the old-timers in the group turned and left for home. After a while, so did the rest of us.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Leading and Following (a sermon)
[I delivered this sermon at the First Congregational Church of Holliston on Sunday, July 22, 2012. I was one of several individuals who filled in at the pulpit for our pastor while she was on vacation.]
Good morning. Especially for those of you visiting us this morning, welcome! And I stand here as evidence that you’re visiting a church that sometimes invites sinners and non-churchgoers to preach. I’m going to venture that that’s a good thing.
Today’s New Testament reading comes from Mark, the oldest gospel and the most pared-down. We don’t know who wrote it, or precisely where or when. It is not a piece of straight reporting, as I’m sure many of you know.
Mark was probably written during what was an especially bad time for Jerusalem. The Roman army began an attack on the city in the year 66, trying to put down a Jewish revolt.
The Romans didn’t do things halfway, as you’re probably aware. When they were besieging your city, you knew it. One of the things they liked to do was dig a deep trench all the way around cities they were besieging, to keep supplies out, and the inhabitants in. They finally crushed the defense and the city in the year 70, and desecrated the temple in the process.
Whether these verses that we have today were written before, during, or after the fall of Jerusalem, no one knows. People back then could certainly think that events on earth all had to be pointing towards a great cosmic cataclysm, where they could expect to see, as a deliverance out of their suffering, “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory,” as it says later on in Mark.
This way, the fall of Jerusalem and the temple had a purpose, in line with the coming of Jesus. One age ending, another one beginning. This is the time out of which Mark comes.
The verses we’ve heard today are fitted around some of the more memorable stories in Mark: the death of John the baptizer, the feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes. I’d like to focus on verse 34: “As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
“Like sheep without a shepherd.” What do you think about that? The gospel makes the crowd sound like farm animals, needing to be herded and led around, and protected at all times. Without a leader, they’d wander aimlessly in a “deserted place,” as it says several times here — easy pickings for predators.
Well, one thing the author of Mark wants to do here is establish Jesus’ pedigree — sheep and shepherds is a reference to old verses in scripture his audience would already know, including Psalm 23, of course, and Numbers, and Zechariah, and Ezekiel, where it says “I will seek out my sheep. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God.”
Leading and following… well, I say, let’s not get too serious here on a Sunday in July. I think we can relax a little bit. If I were you, I would want to be hearing less Bible study and more stories…
As some of you know, I am an artist, and I paint when I’m not at work. I do this because I want to, and because I’m good at it, and I like it when the picture’s done… you might say I have a gift for it. Sometimes I have showings, and there’s wine and cheese, which is sort of like loaves and fishes.
Anyway, the time of the week that works out best for me just happens to be Sunday morning. It’s the time of the week with the fewest demands. It wasn’t always like this. Years ago, I’d be here, most Sundays, so it’s different, for right now. And, to be honest, I am a little bit like a sheep without a shepherd, following only my own path, except…
I do have a church service, of sorts. There I am, painting on a Sunday morning, with the radio on for background noise, listening to WBUR, usually, and at 11 o’clock, on comes the live service from Marsh Chapel at BU [Boston University]. I have found that I can listen to it and paint at the same time, sort of like walking and chewing gum. It’s a straight-down-the-middle Methodist service on the whole, with readings and a big choir with a rich, warm sound. And a big, sumptuous pipe organ pounding out the anthems. Lots of leading going on in there: leading in responsive anthems, leading in song and meditations, following along in your pew Bible….
I’m not saying you should stay home and listen to it! No! It’s not the same as being physically present in church! However! Near the end of the service, every week, the choir sings a beautiful recessional. We have it here, in our hymnal, it’s number 4-7-3, “Lead Me, Lord”; would you please open your hymnal to it? Number 4-7-3. We don’t sing it very often in this church, maybe because there’s only one verse…
[sing and play]
Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness
Make thy way plain, before my face.
For it is thou, Lord… thou, Lord only
That makest me dwell in safety.
That’s funny, isn’t it? “Safety.” We don’t sing a lot about safety. A lot of our hymns focus on what’s going to happen after we die, the paradise we’re going to call home. I imagine that the people in Mark’s time were thinking a lot about both.
This hymn is an appeal to being led. “Lead me in your righteouness,” not mine, God knows, I don’t have any. Make my way plain, please! I can’t see to do it by myself, you know the way. It’s your way, anyway, it’s not mine. I’d be lost without you.
When we sing this, we are asking for guidance in a dangerous world. Somewhere inside each striving individual of modern times, all fully in control of their life, is a sheep needing some shelter.
Well. Following… it’s a touchy subject with a lot of us. A blogger I’ve been reading – you know what a blogger is, it’s someone who writes a personal journal on the internet called a web-log — a blogger I’ve been reading, a young mother who writes about parenting, was going on about instilling in her school-age son the virtues of leadership: she says, “I’ve had this idea that I have to raise a leader. That following is weak. ‘Be a leader. Blaze the trail. Set the trends.’ Leaders are strong and successful, and followers are something… less."
