Christian Music, Divorce, & Triathlons: An Interview with Big Tent Revival’s Spence Smith @TheHuffingtonPost

When I talked to Spence Smith, a founding member of the five-time Grammy-nominated band Big Tent Revival, he had just come back from a run, which was appropriate given that Smith is a triathlete who took up the sport after a divorce left him feeling like a failure.

These days, if Smith picks up his drum sticks, it’s usually to play with one of the bands he collaborates with as an artist relations professional with the international aide agency Compassion International. He’s also a social media and marketing consultant.

On a trip to Ecuador earlier this year, Smith asked a Compassion coworker to marry him. She said yes.

Scheller: How do you maintain your faith and spiritual life both in the Christian music industry and traveling so much?

Smith: I grew up in the Church of Christ, which is notorious for no instruments in worship. … So when our band formed, I was not listening to Christian music. I did not know there was a Christian music industry. I just knew that there was this guy named Michael W. Smith and this girl named Amy Grant out there. …

When we started the band, we started because we really loved music and we really loved Jesus. That was about it. Walking out of the Church of Christ and into that environment was pretty eye-opening because I literally had grown up thinking — because that’s what we were taught — that we were the only ones going to heaven.

When you get outside of that and realize there’s tons of people in the world that love Jesus just as much, if not more, it really questioned my faith. What I realized after a few years of being in the band was that I wasn’t in this band because this band needed me or that God needed me to be in this band to help lead people into relationship with Christ. I really felt like I was in this band because it’s where God needed me to be to keep me in check and help me to grow.

So it was a growing experience for your faith rather than a destroying one?

Right. But because of that, you start walking through all these different denominations, playing for everything from Southern Baptists to the most Charismatic church out there. So you see everything in between. None of us spoke in tongues, so we played shows where promoters spoke in tongues and if they found out we didn’t speak in tongues, it’s like they were trying to get us saved again and that just wasn’t us. …

We ended up seeking out different people to walk alongside of us as road pastors or advisors or mentors. A guy that we had for a really long time who still does this for a bunch of mainstream artists is a guy named Michael Guido, and he was pivotal in our growth and in how we handled things relationally within the band. …

People always thought that we had tons of groupies and girls hanging around our band. For whatever reason, we just weren’t that band. … We took steps to make sure we were being accountable to each other and to the people we were working with. And so, I think that set us up for some pretty big success when it came to relationship and family and how we lived out our lives.

I will say this: there are lots of things that I experienced in Christian music that makes me very leery of Christians in general. Me, being a Christian, I walk very gingerly into situations where I know it’s going to be a heated discussion or a controversial issue, because most of the time I think they’re uncalled for.

What do you mean by that?

It could be anything. It could be walking into a church that you’re going to play at and all of a sudden you find out that the pastor is pretty egotistical. You basically want to kind of separate yourself from having to play to the whims of the senior pastor. If you walk into a situation where the senior pastor or the youth pastor is the big man on campus, and all of a sudden you’re 10 times bigger in popularity than he is, then it becomes an interesting situation.

We stayed away from issues that people fought about denominationally. For instance, our lead singer was very adamant about presenting the Gospel at as many shows as possible and giving people the opportunity to come to Christ at the show, and we were fine with that. That’s just part of who Big Tent was. In the process, we would go hang out during the day in this town, and we would ask questions like, “What’s it like for the church here in town?” Nine times out of 10, people would say, “We’re having a real problem getting the churches to come together to help this town out. These denominations just will not work together.”

Our lead singer would get up and he would present the Gospel and all these people would come forward and pray to receive Christ and it was all good. … Then he’d go through the whole line of denominations and he’d say, “We talked to people in this town and you guys have a real problem about churches coming together. Why does it take a show coming to town to get you guys all in the same room?” He would just encourage them to get in a room together more and to do things together. We really wanted to try to bring people together.

Coming out of working in Big Tent and working for Compassion has been an even more incredible experience because I got all that experience dealing with different denominations and people, and now I work for an organization that is very adamant about staying non-political and non-denominational. … When you walk up into the office in Colorado Springs or hang out with any of the staff, the denominational lines aren’t there at all. It’s that way politically too. … We have one goal and that is to help release children from poverty in Jesus name no matter where we go to church.

Tell me about Big Tent Revival. Did the band break up or go on hiatus?

We basically started forming in 1990. By the time we got on the road and started playing shows, it was around 1993. Our first record came out in 1994 and then we came off the road at the end of 2000. When we officially came off the road, we told people we broke up. There was all this record company politics of saying, “No, tell people you’re taking a break.” We said, “Wait, man, we gotta go get jobs. We can’t just tell people we’re taking a break. No one’s going to believe us.” We worked that all out and, about a month after we got off the road, I got this job with Compassion.

Since then, we get together and play shows every once in a while. … We left as friends and we’ve become better friends since. I think for us it’s just a matter of wanting to play together because we miss hanging out with each other.

How did you come to work for Compassion International?

Big Tent represented Compassion International and I really fell in love with the organization the first time I went on a trip. … I told the guy who was our artist guy, “If anything ever happens to this band, I’m coming to work for Compassion.” I didn’t realize that years later that would actually happen. …

When I got the job, it was a big risk for them because they’d never hired a musician. It’s been one of the greatest experiences of my life. … My job specifically is to work with artists and creative people. Part of my passion is to bring people into a bigger worldview than just what they’re dealing with locally.

Your other passion, I know, is triathlons. When did you start doing that and why?

