Open door January/February 2015
Letter
Table of Contents
from the
Editors
1
Helen McCrady
“God’s lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.” Psalm 97:4 Weather may be the single most frequently discussed topic among New Englanders. It is an “ice-breaking” conversation topic that never lets you down. Weather is striking: so varied, powerful, awesome, destructive, and magnificently beautiful that it cannot fail but capture our attentions. We all share it, suffer it, delight in it, and comment on it. Diaries and sermons from Old South Church members and minsters since 1669 reliably feature weather as a matter of spiritual concern. While this is perhaps especially true in New England, we are not alone. We have witnessed a tsunami of biblical and horrific proportions. Deadly mudslides, rapacious wildfires, thundering avalanches, vicious tornadoes, and humongous hurricanes like buzz saws appear out of nowhere, wreak their havoc, and then disappear … while we are left to deal with the consequences. The Scriptures are far from silent on the prevalence and potency of weather disasters, including drought, earthquakes, famines, floods, hailstones, storms, thunder, tornadoes, and wind storms. Life upon this earth is life lived with weather ... reminding us of the fragility of our mortal lives and of the transitory nature of whatever securities we treasure. In these pages, Old Southers share weather, its delights and dangers. Bundle up, it’s winter in New England.
Ministry Spotlight Boston vs. Chicago Rev. John Edgerton
2
Shake, Rattle & Roll Rev. Emily Click
3
Heated Argument Jim Brown
8
Scene around Old South
Featured
4
Funnel Vision George Sargeant
6
Old South of the Border Jean Degnon
Rev. Nancy Taylor
Opinion
9
Mouth-house
EDITORIAL Amy Perry
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
Chris Breen CHAIR, COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE: David Albaugh, Brian Fluharty, Chris Breen, Jackie Geilfuss, Jim Hood, Amy Perry, Corey Spence, Nancy Taylor
Old South Church in Boston 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116 Ph. (617) 536-1970 OldSouth.org Facebook.com/OldSouthChurch | @OSCboston
CREDITS Front Cover
Brian Fluharty
7 Jean Degnon by permission; 9 George Delianides
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ministry spotlight Weatherizing a Landmark
Helen McCrady
Mother Nature do your worst! Winter, spring, summer, or fall, we will be comfortable inside Old South Church no matter the weather outside. The Church’s recent Project AIR construction included a totally new heating/air conditioning system and the installation of over 130 interior storm windows throughout all four of our buildings. Our old oil-burning steam heat system was very inefficient and hard to control – it was either on or off. Some rooms were too hot and others too cold. The boilers could be running full blast and folks were still using space heaters and adding layers. Our new gas fueled system runs much more efficiently. Programmable thermostats allow staff to heat or cool individual spaces as needed. Our windows are as old as our buildings and very loose and leaky. The addition of the interior storm windows makes a great improvement in keeping warm air in and cold air out. Most of the windows are operable so one can still let fresh air in on a nice day. The scourge of summer heat will also be abated with the new systems. The Parish and Gordon Houses now have central air conditioning, and a state of the art ventilation system in the Sanctuary will move cooler air in and hot air out, making our worship space more comfortable. Thanks to Project AIR improvements, Old South Church can offer safe, comfortable, and welcoming spaces to our members and the wider community.
Boston vs. Chicago Who Has It Worse?
Rev. John Edgerton
I’ve lived most of my life in Chicago, and I’ve lived in Boston for three years. Based upon my evaluation, Chicagoans have it far worse than Bostonians ...
Boston Hurricane Remnants— Soaking wet and windy
Boston Nor’easter— Unpleasant, sideways rain
Chicago Derechos— So bad, you’ve never even heard of them.
Chicago Thundersnow— Exactly what you think it is.
Who has it worse? Chicago. Seriously though, derechos are awful.
Who has it worse? Chicago. Snow is supposed to be peaceful, not terrifyingly loud!
Boston 1755 Earthquake— Was felt in Nova Scotia, sailors at sea thought they had run aground.
Boston Built on a Hill— Named after a saint, with beautiful views of a striking harbor.
Chicago 1811 Earthquake— So powerful it temporarily reversed the flow of the Mississippi river and rang church bells in Boston. IN BOSTON.