So. That was the way things went, until her son asked her one day, if all parents taught all their children to be leaders, who would be around for the leaders to lead? A little light went on in her head, and she asked, well, what did he think children should be taught to be? And he came back with a one-word answer: “themselves.”
Still, we’re uncomfortable with being compared to sheep; my goodness, it sounds so passive and spineless. We say, “We were being led around like sheep! Like sheep to slaughter! Geez, are you kidding me? Get out of here, I’m no sheep! I’m a leader! I’m the top dog! I get things done! ... Step aside, pal...
We don’t like being led, am I right? It goes against our nature. You take a look in the library or online, there’s all kinds of books and videos and articles about how to be decisive, be a savvy leader, an effective boss, calculating and free of emotion… very few books on how to be led, how to be a good follower (maybe with the exception of the Bible). But, if you’re not actively leading, you’re following, aren’t you? You follow us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Do you follow the Red Sox? And we, here, are followers of Jesus…
It may be that leadership is seen as something really cool, something really worth knowing about, whereas following… isn’t, really. You could do it in your sleep — isn’t that what people say? “That cult leader had people ‘blindly following him’”. Or, it may be that very few people know how to lead. You have to learn it, you can’t just wing it. While following… seems relatively easy; you already know how to do it.
Way back years ago, when Annie and I were first getting to know each other, we went backpacking and camping one April weekend with eight other people, up on Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts. Have any of you ever been out that way? — do you know it? Well, we started early in the morning and went on up:
“We are off to Timbuktu, would you like to go there too, all the way and back again, you must follow our leader then…”
We had two leaders, actually, Ron and Ashanti, both of them experienced backpackers, as were many on the trip. And follow them we did. We had our backpacks, & we were carrying our tents & sleeping bags, all the food we would need, & camp stoves & fuel. And extra clothing, because it was, after all, April in the Berkshires. Greylock is a popular place in the summer, but this was pretty early in the season, and we had the mountain to ourselves. You could say it was… a deserted place.
Well, it was a sunny spring day. It was a sunny spring day, and then as afternoon turned towards evening, and we got up near the summit, we kind of went off the script…
Now the weather can turn quite suddenly in the Berkshires, as you may know, and as we should have known. We struggled to pitch our tents and get our camp stoves going in the rising wind and falling temperatures, and then the falling sleet. The stoves didn’t want to stay lit, so everybody had a cold dinner and went to bed early, but I don’t think too many of us slept very well that night. The freezing rain rattled against our tents, like showers of pebbles, all night long.
In the morning, the world had turned white, and everything was wrapped in a smooth, hard coating of ice. A freezing drizzle was coming down. Everyone was shivering. We packed up as well as we could, and headed for the stone shelter at the top. Ever into the group dynamic, we all walked at the pace of the slowest one among us, who was not very tall, and walked so slowly that the rest of us weren’t going fast enough to keep warm.
What we thought is, we would find the auto road that goes from the base to the summit and just walk down it, but when we got there, we found that the pavement was coated with ice, too, and that we couldn’t walk along it without slipping and falling. So we crawled across it on our hands and knees, up to the shelter, and stood around inside it, and wondered what to do.
Well, we lost our leaders at that point. They were still with us, but they had lost their capacity to lead through the general disintegration of the trip, so really, nobody was leading. We had become 10 people trying to survive, truly like sheep without a shepherd, stranded on top of a mountain in winter weather, and no way out…
After a while, after quite a while, someone noticed that bits of ice were beginning to fall from the roof and from some of the taller trees around. So the temperature had gone above freezing, and the ice was melting. Somebody else went out to look at the road, and found it wasn’t icy anymore. We shouldered our packs, and crossed the road, and then by sheer luck found an old ski trail, which we followed straight down the mountainside… to safety.
Leading and following, always such a dynamic story. Things can seem one way and then they can change overnight, and then change again with a little uptick in the mercury. When we started up the mountain, everyone was following their assigned roles, but by the next day, we were all trooping down to safety by a trail we hadn’t planned to take, or even known about, but which was so clearly the one we were meant to take.
One last digression for you. Let me ask —
How many folks here this morning… know of someone who lives alone — all by themselves? Anyone? Could be you, could be someone you know?
Did you know that you’re part of an “Unprecedented Social Experiment?”
In his popular new book, ”Going Solo,” Eric Klinenberg describes a recent development among adults, people of every faith and persuasion, all over the world. “For the first time in human history,” he writes, “great numbers of people, hungering for the benefits of individual freedom, have begun settling down, on purpose, as singles…”
He says that marrying or grouping together may promise companionship and security, but increasingly, the only toothbrush people want to see on their bathroom sink is their own.
Let me paraphrase a little more:
In 2012, more than half of American adults are single (more than half!), and 31 million – about one in seven – live alone. And that’s not counting people in prisons, places like that. The big cities is where this is mostly happening, but, for some reason, Knoxville, Tennessee, leads the way: a third of the households there have just one person in them. Just one.