I was coming out of a divorce about six years ago and I really needed to get my head together. I felt like a complete failure. I had failed in one of the greatest gifts we are given in life and I (we) just couldn’t make it work the way it was supposed to. The YMCA had this sign on the board that said “Running Group: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00, Brentwood Y.” I thought, “I work from home. I can do that.” I went the first time, I walked in this room and there’s like 20 ladies standing in this room. … I was the only guy that ran with them and they just totally took me under their wing. … It was cool and I did it for a year and I loved it.

I noticed at that time that I wanted to get stronger as a runner. I used to be a swimmer and I heard about this swimming group that was in town and I went to check them out and lo and behold, they were a swimming group that trained for triathlons. … I started swimming with them. … I did one triathlon at the end of the summer, and I fell in love with the sport. The next summer, I trained for triathlons for the whole summer. I did eight triathlons that next summer, sprint distance and Olympic distance. At the end of that summer, because of all the community and friends that I’ve made through that process, a bunch of us decided to do Ironman Louiseville for 2009. … I’ve been doing it ever since.

How do running and triathlons nourish the rest of your life?

There are good days and there are bad days when you run. There are some days when your legs are sluggish. I think life is like that. There are some days you wake up and you feel like you can tackle the world and things are going to be good, and there are some days when you get up and you’re like, I don’t even want to get out of bed. I can’t do this. But you have to make a choice. Part of this comes from going through my divorce. I chose to say, “I’m not going to be one of those guys who’s going to wallow in this and let this get the best of me. So, I’m going to choose to get up and make the best of it.” …

What I learned through training for Ironman is that there are a lot of Type A personalities that do triathlons. They’re very competitive. They’re very high energy. But doing something that’s an endurance sport separates those who are driven from those who are determined. Driven people usually quit. What happens is they drive, drive, drive and they go for it; and then they decide when they hit a roadblock, they’re not going to do that anymore because the path isn’t that easy, so they go a different direction.

Determined people will see the end result and when they hit a roadblock, they go, “All right, here’s a road block. How do I get around it? Does that mean I have to back up a few steps, take a break? If I get injured, do I have to call it off for a little bit? But I still have this goal ahead of me and even on the days that completely suck, I’ve still got to recognize that these are sucky days and I’m OK with that. There’s going to be a better day coming. So, let’s just get through.”

That helped me get through Ironman. It’s helped me get through difficult times in my life. It helps me walk with my relationship with the Lord in a way that’s much more honest and real than it ever has been because I have days where I have to recognize that my relationship with Christ is truly a relationship and he is perfect. I in no way can expect to be perfect. So I treat my relationship like I would with anyone else that I dearly love. And that is, some days I’m going to have bad days and some days I’m going to have good days. That if a friend is truly a friend, they’re going to be there for you no matter what.

Because you’ve talked about your divorce, I want to get some context for it. Was being on the road so much a contributing factor?

I was off the road by the time we divorced. I was traveling still, about half as much. No, it was definitely a relational thing.

How did you navigate that within the Christian world that you move and work in?

It was difficult, to say the least. Part of it was because she and I together in town were kind of high profile in the circles that we move in. She does publicity and we both work in the Christian music industry. So we definitely had to deal with a lot more than probably the average person would have to deal with in a divorce when it comes to stuff like that.

What I basically did was I just laid low. I set some ground rules in my personal life and I just made sure to not cross those lines so that I could be very accountable and know that I walked through things the best way that I could. There’s nothing easy about divorce. When we went our separate ways, even though it was rocky, when it comes to the friends and people that we deal with, we didn’t lose that. In fact, I think it kind of enhanced some friendships.

We only see each other two or three times a year at an event, but I would say over the past year, we’ve had some pretty good reconciliation on the level of friendship and respect. When it comes to dealing with each other in work-related matters, we’re both right on top of it. It’s been a real blessing for me and I’m really proud of her. She’s remarried and she’s doing a lot of cool things in her life, so it’s just been good.

I think the interesting thing is that it’s taken something like that to bring me into really discovering the person that I am now. I think walking into this next marriage, had I not gone through the divorce and learned what I’ve learned about myself, I don’t think I could walk into this marriage as well as I feel like I’m going to.

Congratulations to you both!

This interview has also been published at The Huffington Post.

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 Posted on May 17, 2011 by

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What Does It Mean to Live Out Vocational Calling in a Local Context? @TheHighCalling

David Greusel has designed stadiums for major league teams including the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Houston Astros.

Yet this principal architect at Convergence Design in Kansas City, Missouri, suffered for years under the message that his work didn’t matter.

“It’s all going to burn anyway,” he heard from fellow Christians. “The only thing that lasts is the human soul.” Dualistic evangelical theology taught Greusel that designing buildings had no value, especially designing the kind of sports architecture that is his specialty.

Only in the last five or ten years has the architect felt confident in his vocational calling.

“God has called me to be an architect, to design buildings for people and communities and that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. That’s my ministry,” said Greusel.

More than just creating spaces though, his design style confronts the nihilistic philosophy that has dominated architecture for the last 80 or 90 years. …

Read the article here.

 Posted on May 9, 2011 by

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Evil Through the Eye of the Lens @NJShorePatch

Jewish Federation of Monmouth County hosts documentary screening and discussion on Nazi-era progaganda; honors Congressman Christopher Smith.

April 11 022What do a Congressman, a documentary about Nazi filmmakers, and a 10-time Emmy Award winning director have in common?

A discussion about propaganda and human rights, of course!

Evil Through the Eye of the Lens, an event held at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Monmouth County in Deal Monday night,  combined a 100-minute subtitled documentary about Nazi filmmaker Veit Harlan, a talk on the difference between propaganda and art by acclaimed filmmaker David Grubin, and humanitarian awards for United States Congressman Christopher Smith and executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education Paul Winkler.

