I'm not at all sure what caused hundreds of extra readers over the last week to tune into Stuff in the Basement. A couple of days before leaving for the Pacific northwest, , I decided to run that Oostburg piece. I worried it might be too exclusive--I mean, all that Schaap stuff and all that Oostburg stuff--and not a sermon, nary a sermon to be found.
I guess I'm thinking that a really great sermon can make something concrete and lasting out of a volatile mixture of scriptural truth and the war-torn spirit we carry from life's experience. I've never considered myself a preacher, despite writing hundreds of pieces that have almost always contained a rather obvious moral tone, even called "devotionals." But I know the difference between "preachin' and singin'" as James Russell Lowell once explained about himself and his work. I've always considered myself a singer, not a preacher.
That having been said, the huge Oostburg essay is a ton of singing, and I couldn't help but wonder how all of that Schaap identity stuff would be taken by the people who sat in the pews that night. You walk into church, and it's full--you can't help but think you're going to get a good timber-shaking, knees-knocking, rip-roaring sermon.
No sir and no ma'am. This Schaap guy basically set out to lecture the bunch on history and squirrel a way through it with his own boyhood and family saga without a real live homily at all.
I needed to show them how Oostburgian the guy in the blonde pulpit up front really was, how when my Mom and Dad got hitched, it was thoroughly a downtown Oostburg event--Dad from the parsonage on the north side and Mom from the blacksmith shop across Main, nary a half block between 'em.
The numbers have floored me. My guess is that some Oostburgians got wind of that speech getting some air time long, long ago, passed the news around at Judy's (the cafe, not my sister), and enlisted a ton of locals to follow it alone. No single day has topped 300 readers, but they've been close, and who knows but some who've read some early chunks might just return for another piece of anniversary cake.
Whoever you are, I hope, deeply, that it was worth your trouble to wander out here to the prairie and follow along.
Honestly, I'm deeply thankful.
1 comment:
I attended this edifice as a youngster when Rev. Reinstra put the fear of God in me with his “fire & brimstone” style. I watched ladies break-off a heel by inadvertently stepping on or into a floor heat register. The lighting was great andi think the glass laden shades made it into the new church. Saturday catechism and sabbath Sunday School are indelibly embedded in my memories. I loved your essay but when I finished I had to self-examine for Dutch Elm disease. Thanks for the nostalgic visit!
Post a Comment