So, of all the ways / the people in developed nations / could use their money and their influence, why are they using them / to separate from one another?
So we get to ask again, as it seems we often get to ask, what’s happening to the world we thought we knew? (Sure wish I felt… safer…)
Now, “Going Solo” is more about the rise in the number of people living alone, and not so much about leading or following, but one part of it spoke to me, especially. Because when you think about millions of people living alone, you have to wonder about our communities of faith, which have tended to be congregational, and social, and family-based.
Do these new singles sound like followers, in the old-school mode, with Mom, Dad and the kids going to church together, and Moms and Dads teaching church school to their neighbors’ children?
Meanwhile, all those singles, sitting at home after work, checking out Facebook, watching TV… They do get bored and feeling out of touch. (Yes, they’re independent but they get tired of having no one to talk to besides the cat…)
So — together in their aloneness, they do meet up. They meet for coffee and they meet for tennis, they get together to go hiking and biking… they join book groups, and they join clubs, and some of them… where do they go?... yes they do… they show up at church. Where, I expect, they join in good works, and lead discussion groups, and support one another, and follow along in their pew Bible.
Where they learn a little bit about this curious, never-quite-finished business of leading and following, in this new and unaccustomed present time. Leading people, and you can’t tell them exactly where we’re all headed, and following a leader, in spirit, that you can’t even see.
Where they learn that you follow because you have faith, and you lead because you have faith,
that faith is good to have, and you all together have a faith in common, and you have your own personal faith, too, and you need a little bit of all of it, I think.
Here’s your sound-bite: to be a follower of Jesus is to experience that tension of being both in the lead and in the sheep-fold at the same time. You have to have a clear, brave eye on the future, and you have to be back in the kitchen doing the dishes and waiting to be told what to do next. Doing both at the same time is part of what it means to be a Jesus church.
You know, when I first heard that hymn, “Lead Me Lord,” like I say it was on a cheap little radio in my painting studio, and I thought the choir was singing, “Lead me home.” Doesn’t that sound nice? And there I was, already at home! Not a single, or a leader, you know, and not much of a follower, I’m probably pretty much like you, just trying my best to be myself.
Sing with me:
Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness
Make thy way plain, before my face.
For it is thou, Lord… thou, Lord only
That makest me dwell in safety.
Amen.
Good morning. Especially for those of you visiting us this morning, welcome! And I stand here as evidence that you’re visiting a church that sometimes invites sinners and non-churchgoers to preach. I’m going to venture that that’s a good thing.
Today’s New Testament reading comes from Mark, the oldest gospel and the most pared-down. We don’t know who wrote it, or precisely where or when. It is not a piece of straight reporting, as I’m sure many of you know.
Mark was probably written during what was an especially bad time for Jerusalem. The Roman army began an attack on the city in the year 66, trying to put down a Jewish revolt.
The Romans didn’t do things halfway, as you’re probably aware. When they were besieging your city, you knew it. One of the things they liked to do was dig a deep trench all the way around cities they were besieging, to keep supplies out, and the inhabitants in. They finally crushed the defense and the city in the year 70, and desecrated the temple in the process.
Whether these verses that we have today were written before, during, or after the fall of Jerusalem, no one knows. People back then could certainly think that events on earth all had to be pointing towards a great cosmic cataclysm, where they could expect to see, as a deliverance out of their suffering, “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory,” as it says later on in Mark.
This way, the fall of Jerusalem and the temple had a purpose, in line with the coming of Jesus. One age ending, another one beginning. This is the time out of which Mark comes.
The verses we’ve heard today are fitted around some of the more memorable stories in Mark: the death of John the baptizer, the feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes. I’d like to focus on verse 34: “As Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
“Like sheep without a shepherd.” What do you think about that? The gospel makes the crowd sound like farm animals, needing to be herded and led around, and protected at all times. Without a leader, they’d wander aimlessly in a “deserted place,” as it says several times here — easy pickings for predators.
Well, one thing the author of Mark wants to do here is establish Jesus’ pedigree — sheep and shepherds is a reference to old verses in scripture his audience would already know, including Psalm 23, of course, and Numbers, and Zechariah, and Ezekiel, where it says “I will seek out my sheep. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God.”
Leading and following… well, I say, let’s not get too serious here on a Sunday in July. I think we can relax a little bit. If I were you, I would want to be hearing less Bible study and more stories…
As some of you know, I am an artist, and I paint when I’m not at work. I do this because I want to, and because I’m good at it, and I like it when the picture’s done… you might say I have a gift for it. Sometimes I have showings, and there’s wine and cheese, which is sort of like loaves and fishes.