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suss is the compelling story of the only Nazi filmmaker who was prosecuted (and acquitted) of war crimes for the Nazi propaganda films he made. More than this though, it is the story of his family’s complicated relationship with its legacy. …

 Posted on April 15, 2011 by

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Clarence Clemons Asks: Who Do I think I am? @Manasquan-BelmarPatch

Documentary on E Street Band’s ‘Big Man’ premieres at Garden State Film Festival.

Clarence Clemens Garden State Film Festival 016Clarence Clemons had dispersed a crowd on the Great Wall of China so a filmmaker could record him playing his saxophone when a member of the crowd demanded, “Who do you think you are?”

The accusation can be heard off camera in theWho Do I Think I Am? documentary that emerged from the encounter and that Clemons premiered at the Garden State Film Festival in Asbury Park Saturday night.

Clemons narrates the story himself.

It was 2005 and he had gone to China in search of rest and alternative medicine after a grueling tour took a toll on his body. Instead his accuser’s question became both the title and subject of his film and a catalyst for a spiritual quest. …

To find out where his quest leads, go to Manasquan-Belmar Patch.

 Posted on April 5, 2011 by

 Art, Beauty, Culture, Faith, Family, grief, Medicine, Redemption, Theology, Travel, Vocation

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A Religious Treasure Trove at Princeton University @NJShorePatch

Who knew the Ivy League gem offered a wealth of free public religion events?

As a girl growing up in Point Pleasant Beach, I didn’t give much thought to Princeton University. It was the 1970s and I was, shall we say, distracted. If I thought about our state’s Ivy League jewel at all, I saw it as an inaccessable, dusty treasure chest full of academic stuffiness and snobbery.

If we’re lucky, we grow up and find out the world’s gems are much more accessable than we ever imagined. What a delight it was then, a few years ago, to learn that Princeton has a thriving faith community and offers a bounty of free public religion events.

It’s a pleasant 45 minute drive west on Route 33 and across Route 1 to the university from coastal Monmouth County and a great way to spend an afternoon or evening while enriching one’s understanding of the religious landscape. …

Read about some upcoming events here. Plus, where to park, eat, and shop in Princeton.

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 Posted on February 23, 2011 by

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Flashes of Light in the Darkest Depths: The Faith and Life of Blind Photographer Pete Eckert @TheHuffingtonPost

Pete Eckert is a unique artist featured in the documentary Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers. I reviewed the film earlier this year and talked to Eckert afterward about his spiritual and artistic journey. Here’s our conversation, edited for space:

Christine A. Scheller: As you know, I was exposed to your work through the documentary Dark Light, which is about blind photographers. Do you have any vision at all?

Pete Eckert: No. I have some light perception, but I also have phantom things that go on like crackling lightning and spirals. Somebody comes up and makes a loud noise; I get a big burst of white light come across my vision.

Christine A. Scheller: Do doctors have an explanation for that or is it just something going on in your brain responding to the noise?

Pete Eckert: The last 25 years or so, I’ve been actively rewiring the optic cortex. And so, it doesn’t surprise me when a sound will generate a visual effect. Somebody comes up and I don’t hear them and they grab hold of my shoulder, or if there’s a loud noise, I get this burst of light. That’s, I think, direct evidence that there’s a cross-over between sound, touch and vision.

Christine A. Scheller: What condition caused you to lose your sight?

Pete Eckert: I have Retinitis Pigmentosa (RT). My life is divided very neatly into two sides. I started to go blind when I was 27 or so. I had 210 degrees of vision. I dropped down to 90 degrees within just a couple of months. But I had 10 years of some central vision. I was legally blind, but I was a foreman of a construction crew at that time. I could shoot at the top of National Rifle Association pistol competitions. I made a lot of use of my central vision.

Christine A. Scheller: Was that a terrifying experience to go through?

Pete Eckert: It’s very emotional. RP is very cruel. You adapt and then some more vision gets taken. You adapt again and some more vision gets taken. Depending on how long it takes for you to drop down into complete blindness, you’re always suffering a loss. It’s as if you are watching yourself die.

Christine A. Scheller: What sustained you through that continual sense of loss?

Pete Eckert: That’s hard to say. I refused to accept blindness. I always pushed out into the world. When I got my first guide dog, we had some mishaps. I almost got run over by a train. A number of cars almost hit us. It was very difficult to adapt. Finally, at one point, I just decided my independence and freedom [are things] I’m willing to die for.

Christine A. Scheller: Did your Christian faith help you deal with the losses?

Pete Eckert: Perhaps, perhaps. I’m not really sure. I could see that something was taken, but something was given. You could call that faith. … I base my life on the Ten Commandments. But then, also on the tenets of Tae Kwon Do: Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self control, and indomitable spirit. The tenets that I just rang off there, they’re just reflections of the Ten Commandments. A lot of them, if you thought about it, they fit together. A lot of Christians, they forget to be courteous. And then, when you run into trouble, you don’t give up–you know the indomitable spirit.

Christine Scheller: You were a visual artist before you went blind. At what point did you begin doing photography?

Pete Eckert: After I was totally blind.

Christine Scheller: How did that come about?

Pete Eckert: I was looking through a drawer and I came across my mother-in-law’s old camera. … I like mechanical things. I was fooling with it and my wife came home. I had her explain what all the settings were. There was an infrared setting on it. …I have a corny sense of humor. A blind guy doing photos in a non-visible wavelength, that just cracked me up!

Christine A. Scheller: Your process and your photos are so meticulous and ordered that it’s obvious you have a particular vision in mind. Tell me about that.

