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January 18, 2005

Man, it’s cold this morning. Fourteen below wind-chill. We were digging out ski masks and scarves from the hall closet and my third grader looked like an overstuffed care bear when I finally deposited him on Mr. Bill’s school bus.  The walk back to the house convinced me to forgo my morning’s outdoor run in favor of the YMCA’s treadmill; the very Y, by the way, where I have recently managed by persistence and rhetorical brilliance-- you may substitute the word “whining” here if you like -- to have CNN included among the gym’s cable TV options. (I was originally told that CNN was too “liberal”!) But before I pack my ditty bag I figured I’d type a few words…

I spent a wonderful weekend with the Burkett family in Granville, Ohio where I played Saturday night at the First Baptist Church. Tom Burkett had seen me open a show back in November at the Columbus Music Hall and had invited me to appear at a Baptist Peace Convocation and concert celebrating Dr, King’s birthday. I was picked up at the airport by the church’s pastor, Rick Mixon.

Rick insisted on being called by his first name. He’s a real easy going guy; very unassuming. Indeed we were 20 minutes into the ride before I realized he was a man of the cloth. I was asking him about the church where I was to perform and he explained that the American Baptist Church, like almost everybody else these days, was wrestling with some big issues. Because the congregation in Granville had decided it wanted to remain a welcoming and affirming church they had been bounced out of their local diocese. (The Ohio church was fortunately adopted by a more progressive diocese of Rochester, NY.) I made a crack that the last thing any Christian church would want to be was welcoming and affirming. He smiled and said that they were all pretty much welcoming. The affirming part was trickier however. Most churches preferred to see themselves as transforming. Rick liked my song, “Not with my Jesus”. I got a good sense of the flock through the shepherd. His old Volvo station wagon had a good heater and we got so engrossed in our conversation that he almost missed the highway turn-off into Granville.

The show went great. I met and talked with a lot of very kind people. It was an all ages event and I included songs from every CD. I did some brand new songs which seemed to reach folks. (Rick later told me his favorite song of the night was my new one “Gerda”; exclaiming, “That’s a song!”)

The audience heard a lot of music Saturday night and I had begun to think I had played one too many as I introduced my last number. I was really touched and surprised by the immediate standing ovation. In the encore I played “This Land is Your Land” and we shook the church’s recently replaced -but still leaking- roof with our voices. I attempted to finish with “Only One” but for some reason the song wouldn’t’ come. I took three runs at it but couldn’t make it through the first verse. Simply couldn't remember how it went. A beautiful eight year old girl in the front row volunteered to sing it for me and, in a clear lovely voice, Anna Burkett led me back to my song. It was such a powerful metaphor for me; for my work. 

I had to be at the airport by noon the next day but was able to attend some of the morning service. The choir was righteous and uplifting. The preacher, a man named Gary, was speaking truth.  He had an animated delivery that reminded me a little of Chris Rock. Christ's ministry, he said, after a spirited gospel reading by a handsome young woman in the front row, was about two things: mercy and hospitality. In Jesus’ day, he explained, hospitality was very important. It was governed by strict convention and extended only to those who could reciprocate. In other words you welcomed and fed only the folks who could welcome and feed you; preferably those who could help you to advance your own station in life. Do unto others who can do better for you. Christ turned that upside down. Sure he’d eat with rich folks, but he’d also be inviting the poor, the sick, and the outcasts to the table. The preacher then held up a newspaper with a headline that told of millions of dollars of additional cuts in local school funding. “This” he cried “is about hospitality!” How do we welcome the poorest among us to this world?  How do we include them at the table? Education!   

The preacher went on to build a case that our country's traditional way of funding education -by property taxes – gives the poorest children the poorest schools and therefore the poorest opportunities. This was a violation of hospitality. He further claimed that the unrelenting withdrawal of what little federal support  our school systems did receive was contrary to everything Christ was about. The irony that the tax cuts that necessitated these eviscerations were being carried out by politicians who pretend to be acting in God’s name – the true violation of the third commandment’s proscription against using that name in vain- was inescapable and cruel.

I didn’t get to hear the rest of the sermon.  Tom had to drive me to the plane and it was snowing pretty hard. I said goodbye to that welcoming and affirming place and threw my guitar in the back of the Burkett’s Prius.  Sure had a lot to chew on during my flight home.

Thanks Tom.

Peace,

John