Anyway, the time of the week that works out best for me just happens to be Sunday morning. It’s the time of the week with the fewest demands. It wasn’t always like this. Years ago, I’d be here, most Sundays, so it’s different, for right now. And, to be honest, I am a little bit like a sheep without a shepherd, following only my own path, except…
I do have a church service, of sorts. There I am, painting on a Sunday morning, with the radio on for background noise, listening to WBUR, usually, and at 11 o’clock, on comes the live service from Marsh Chapel at BU [Boston University]. I have found that I can listen to it and paint at the same time, sort of like walking and chewing gum. It’s a straight-down-the-middle Methodist service on the whole, with readings and a big choir with a rich, warm sound. And a big, sumptuous pipe organ pounding out the anthems. Lots of leading going on in there: leading in responsive anthems, leading in song and meditations, following along in your pew Bible….
I’m not saying you should stay home and listen to it! No! It’s not the same as being physically present in church! However! Near the end of the service, every week, the choir sings a beautiful recessional. We have it here, in our hymnal, it’s number 4-7-3, “Lead Me, Lord”; would you please open your hymnal to it? Number 4-7-3. We don’t sing it very often in this church, maybe because there’s only one verse…
[sing and play]
Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness
Make thy way plain, before my face.
For it is thou, Lord… thou, Lord only
That makest me dwell in safety.
That’s funny, isn’t it? “Safety.” We don’t sing a lot about safety. A lot of our hymns focus on what’s going to happen after we die, the paradise we’re going to call home. I imagine that the people in Mark’s time were thinking a lot about both.
This hymn is an appeal to being led. “Lead me in your righteouness,” not mine, God knows, I don’t have any. Make my way plain, please! I can’t see to do it by myself, you know the way. It’s your way, anyway, it’s not mine. I’d be lost without you.
When we sing this, we are asking for guidance in a dangerous world. Somewhere inside each striving individual of modern times, all fully in control of their life, is a sheep needing some shelter.
Well. Following… it’s a touchy subject with a lot of us. A blogger I’ve been reading – you know what a blogger is, it’s someone who writes a personal journal on the internet called a web-log — a blogger I’ve been reading, a young mother who writes about parenting, was going on about instilling in her school-age son the virtues of leadership: she says, “I’ve had this idea that I have to raise a leader. That following is weak. ‘Be a leader. Blaze the trail. Set the trends.’ Leaders are strong and successful, and followers are something… less."
So. That was the way things went, until her son asked her one day, if all parents taught all their children to be leaders, who would be around for the leaders to lead? A little light went on in her head, and she asked, well, what did he think children should be taught to be? And he came back with a one-word answer: “themselves.”
Still, we’re uncomfortable with being compared to sheep; my goodness, it sounds so passive and spineless. We say, “We were being led around like sheep! Like sheep to slaughter! Geez, are you kidding me? Get out of here, I’m no sheep! I’m a leader! I’m the top dog! I get things done! ... Step aside, pal...
We don’t like being led, am I right? It goes against our nature. You take a look in the library or online, there’s all kinds of books and videos and articles about how to be decisive, be a savvy leader, an effective boss, calculating and free of emotion… very few books on how to be led, how to be a good follower (maybe with the exception of the Bible). But, if you’re not actively leading, you’re following, aren’t you? You follow us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Do you follow the Red Sox? And we, here, are followers of Jesus…
It may be that leadership is seen as something really cool, something really worth knowing about, whereas following… isn’t, really. You could do it in your sleep — isn’t that what people say? “That cult leader had people ‘blindly following him’”. Or, it may be that very few people know how to lead. You have to learn it, you can’t just wing it. While following… seems relatively easy; you already know how to do it.
Way back years ago, when Annie and I were first getting to know each other, we went backpacking and camping one April weekend with eight other people, up on Mount Greylock in western Massachusetts. Have any of you ever been out that way? — do you know it? Well, we started early in the morning and went on up:
“We are off to Timbuktu, would you like to go there too, all the way and back again, you must follow our leader then…”
We had two leaders, actually, Ron and Ashanti, both of them experienced backpackers, as were many on the trip. And follow them we did. We had our backpacks, & we were carrying our tents & sleeping bags, all the food we would need, & camp stoves & fuel. And extra clothing, because it was, after all, April in the Berkshires. Greylock is a popular place in the summer, but this was pretty early in the season, and we had the mountain to ourselves. You could say it was… a deserted place.
Well, it was a sunny spring day. It was a sunny spring day, and then as afternoon turned towards evening, and we got up near the summit, we kind of went off the script…
Now the weather can turn quite suddenly in the Berkshires, as you may know, and as we should have known. We struggled to pitch our tents and get our camp stoves going in the rising wind and falling temperatures, and then the falling sleet. The stoves didn’t want to stay lit, so everybody had a cold dinner and went to bed early, but I don’t think too many of us slept very well that night. The freezing rain rattled against our tents, like showers of pebbles, all night long.
In the morning, the world had turned white, and everything was wrapped in a smooth, hard coating of ice. A freezing drizzle was coming down. Everyone was shivering. We packed up as well as we could, and headed for the stone shelter at the top. Ever into the group dynamic, we all walked at the pace of the slowest one among us, who was not very tall, and walked so slowly that the rest of us weren’t going fast enough to keep warm.