Pete Eckert: Vision is a slow process. Babies, when they are learning to see, don’t fully comprehend what their eyes are bringing to them. Sighted people, if they’re sick or preoccupied, are not getting all the data from what they’re seeing. So getting vision from sound is like low resolution detail. As I sit in the room I’m in right now, I can hear the clock going off. The sound’s bouncing off the walls; I can tell exactly where my dog is; hear the arms on the couch. Sound paints an image. It does give you the details of your surroundings.

Christine A. Scheller: Did you research sound or you just figured this all out from your own experience?

Pete Eckert: From my own experience. Now there are fancy studies on how the brain works and how blind people can do this and that. It’s pretty much documented. I was just going by the fear of blindness on my own. Once I realized and I was so quickly able to adapt, I figured, “I know I’m going to go blind; I don’t want to go blind; how can I provide a mind’s eye image?”
When I walk upstairs now, I don’t count the stairs; I listen. When I get to the landing at the top, I hear the opening. I used to teach martial arts. Learning to spar at full speed is a very good test of how fast can you change the sound into an image, because if you don’t do it fast enough, you’re going to get tagged.

Christine A. Scheller: How do you know if your work turns out the way you’d like it to?

Pete Eckert: Think of the process broken into two sides: The event and the product. As I build the image–it’s in my mind’s eye–so I know when to stop. I know what I’ve done by sound and touch. I know where I was and where everything is. I develop the film. I take the picture. I do the contact sheets. Then I get some feedback. It could have a technical problem, say, I left the lens cap on and there’s nothing there and if I brought it to the lab and said, “I want this to be two feet by two feet.” I’d be throwing money away. So, this is economics. I listen to a description and match it up with my memory–and so, did I get what I intended to get?

Christine A. Scheller: So you’re matching that feedback to the image you have in your mind and that you want to project.

Pete Eckert: Right. I’m looking for confirmation. I let the people talk–it’s a gift that they’re giving me. Feedback is a gift. Communication is a gift. And so, I let them speak as much as they want. Some people go like, “Oh, this is really scary. I wouldn’t want this in my house.” Even a negative response I think of as a gift…. I’ve got a whole bunch of work that never has been printed. People either like [my work] or they really don’t.

Christine A. Scheller: The images I saw are really fascinating. One is called “Stations” and the other is “Cathedral.” Were they made while church services were going on?

Pete Eckert: “Stations” was not. There were a few people in the church, but they weren’t in the photo. “Cathedral” was done during Christmas Mass. There was a whole lot of work that went into that. I did a film test to figure out how much light was needed. Everything that I could touch, as far as my hands would go, I touched. I memorized the layout of the church. I know the sequence of a Mass. I know when what happens. …

The parishioners weren’t too pleased that I was setting up to shoot and I knew they wouldn’t be. I wore my best clothes–coat and tie. I washed the dog. (I had a beautiful black German shepherd then.) I also had the knowledge that Father Anthony was a friend of mine and he supports what I do.

A few parishioners came, and they said, “You can’t do this.” And I said, “Yeah, I did it last year,” which was true. And they went away. Then they came back and said, “You can’t use a flash in here.” I said, “No problem, I never use a flash.” They went away. And then, they said, “Do you have permission to do this?” And I said, “Yes, from above.”

If you think about it, the Franciscan Church–its mission is to help the poor and disenfranchised. A blind person who has learned a method to see, who is more disenfranchised than that? Who should they support? They went to [Father Anthony] and I think he just said, “Leave Pete alone.” When Communion came up, Father Anthony came [off] the altar. He came to my wife and I, served us Communion, and then went back up and served the rest [of the] probably 800 people there.

Christine A. Scheller: That sends a message of affirmation.

Pete Eckert: Exactly. He was teaching the parish.

Christine A. Scheller: What were you trying to communicate?

Pete Eckert: The Spirit in a church. I had tried to find a way to show the Holy Spirit. It’s very elusive. And so, this isn’t a direct attempt for the Holy Spirit, but it’s a direct attempt to show spiritual feeling in the church.

Christine A. Scheller: And the “Stations” image–what were you going for there?2010-10-09-STATIONS.jpg

Pete Eckert: This is a little bit more controversial. If you look at the guy’s feet, he’s wearing duck boots. The Catholic Church is having a lot of problems right now. There is a lot of controversy. The duck boots are for walking through the muck and mire of controversy. Remember I have a corny sense of humor!

Christine A. Scheller: Yeah. Now, I have to look at that again, because you really do! Are you Catholic?

Pete Eckert: I don’t know.

Christine A. Scheller: Were you raised Catholic?

Pete Eckert: Yes.

Christine A. Scheller: What are you working on right now?

Pete Eckert: I’m working on a series. It’s multiple exposures. What I’m doing is I’m showing the sighted world with people ghosting out and cars whizzing around, and then, in my studio, I’m dropping in these kind of wild figures…. I’m trying to show how it feels to be a blind person in the sighted world.

If you think about it, as I’m around people, I can hear them. I can place them. But, since I can’t see them, they could be spirits. They could be an apparition. … And so, some of the misinformation or misinterpreted information–I let that go into my photos. Even when I was sighted, if I was preoccupied or sad, I wasn’t getting the same data from my vision as I was if I was happy and very attentive.

One time I was at a crosswalk and the light changed and the guy standing behind me started yelling, “Go, go, go!” I wouldn’t move and he started to step out around me and stepped as if he was going to step into the street. I reached forward and grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back. A car whizzed in front of him, and he went, “Oh.” And, he didn’t thank me for saving his life or anything.

Christine A. Scheller: Well, I want to thank you for inviting me into your world and the fascinating world of blind photography. You have much to teach those of us whose sight is limited by our vision.

Check out reaction to this interview at The Huffington Post.

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 Posted on October 23, 2010 by

 Art, Beauty, church life, Faith, grief, Redemption, The Huffington Post, Theology, Vocation, Walkin' the Talk

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Art That Reveals Our Need for Grace @Her.meneutics

My latest post is up at the Christianity Today women’s blog, and it’s one I really love because the artists  it features are so inspiring (both the film makers and the photographers). I had the privilege of speaking to the artist who took the picture below and communicating by email with a couple others. What a pleasure! I hope this post makes you smile, and causes you to ponder your own limited vision. It begins like this:

After seeing an advertisement for the 8th Annual Garden State Film Festival on Twitter, I requested a press pass, thinking I might screen an inspiring film or two that I could recommend to Her.meneutics readers. The festival director suggested Newt Gingrich’s Rediscovering God in America, which I saw and appreciated, but not nearly as much as two other films. Both reminded me that seeing the world through another person’s eyes is often the route to both empathy and greater self-awareness.

Shooting Beauty introduces viewers to a community of people with cerebral palsy, first through the eyes of an aspiring fashion photographer whose career is diverted as she teaches them how to take pictures, and then through their own and each other’s eyes. The second, Dark Light: The Art of Blind Photographers, defies logic as it highlights the stunning art and unique vision of some of the world’s leading blind photographers. Yes, that’s right, blind photographers. And no, I didn’t believe it either until I saw their work and their processes for myself. Both films tell their stories without either pity or sanctimony. This is a significant accomplishment for filmmakers who don’t travel through life in the dark or by wheelchair.

Shooting Beauty opens with the first person story of Courtney Bent. She initially visits a cerebral palsy day program to photograph its severely disabled clients, but soon discovers that her own limited perspective distorts the images she creates. …

You can read the rest here, and join the conversation either at Her.meneutics or right here at Exploring Intersections.

[Cathedral photo ©Pete Eckert ; all rights reserved. Used with permission.]

 Posted on April 17, 2010 by

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The Art of Ministry @Urban Faith

My first column is up at Urban Faith. It was inspired by the International Arts Movement’s Encounter 10 gathering. That’s one of the speakers, David Sacks, talking about his gorgeous photography work in the photo above.  I interviewed philanthropist Roberta Ahmanson at the Four Seasons Hotel after she spoke at Encounter 10. Her talk reminded me of a book club selection from the High Calling Blogs network so I incorporated a bit of that into my column. The interview with Roberta was so fascinating that I pitched my editors at Christianity Today on using it as the foundation for a profile of her instead of just running the interview. They agreed and are sending me to Southern California next month to build on it. This is how my work often comes together.

Here’s a clip from “The Art of Urban Ministry,” which combines Roberta’s thoughts with my own and Bill Strickland’s and the Apostle John’s.

In his memoir, Make the Impossible Possible, entreprenuer Bill Strickland describes the images of his earliest memories. He writes, “What I saw as I walked to school each day was an unbroken landscape of decay that taught me indelible lessons about hopelessness and defeat no matter where my gaze fell.”

Home was different. There Strickland’s mother enlisted her children’s help in keeping their simple abode neat and clean. In high school, a teacher named Frank Ross introduced Strickland to the art of making pottery. It changed his life. With the support of patrons, Strickland founded the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild when he was just 19 years old.

Today Strickland presides over the Manchester Bidwell Corporation, a gleaming, expansive community arts and jobs training center in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Of this space he writes, “Anyone who knew me could see straight off that the place was built to offer our students the same rich experiences that had turned my life around. There was clay. There were art and photography. After a while, there were gourmet food and flowers…. And it was all housed in a sleek, clean, sunlit space that had been meticulously designed down to the last detail, to give our students the same sense of self-worth and possibility that Frank Ross’s classroom had nurtured in me.”

You can read the rest here. And check out this video clip of Ben and Vespers from the IAM Encounter 10 closing ceremony. It’s funakalicious!

 Posted on March 31, 2010 by

 Art, Beauty, Blogging, Books, Community, Culture, Poetry

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Poetry with Pinsky

First a confession: I’m in the meet and greet line after poet extraordinaire Robert Pinsky  read and described his work to a crowd from his (and my children’s) hometown of Long Branch, New Jersey, when the woman who had been behind me is suddenly in front of me. My hobbling husband is waiting at the front and, being both a little wound up and vaguely concerned about how long he would have to stand there leaning on his cane, I say to her, "You cut in line." To which she replies, "No, I didn’t." "Yes, you did," I insist. Then, with electric poodle hair and glowering eyes, she turns fully in my face and roars, "Shut up! Lady." Whoaoaoaoa.

I’m not sure I said anything after that. I think I grumbled under my breath a bit, then waved my spouse over and whispered in his ear. Not shy of anything or anyone, he reprimands her. We enter the Twilight Zone . Woman, to me, seething: "I’m the chair of the English department, retired. I’m going to write a short story about you!" Hah! Lady. What? Are you kidding? "Journalist," I retort. "I’ll write about you," and here I am, hesitant to embarrass an elder statesman of the field, but how can I resist sharing such an absurdity as dueling exposure threats? It is the one sour note from a delightful afternoon. Obviously, I should have just let her pass. Normally, I would have. What’s the harm after all?