What we thought is, we would find the auto road that goes from the base to the summit and just walk down it, but when we got there, we found that the pavement was coated with ice, too, and that we couldn’t walk along it without slipping and falling. So we crawled across it on our hands and knees, up to the shelter, and stood around inside it, and wondered what to do.
Well, we lost our leaders at that point. They were still with us, but they had lost their capacity to lead through the general disintegration of the trip, so really, nobody was leading. We had become 10 people trying to survive, truly like sheep without a shepherd, stranded on top of a mountain in winter weather, and no way out…
After a while, after quite a while, someone noticed that bits of ice were beginning to fall from the roof and from some of the taller trees around. So the temperature had gone above freezing, and the ice was melting. Somebody else went out to look at the road, and found it wasn’t icy anymore. We shouldered our packs, and crossed the road, and then by sheer luck found an old ski trail, which we followed straight down the mountainside… to safety.
Leading and following, always such a dynamic story. Things can seem one way and then they can change overnight, and then change again with a little uptick in the mercury. When we started up the mountain, everyone was following their assigned roles, but by the next day, we were all trooping down to safety by a trail we hadn’t planned to take, or even known about, but which was so clearly the one we were meant to take.
One last digression for you. Let me ask —
How many folks here this morning… know of someone who lives alone — all by themselves? Anyone? Could be you, could be someone you know?
Did you know that you’re part of an “Unprecedented Social Experiment?”
In his popular new book, ”Going Solo,” Eric Klinenberg describes a recent development among adults, people of every faith and persuasion, all over the world. “For the first time in human history,” he writes, “great numbers of people, hungering for the benefits of individual freedom, have begun settling down, on purpose, as singles…”
He says that marrying or grouping together may promise companionship and security, but increasingly, the only toothbrush people want to see on their bathroom sink is their own.
Let me paraphrase a little more:
In 2012, more than half of American adults are single (more than half!), and 31 million – about one in seven – live alone. And that’s not counting people in prisons, places like that. The big cities is where this is mostly happening, but, for some reason, Knoxville, Tennessee, leads the way: a third of the households there have just one person in them. Just one.
So, of all the ways / the people in developed nations / could use their money and their influence, why are they using them / to separate from one another?
So we get to ask again, as it seems we often get to ask, what’s happening to the world we thought we knew? (Sure wish I felt… safer…)
Now, “Going Solo” is more about the rise in the number of people living alone, and not so much about leading or following, but one part of it spoke to me, especially. Because when you think about millions of people living alone, you have to wonder about our communities of faith, which have tended to be congregational, and social, and family-based.
Do these new singles sound like followers, in the old-school mode, with Mom, Dad and the kids going to church together, and Moms and Dads teaching church school to their neighbors’ children?
Meanwhile, all those singles, sitting at home after work, checking out Facebook, watching TV… They do get bored and feeling out of touch. (Yes, they’re independent but they get tired of having no one to talk to besides the cat…)
So — together in their aloneness, they do meet up. They meet for coffee and they meet for tennis, they get together to go hiking and biking… they join book groups, and they join clubs, and some of them… where do they go?... yes they do… they show up at church. Where, I expect, they join in good works, and lead discussion groups, and support one another, and follow along in their pew Bible.
Where they learn a little bit about this curious, never-quite-finished business of leading and following, in this new and unaccustomed present time. Leading people, and you can’t tell them exactly where we’re all headed, and following a leader, in spirit, that you can’t even see.
Where they learn that you follow because you have faith, and you lead because you have faith,
that faith is good to have, and you all together have a faith in common, and you have your own personal faith, too, and you need a little bit of all of it, I think.
Here’s your sound-bite: to be a follower of Jesus is to experience that tension of being both in the lead and in the sheep-fold at the same time. You have to have a clear, brave eye on the future, and you have to be back in the kitchen doing the dishes and waiting to be told what to do next. Doing both at the same time is part of what it means to be a Jesus church.
You know, when I first heard that hymn, “Lead Me Lord,” like I say it was on a cheap little radio in my painting studio, and I thought the choir was singing, “Lead me home.” Doesn’t that sound nice? And there I was, already at home! Not a single, or a leader, you know, and not much of a follower, I’m probably pretty much like you, just trying my best to be myself.
Sing with me:
Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness
Make thy way plain, before my face.
For it is thou, Lord… thou, Lord only
That makest me dwell in safety.
Amen.
Development News From All Over
[One result of Massachusetts' new expanded-gaming law in 2011 and 2012 was the interest shown by a casino developer in a parcel located not far from the southwest border of my town of Holliston (and not far from my house), in the town of Milford. The way the law is written, neighboring towns have no say in whether a casino ought to be built nearby, despite the fact that casinos have a serious regional impact. However, it can be hard to get the community riled up. In this satire, I imagined Holliston becoming hemmed in by all sorts of commercial development, yet still unable to hit the "angry" button.]
Hopkinton officials are set to unveil ambitious plans for a mammoth array of auto dealerships along Route 85 to be known as "Hop City." The project, to be developed by a consortium of business interests, will be situated on the town's south side, near the College Street intersection, adjacent to the Holliston border.