I fell a little bit in love with the poet, I think, and was, probably like her, eager to get to him and, yes, to my own sweet spouse. On the way to the car after we have our brief interlude with Pinsky, I say to Jeff, "This is classic. I confront someone for being out of turn. They threaten me with ‘Do you know who I am?’ which never, ever, ever elicits the desired response, and our experience is sullied while she goes on to schmooze with the luminaries." When will I learn?

Robert Pinsky grew up the son of an optician, on Rockwell Avenue, which bisects the street where life was happiest for me and mine . It was happy there for Pinsky too. He called Long Branch  a town of "strong character" and "significance" in American history. Seven presidents vacationed there, lounging on or near the beach at the end of my street, which is now a part of Seven Presidents Park . James Garfield died in Long Branch . Ailing after the assassination attempt that eventually killed him, he insisted on traveling to his summer home to recover. Railroad tracks were laid to get him to the Elberon section of town. (Elberon is now the providence of Orthodox Jews who reside under the multi-town Eruv that extends the boundaries of "home" on the sabbath.) Garfield expired upon arrival. A bronze statue of the unimpressive president graces the beachfront promenade in front of the Ocean Place Resort. A worker from the sanitation department painted it gold one year, if I recall correctly. Not a great career move. About as wise as a public duel.

Anyway, Pinsky wrote a poem about Rockwell Avenue called "The Street." The woman sitting behind me at the reading was first with her hand up during the Q&A. She too had grown up on Rockwell Ave. and wanted to know why he’d written such a poem, about the seedier side of life there. She had been embarrassed by their street way back when. He said he had too … until he realized what rich material the experience had provided for his poetry. Everything is clay for writers.

The first poem Pinsky read was an entirely American one that basically said to Long Branch, to his ancestors, to all who would claim him, "I don’t belong to you or need you. I belong to myself alone." He then explained that once one stands up to stereotypes that threaten to define, one can wrap one’s arms around their own heritage.  His theme was lifted from a Zulu ethic he had heard on a trip to Africa. "We do not worship our ancestors; we consult them" … and/or argue with them … be they Jersey, Jewish or literary. Then he read a couple love poems to his home town.

Clearly Pinsky’s ancestors in the university auditorium on Friday afternoon were proud of him. He, the son of a "nominally Orthodox" Jewish family, was allowed to bring pizza home from Nunzio’s on Westwood Avenue, but only if he and his father confined themselves to the piano bench while they ate. Pinsky went to synagogue across the street from one of the town’s Catholic churches. On Saturdays, he watched lovely, forbidden Catholic girls going to and fro, and later was inspired to write "From the Childhood of Jesus ," a poem he said was about the two things he hated most as a child: Judaism and Christianity, because they tried to tell him who he was and who he wasn’t. (Read it and you’ll understand.) Later he would embrace both religions as ancestors. Judaism in obvious ways; Christianity as the keeper of his language.

Someone asked him why, as a Jew, he would write a translation of Dante’s Inferno . He scoffed and rebuked the woman. The language that he loves was carried along by the Christian faith. He said he isn’t even a translator, but a poet who redeemed the work from the literalists by giving it back its beauty … to great effect, I assume. The work has repaid him handsomely.

What I most appreciated from the Q&A was when Pinsky said it is no tragedy for artists to earn their bread through menial labor. He’d always assumed that would be his lot. He is a teacher by trade. Growing up at the Jersey Shore as the grandson of a bootlegger and bar owner, he had known many gifted musicians who spent their days cutting hair, etc., and, one presumes, their summer nights entertaining tourists. It is no tragedy.

Someone asked for a definition of poetry. Pinsky didn’t blink: "Poetry," he said,  "is making works of art from the sound of language."

The hometown boy served three unprecedented terms as U.S. Poet Laureate . Predictably, he claimed not to care about such things. He is very proud, however, of his Favorite Poem Project , through which thousands of ordinary Americans have shared their passion for poetry.

Pinsky won my heart because he spoke my native tongue in my native place. He is not just a writer; he is a thinker with a Jersey Shore sensibility. A sensibility that is no nonsense; fierce; honest; a little bit raucous and irreverent; beauty loving. Beautiful.

 3 Comments

 Posted on April 6, 2009 by

 Art, Beauty, Community, Culture, History, Journalism, Politics

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Losing Religion; Finding Art and More

    

Yesterday, my husband and I attended a book signing by former L.A. Times  journalist William Lobdel . The signing took place at a book store in historic Clinton, New Jersey .  The book (Lobdell’s first) is Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America—and Found Unexpected Peace . We were late for the noon event because we love Sunday worship so much, we were unwilling to skip it or tear ourselves away before communion as we’d planned. I note this because it illustrates how good people who go through similar crisis of faith often come out of them with very different conclusions. 

Lobdell’s book is dedicated to both his family (a wife and four sons) and those wounded by "the church." He and I lost our [investigative] religion journalism virginity simultaneously, though not collaboratively. We both thought we’d do God’s work by reporting on (or informing on) the seamier underbelly of American Christianity … only to find that corrupt subjects and their supporters often seemed empowered by the exposes’ written about them while we and their victims were accused of being tools of the devil.  

I read with interest his article on Trinity Broadcasting Network when I literally lived around the corner from the media giant’s world headquarters. I had visited the glittery venue myself for an essay on television indecency , and was consequently excoriated for inferior faith by Joni Lamb , one of TBN’s competitors. I noted Lobdell’s disillusionment with evangelists Greg Laurie and Franklin Graham when he wrote the L.A. Times  essay about his loss of faith  that led to Losing My Religion . Lobdell wondered how these and other reputable evangelicals regularly appeared on TBN despite the blatant charlatanism and allegations of sexual misconduct by its founder. I wonder about such things too. I wonder also what these evangelists and their Catholic counterparts think their role is in the deconversion of the Lobdells of this world.

During the Q&A, I asked about his wife, whom he followed from evangelicalism into Catholicism. He said that as he began to come home with increasingly egregious stories about her denomination, she too abandoned faith. As to their four children, I don’t know. One assumes their parents’ deconversion means something to them.

"Crunchy Con" Rod Dreher  also reported on the Catholic pedophilia scandals (as a Catholic) and later converted to Orthodoxy . Recently he opined that it may indeed be better for some scandals to remain hidden because exposure is so destructive to the faith of ordinary believers. I disagree with him for reasons Lobdell mentioned yesterday. Complicit silence breaks faith with victims, both those who speak up and those who don’t. As Christians, we are especially called to care for "widows and orphans"—in other words, those most vulnerable to abuse (James 1:27 ). We are also called to walk in the light (1 John 1:7 ); I take this to mean a commitment to truth, not lies.

Lobdell said that he’d inevitably be contacted by other alleged victims after his stories would run. They’d be particularly incensed if a perpetrator publicly downplayed his guilt. Dreher writes that he’s been tempted to report on Orthodox corruption, but has decided that his own and his family’s faith can’t handle it. This is a luxury many are not afforded: police officers, pastors, teachers, nurses, parents, other idealistic religion reporters. I trust that God will make right in the end that which is not made right in this world. I eagerly await the day when mercy and justice will visibly kiss. I know they did so on the Cross, but I long for faith to be made sight.

On the jacket of Lobdell’s book is an endorsement by John Huffman, chairman of the board of Christianity Today  and a hero of Lobdell’s. Huffman writes,

William Lobdell has written a heart/mind/soul-wrenching spiritual autobiography. He has been inspired by followers of Jesus who have served their Lord with integrity. But he has also been devastated by observing, up close, the ugly, sinful underbelly of a critical, self-serving, institutional and individual religion. This is a must-read filled with warnings and wake-up calls to those of us in leadership positions. I respect Bill for his honest reporting of his odyssey to this point and pray that someday there may be a future book, just as honest, with a grace-filled conclusion.

Lobdell said that before he lost his faith, he requested a change of assignment at the L.A. Times . He "couldn’t take another story." When he publicly confessed his deconversion, he expected criticism. Instead he received 3000 emails, the most his newspaper had ever received. Many of them expressed empathy and support. Mine was among them.

I’m glad to finally possess a copy of Losing My Religion . I think I’ll find it oddly comforting. Along with it, I’ve just begun reading Becky Garrison’s 2007 offering, The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail: The Misguided Quest to Destroy Your Faith . Garrison is another journalist who shines her spotlight on holy dirt. In this book she turned it outward. Lobdell doesn’t fit within her field of vision though. He is more a Materialist than an anti-Theist and, despite the blazing A  logo on his blog, he sounds more pink agnostic than bright red atheist. Could there yet be a reconversion sequel in his future? Believing supporters are praying so. If our prayers evaporate unanswered, no harm done, right Bill?

In addition to these atheist tomes that coordinate nicely with A Secular Age , I’m reading a book Christianity Today editor-at-large Rob Moll sent me some months back. Rob and I became friends after he wrote an expose’ on my former church group  and was excoriated for it in the blogosphere. We lost our Christian [investigative] journalistic virginity together on that one. Although he’s much too young for such a heavy topic, Rob is now writing a book about Christian dying that will no doubt be excellent. His research led him to send Jeff and me Walter Wangerin Jr.’s Mourning into Dancing . I find most grief books beside the point, but I do pick this one up sporadically and glean some comfort from this pastor’s experience with those who’ve suffered devastating loss. Anger and disillusionment are common features of grief. People of faith cannot thrive there though. Nor can they thrive in a religious gutter. It’s good for them us to climb out and breathe air that’s fresh and clean.

I felt on the verge of tears through much of Lobdell’s talk. His story tapped into a place of deep pain for me. The betrayal. The lost idealism. The impact on my family (with loss of hope and life rather than collective loss of faith). He described the molestation victims he had gotten to know through his work as having "hollowed out souls." I resonate with that description. My mother and I were talking recently about that part of us that died with Gabe. How, in some measure, we’re just biding our time now until this life is over. Lobdell believes that when it’s over, it’s over. There will be no reunions. No justice. No mercy. I find those thoughts both unbearable and untenable. Unbearable for obvious reasons, untenable because there is too much mystery and beauty in the world to believe it has no ultimate meaning.

After the book signing and a simple, satisfying lunch of lentil soup and egg white/asparagus/Swiss cheese omelet, Jeff and I happened upon the Hunterdon Art Museum , which is housed in an old stone mill. The building itself is a work of art and the "Cutters" exhibit was literally inspiring. When we came home and showed our son photos of the various cut paper and steel art objects, he got out the previously neglected daily origami calendar I had bought him for Christmas and produced a collection of his own. I was thus prompted to thank God not only for art, but for honesty, comraderie and faith. These are gifts that science may describe, but which it cannot explain. Sorry Bill.

 

Update: The Library Journal description of Mourning into Dancing as found on Amazon.com :

Wangerin, a Christian minister and imaginative theological writer, provides a splendid description of death, grief, and the feelings of those who mourn the separation. Wangerin includes four types of death: the primal fall or original sin over which human relationship with God was broken; the numerous "deaths" we each suffer on earth, as typified by the biblical story of the prodigal son; individual bodily death; and "dying absolute," or spiritual death. His primary focus, however, is the small deaths in daily life as typified by one family’s grief. Wangerin depicts human feeling convincingly; his theology that all death is related to the first (primal fall and original sin) supports his hopeful and confident faith in the purpose of grief as leading to renewal, healing, and resurrection. For public and seminary libraries.