"Rather than worry night and day about future business development, we decided to take control," says planner Fred Fleaman. "It's going to mean jobs, that's the main thing. Construction jobs first, then jobs in sales and service. Maybe not the best-paying jobs ever, but you've got to start somewhere. And then you've got to finish up somewhere else. Anyway, we're going to need colorful balloons on an ongoing basis, and signs and streamers, and there'll be lots of work for cleaning crews, too."
Asked whether Holliston officials have commented on the proposal, Fleaman states, "The way the law reads, this is our deal. We don't have to get permission from another town to go forward with it. We need the tax revenue, and if there's issues about traffic or whatever, they'll just have to deal with it."
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. One official said that the best option was to "wait and see; there's not a lot we can do right now." A spokesman allowed that the auto mega-mall "could be a plus. Our people need jobs, too. What we don't need is a lot of ugly protests about this – that would be bad for the town's image. People looking to establish businesses here, what are they going to think?"
In related news, Medway officials plan to announce that a "huge" deposit of copper ore has recently been discovered during test drilling some 150-300 feet below grade, on the town's north side where it borders Holliston. Town planners say that the mine will be of the open-pit variety. It is expected to grow in width and depth as ore is extracted and more of the "substrate" is exposed. It will be called, simply, "The Pits."
Medway authorities are excited about having a big mining operation in town, where commercial growth has lately been sluggish. "It's going to mean jobs, that's the main thing," says planner Phil Flatley. "Yes, I know it's right next to Holliston. We're very aware of that. We're also very aware that the project is 100% on Medway land, and really, Holliston hasn't got at leg to stand on."
Flatley dismissed questions about what will happen when the mine grows big enough to swallow up the schools and other town structures it is helping to support. "People sometimes take an anti-business attitude," he argued. "That's the real problem here. People get comfortable having clean air and clean water and not very much big industry around, and they just dig their heels in and want things to stay that way forever. It's unrealistic! Change is inevitable," he declared. "That's how the pyramids got built, and the Great Wall of China, and the Panama Canal, too. Think anybody pulled a permit for that?"
Under a unique arrangement with mine owners, Medway will offer special after-school hours at The Pits to kids who want to get a taste of what real work is like, and earn some spending cash too – though, of course, underage mine workers won't be eligible for collective bargaining.
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. "It might not be a bad thing," suggested one official, "though we'll have to wait and see what the plans are, in the event that anybody shows them to us. It's true that the area is perceived as less than business-friendly, and this will go a long way towards countering that perception."
Meanwhile, Sherborn officials, as hungry for new sources of funds as anybody, plan to announce a major undertaking that will completely transform the western end of town, near the border with Holliston. To be known as the Shire Raceway, or simply, "The Shire," the sprawling development will feature a premier stock car racetrack the likes of Watkins Glen, with year-round auto racing plus several hotels, along with entertainment and dining facilities.
Brushing aside questions about the proper role of government, planner Fiona Farquhar says that Sherborn won't be linked by name with the new racetrack. "It's just the place where the track will be located, generating revenue for us,"she says, "and jobs, of course." Farquhar understands that Holliston residents might not like a noisy racetrack on their border, and won't get any of the anticipated revenue, but, she says, "that's just too bad for them."
In addition, influential Sherborn authorities have persuaded the state to block Route 16 where it currently heads westward from Sherborn center, "eliminating quite a dangerous intersection," notes Farquhar. Sherborn would prefer traffic to flow to The Shire by other routes, so the town will also influence the state to widen (Farquhar: "to grow") Route 16 from two to eight lanes from new ramps at Route 495 all the way up through Holliston to the Sherborn line. "Racing fans from the north, west, and south need easy access," Farquhar asserted, "and what could be easier? Plus, we'd like to siphon off some of that casino traffic for ourselves."
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. "It could be a plus," offered one resident, referring to the impending obliteration of the historic downtown. "Things have to change. It's going to mean jobs. You gotta break some eggs. Doesn't everybody know that?"
Hopkinton officials are set to unveil ambitious plans for a mammoth array of auto dealerships along Route 85 to be known as "Hop City." The project, to be developed by a consortium of business interests, will be situated on the town's south side, near the College Street intersection, adjacent to the Holliston border.
"Rather than worry night and day about future business development, we decided to take control," says planner Fred Fleaman. "It's going to mean jobs, that's the main thing. Construction jobs first, then jobs in sales and service. Maybe not the best-paying jobs ever, but you've got to start somewhere. And then you've got to finish up somewhere else. Anyway, we're going to need colorful balloons on an ongoing basis, and signs and streamers, and there'll be lots of work for cleaning crews, too."
Asked whether Holliston officials have commented on the proposal, Fleaman states, "The way the law reads, this is our deal. We don't have to get permission from another town to go forward with it. We need the tax revenue, and if there's issues about traffic or whatever, they'll just have to deal with it."