Update 4/8/09: My review of Losing My Religion is here, at Her.meneutics .

 2 Comments

 Posted on March 16, 2009 by

 Art, Beauty, Books, church life, Community, Culture, Ethics, Faith, grief, Journalism, Leadership, Public Square, Redemption, Science, Theology, Walkin' the Talk

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Tonight at Drew University

Pulitzer Prize winning poet C.K. Williams will be reading. I highlighted his work in a previous post. My son and I will be there. Husband says he draws the line at poetry readings, even though it (poetry) was one of his best subjects at Philadelphia Biblical University. Update to come. For now, here’s a reprint (and, purely for your enjoyment, the marginally related updated photo above—symmetry, beauty, etc.):

Because he was always the good-hearted one, the ingenuous one, the one
      who knew no cunning,
who, if “innocent” didn’t quite apply, still merited some similar connota-
     tion of naïveté, simplicity,
the sense that an essential awareness of the coarseness of other people’s
      motives was lacking
so that he was constantly blundering upon situations in which he would
      take on good faith
what the other rapaciously, ruthlessly, duplicitously and nearly always
     successfully offered as truth. . .
All of that he understood about himself but he was also aware that he
     couldn’t alter at all
his basic affable faith in the benevolence of everyone’s intentions and that
     because of this the world
would not as in romance annihilate him but would toy unmercifully with
     him until he was mad.

—C.K. Willams  [HT: John La Grou]

Update 2/9/09: Poetry is meant to be read aloud, by someone who loves words and lets them roll off the tongue in just the right cadence with respect and passion, or roughness or subtlety …  as the words demand. C.K. Williams knows how to read his poems. Some were deadly serious; others light and funny. The hour flew by.

He began with older work, about dogs, women, intestinal gas, death, beauty, a suicide (the only one I didn’t really care for as he romanticised the act); then he moved on to a batch of unpublished poems about aging (and, with it, knowing both too much and too little), what he believes in (poetry) and Roe vs. Wade—that one was quite shocking, and personal, as apparently his poems are apt to be. They’re personal in the way that a gifted writer finds words the rest of us lack ,or, don’t take time to string together, to acurately describe the world and its mysteries.

Williams grew up in Newark, NJ, as did my father. (I was born there.) He was a Beatnik, Williams that is, and lived for a time in Paris. Maybe that’s why I liked him so much. 

I bought his Collected Poems, and asked him to sign it. Something I rarely do. What’s a man’s signature, after all? Especially for a book editor who’s seen what goes on behind the curtain. It’ll be a gift of remembrance for my son. He liked the old man quite a bit. I realized on the long drive home that I passed on to both my sons a love of words, and poetry. Now there’s a rare gem for a mother: something to be proud of with no guilt attached.

There will be readings by celebrated poets most evenings into next week. I may return on Tuesday night, if there’s nothing else on the agenda. They’re being held in historic Mead Hall, pictured below. Stunning building, given by a capitalist for the education of future Methodist pastors. A statue of Francis Asbury graces the lawn. Asbury, a circuit-riding preacher, is the Methodist for whom Asbury Park, NJ, is named. Wonder if Bruce knew that when he made it famous? 

 

 Posted on January 8, 2009 by

 Art, Beauty, Poetry

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New Jersey by Gabriel G. Scheller

Manasquan Beach

 

New Jersey, where it’s not too hot

and Gramma’s spaghetti always hits the spot.

I wanna’ go home, now you know that I been missin’ it.

I can’t get back; I’m lost like Odysseus.

Where I’m at is cool; it’s not that I hate it;

it’s just complicated.

I love Cali, but it’s over-rated;

I could spend a whole day out in the sunshine,

but I miss orange leaves on the trees sometimes.

I miss rainy days;

I miss light flurries;

I miss 7-11 runs and blueberry Slurpees.

It’s not Georgia that I got on my mind;

it’s my home, New Jersey, that I think about all the time.

I wanna’ be rollin’, kickin’ it with my homies,

going to Italian restaurants, eatin’ macaronis.

Without the food, a little piece of my heart is gone,

’til the day I can say I had good chicken parmesan.

I love my home ’cause

th-that’s familiar,

to get back buh-bak-bu-back to ma familia.

‘Cause when I’m home

they be buggin’ and sh*t;

we be huggin’ and sh*t;

just be lovin’ the sh*t.

A smile on everybody’s faces,

my little cousin actin’ up

so you know I gotta’ chase him!

Just hangin’ in the park, kickin’ it

with the old folks;

when it comes to playin’ chess, geriatrics

are no joke.

I go by the beach to catch the scent in the air.

I love how they talk; my accent is there.

I miss you house on Atlantic Avenue;

it sucks, ’cause I won’t

be comin’ back to you.

And you know Mike’s Subs are like heaven on a bun.

I can finally hit AC, now that I’m 21.

I be missin’ days, cruisin’ on the Parkway;

long trips to wherever,

playin’ stupid car games.

Philly to the left,

beaches to the right,

travel up to New York, where we party all night.

It’s been a little too long since we

lived in that happy home.

I need some crazy Jersey ladies

with big hair and tacky clothes.

So when life is stressful and I’m all worried,

I take time in my mind to

go back to Jersey.

[© Gabriel G. Scheller 11/05, Wheaton, IL; photo: Manasquan, NJ 2007]

 3 Comments

 Posted on September 8, 2008 by

 Art, Culture, Family, Friendship, Gabriel Gifford Scheller, Travel

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