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. One official said that the best option was to "wait and see; there's not a lot we can do right now." A spokesman allowed that the auto mega-mall "could be a plus. Our people need jobs, too. What we don't need is a lot of ugly protests about this – that would be bad for the town's image. People looking to establish businesses here, what are they going to think?"
In related news, Medway officials plan to announce that a "huge" deposit of copper ore has recently been discovered during test drilling some 150-300 feet below grade, on the town's north side where it borders Holliston. Town planners say that the mine will be of the open-pit variety. It is expected to grow in width and depth as ore is extracted and more of the "substrate" is exposed. It will be called, simply, "The Pits."
Medway authorities are excited about having a big mining operation in town, where commercial growth has lately been sluggish. "It's going to mean jobs, that's the main thing," says planner Phil Flatley. "Yes, I know it's right next to Holliston. We're very aware of that. We're also very aware that the project is 100% on Medway land, and really, Holliston hasn't got at leg to stand on."
Flatley dismissed questions about what will happen when the mine grows big enough to swallow up the schools and other town structures it is helping to support. "People sometimes take an anti-business attitude," he argued. "That's the real problem here. People get comfortable having clean air and clean water and not very much big industry around, and they just dig their heels in and want things to stay that way forever. It's unrealistic! Change is inevitable," he declared. "That's how the pyramids got built, and the Great Wall of China, and the Panama Canal, too. Think anybody pulled a permit for that?"
Under a unique arrangement with mine owners, Medway will offer special after-school hours at The Pits to kids who want to get a taste of what real work is like, and earn some spending cash too – though, of course, underage mine workers won't be eligible for collective bargaining.
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. "It might not be a bad thing," suggested one official, "though we'll have to wait and see what the plans are, in the event that anybody shows them to us. It's true that the area is perceived as less than business-friendly, and this will go a long way towards countering that perception."
Meanwhile, Sherborn officials, as hungry for new sources of funds as anybody, plan to announce a major undertaking that will completely transform the western end of town, near the border with Holliston. To be known as the Shire Raceway, or simply, "The Shire," the sprawling development will feature a premier stock car racetrack the likes of Watkins Glen, with year-round auto racing plus several hotels, along with entertainment and dining facilities.
Brushing aside questions about the proper role of government, planner Fiona Farquhar says that Sherborn won't be linked by name with the new racetrack. "It's just the place where the track will be located, generating revenue for us,"she says, "and jobs, of course." Farquhar understands that Holliston residents might not like a noisy racetrack on their border, and won't get any of the anticipated revenue, but, she says, "that's just too bad for them."
In addition, influential Sherborn authorities have persuaded the state to block Route 16 where it currently heads westward from Sherborn center, "eliminating quite a dangerous intersection," notes Farquhar. Sherborn would prefer traffic to flow to The Shire by other routes, so the town will also influence the state to widen (Farquhar: "to grow") Route 16 from two to eight lanes from new ramps at Route 495 all the way up through Holliston to the Sherborn line. "Racing fans from the north, west, and south need easy access," Farquhar asserted, "and what could be easier? Plus, we'd like to siphon off some of that casino traffic for ourselves."
So far, reaction in Holliston has been muted, and opposition has been tepid. "It could be a plus," offered one resident, referring to the impending obliteration of the historic downtown. "Things have to change. It's going to mean jobs. You gotta break some eggs. Doesn't everybody know that?"
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Janice (2007)
Oil on canvas20" x 16"
My contribution to the Art/Word show “Women of Influence.”
Janice was my drawing instructor at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1977. I haven’t had any contact with her since then. I don't know where she is, or what kind of work she's doing, or even if she's still alive. This is a portrait of her as I imagined she would look some 30 years later.
Late in the first semester, she brought in some of her personal work to show to the class. From her guarded demeanor, you could tell that it was challenging for her to reveal and talk freely about her own art. I remember in particular a series of color photos she had taken, printed, and matted, each featuring a single raw egg yolk pierced by a dart. She called it her "egg-and-dart" series. Years later, I found out that "egg-and-dart" typically refers to a style of carved moldings comprised of alternating ovals and triangles, often found along the top of supporting columns in classical architecture, I imagine that she had heard the term during some lecture about ancient at, and that for her it came to suggest this other, more literal meaning.
I enjoyed the class. We drew from live models, including a woman who looked like she weighed 300 pounds or more, dressed only in a headscarf and banging out blues tunes on a guitar. Janice also had us draw a live mountain lion cub, a Guernsey cow, and each other's hands and feet. She taught us not to worry if we were middle-class; artists, she said, often came from the middle class, while the poor were too busy struggling to survive and the rich weren't looking for ways to work any harder. She taught us the being an artist, thought it could be rewarding, was not going to be a picnic; the world was not clamoring for more artists. (Clearly, she was also one to feel that artists needn't waste time worrying about whether their clothes were in fashion, although she didn't say so.) She told us to always sign our work, no matter how insignificant we thought it was. (I sign mine on the back.)
It seemed to me that, to an extent, she allowed her clothing and haircut to obscure her, and I have tried to convey this quality of her being hidden in plain sight.
Generous to a Fault (2010)
Oil on canvas22" x 28"
Text source: Joseph Conrad: The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897)
For the 2010 Art/Word production “Generosity.” I wanted to see whether generosity would still look so generous, if sweetness and wholesomeness were not part of the picture.
In Conrad’s story, the merchant vessel Narcissus, westbound from Bombay to London, encounters a violent storm off the Cape of Good Hope. The wind blows cold, filling the air with stinging spray. Without warning, the ship is knocked over, with her masts “inclined nearly to the horizon,” by what we would call a rogue wave. The crew, caught out on deck in their shirtsleeves, clutch at railings, ringbolts, lengths of rope and each other to keep from falling into the sea. With her main deck partly submerged, the ship appears ready to sink at any moment. Still, a day and a half later, she remains afloat.
The first mate, Baker, is crawling along among half-frozen men huddled in corners. He finds the ship’s cook, known as Podmore, muttering to himself. Sanctimonious, and no sailor, the cook has had difficult relations with the officers and crew all along, marred by a mutual lack of respect.
“‘Look here, cook,’ interrupted Mr Baker, ‘the men are perishing with cold.’ ‘Cold!’ said the cook, mournfully; ‘they will be warm enough before long.’”
Baker tries to squeeze past him, to see for himself if there might be any drinking water remaining in the upended galley. Podmore is offended, and it’s enough to rouse him:
“The cook struggled. ‘Not you, sir – not you!’ He began to scramble to windward. ‘Galley! – my business!’ he shouted. ‘Cook’s going crazy now,’ said several voices. He yelled: ‘Crazy, am I? I am more ready to die than any of you, officers incloosive – there! As long as she swims I will cook! I will get you coffee.’...The men who had heard sent after him a cheer that sounded like a wail of sick children.”
Time drags by. Of the crew, Conrad writes:
“The desire of life kept them alive, apathetic and enduring, under the cruel persistence of the wind and cold; while the bestarred black dome of the sky revolved slowly above the ship, that drifted, bearing their patience and their suffering, through the stormy solitude of the sea.”
The men begin to hallucinate, imagining that they hear voices. Presently, one of the voices becomes surprisingly persistent:
“The boatswain said: ‘Why, it’s the cook, hailing from forward, I think.’ He hardly believed his own words or recognized his own voice. It was a long time before the man next to him gave a sign of life. He punched hard his other neighbour and said: ‘The cook’s shouting!...‘They’ve got some hot coffee...Bos’n got it...’ ‘No!...Where?’ – ‘It’s coming! Cook made it.’...It came in a pot, and they drank in turns. It was hot, and while it blistered the greedy palates, it seemed incredible. The men sighed out parting with the mug: ‘How ’as he done it?’ Some cried weakly: ‘Bully for you, doctor!’
“He had done it somehow...For many days we wondered, and it was the one ever-interesting subject of conversation to the end of the voyage. We asked the cook, in fine weather, how he felt when he saw his stove ‘reared up on end’...and we did our best to conceal our admiration under the wit of fine irony. He affirmed not to know anything about it, rebuked our levity, declared himself, with solemn animation, to have been the object of a special mercy for the saving of our unholy lives.”
The men manage to right the Narcissus, and they all go off to further adventures. In the painting, I have imagined Podmore relishing his moment of victory, giving thanks to the God of his imagination. His looks like a supremely selfless act of generosity. But when the cook holds himself up to be all “meritorious and pure,” it rubs the crew the wrong way, and their gratitude towards him, for saving their lives, is only half-hearted and grudging.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Sarge's Story
It was watching Sarge coming up out of the basement that taught me my latest lesson in living life outside the box. Sarge is one of our two cats, a big mutt with some coon cat in him. I like him, but Annie calls him a "man's cat" and I suppose it's true, depending on how you look at it. He's not all that graceful and not all that affectionate; he'd rather sleep in the middle of a bare floor than curl up in the folds of the sweater you just took off. And while I don't want to say that he's kind of slow, it happens that things sometimes escape him. I know that feeling.
Standing next to the fridge, facing the basement door, I watched as Sarge tried to get through the doorway. The door can swing wide open into the kitchen, but right now it was almost closed, with a gap of less than two inches showing. He couldn't squeeze through, although he tried to, poking his nose into the opening and fishing tentatively with a paw, unaware or having forgotten that the door would swing out of his way with just the slightest push.
Only when I saw that he was going to slink back down to the basement in defeat did I go over and open the door for him. You can overdo this drawing of conclusions from events in the lives of housecats. But the episode did remind me of how the difficult things in our lives sometimes rule how we live and work. See, it's a big gigantic wall there, and only a narrow gap to squeeze through! I can't do it, I'll never make it! When all you have to do is push a little, and what seems for sure like an immoveable wall drops away, and the light pours through.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
“Cabbage on hold?”
As I sat in the waiting room at my doctor’s office, I couldn’t help overhearing the receptionist as she answered incoming calls. It was a busy morning on the phones, and she kept asking each caller the same question.
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