Chicago Built on a Swamp— The word Chicago literally means “striped skunk” or, more poetically, “land of the stinking onions.”
Who has it worse? Chicago. The New Madrid fault line is sort of a big problem.
Who has it worse? Chicago. Even the name is unpleasant!
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&
Rattle Roll Rev. Emily Click If there were an earthquake in Boston tomorrow, what would you think caused it? Maybe you would try to remember something you learned about plate tectonics in a geology class. Would you ponder whether climate change related somehow to this odd, frightening event? We would be as shocked and maybe just as confused about its cause as folks here were when in 1755 a moderately-sized (estimated 6.2) earthquake and many aftershocks shook the region. I doubt any one of us would think that electricity caused our earthquake. Yet Thomas Prince, an early minister of Old South Church, drew just that conclusion about the 1755 earthquake. You see, shortly before the quake, Benjamin Franklin conducted his famous experiments about electricity in Philadelphia. Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm holding a key to the kite string. Lightning struck the kite. He demonstrated that electricity was ‘fluid’ because it was drawn out of the air down the string toward the metal key. A related, additional discovery by Franklin produced an almost immediate change in the experience of early colonists all over Pennsylvania and New England. Franklin demonstrated that placing a metal rod on top of a building, connected to a wire that extends down to the ground, would virtually eliminate the well-known risk of fire from lightning strikes. These metal rods drew electricity out of the air, and sent it directly to the ground underneath a building. Bostonians began installing “Franklin” rods immediately. Once these lightning rods were installed, they dramatically reduced the number of fires from thunderstorms. You can imagine how revolutionary it must have been to watch lightning strike these rods but not cause fire. They knew that the electricity had to “flow” somewhere. Many, like
Rev. Prince, concluded that the poor old earth got loaded up with electricity, which finally caused it to shake, rattle, and roll. Naturally they were very concerned that so soon after lightning rods were installed, a series of earthquakes now caused brick buildings to fall. They must have wondered how much worse it might become as more and more buildings installed these electricity-diverting rods on their roofs. But Prince preached something more: it was God’s displeasure that caused the earthquake. You couldn’t take away God’s usual way of expressing displeasure without setting up some other consequence. In fact, some religious groups today still eschew the use of lightning rods for the same reason: if God should strike us, who are we to construct a diversionary tactic such as a lightning rod? Harvard professor John Winthrop thought otherwise. In a remarkably insightful lecture, he described the way that earthquakes were caused instead by an “undulatory small wave of the earth rolling along.” He attributed the large amount of damage in Boston to the large number of tall brick buildings, not to God’s displeasure with Boston’s use of lightning rods. He scolded Rev. Prince for feeding the considerable anxieties brought about by the “great” earthquake and its many significant aftershocks. The two men fought it out in a public dispute via sermons and articles. The diversion of electrical energy created by Franklin’s lightning rod did not contribute to the earthquake in Boston. However, his invention did shake the foundations of society in significant ways. At Harvard Divinity School, I often speak about how the image of the lightning rod itself can be a powerful metaphor for the leader’s role in times of crisis. Leaders are to stand tall and send all of the negative, explosive energy deep into the ground. There is another significant way that Franklin diverted energy by way of the lightning rod. He could have geometrically expanded his personal wealth by patenting his invention. Instead, he offered it freely, so that no one should suffer fire unnecessarily. It might have been difficult for Rev. Prince or John Winthrop fully to appreciate the magnitude of Franklin’s invention. Its use today is little changed from the time of the original invention. We now understand it does not cause earthquakes. But it should remind us that explosive energy can be diverted away from harm’s direction. And it should also remind us of the holy generosity our dear Old Souther (by baptism) Benjamin Franklin offered to humankind.
Jim Brown If the earth is getting warmer, how can the winter be so cold? How do you explain such a seeming contradiction? What happened to all the warmth? Number one, it’s necessary to realize that the oceans make up 70 percent of the earth’s surface providing a great deal of room to absorb the heat trapped by the blanket of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2 and methane) that surround the planet. The downside of this is that this heat absorption leads to the expansion of the ocean in the form of sealevel rise and evaporation into the atmosphere where it helps to increase moisture and destabilize weather patterns. Last winter, as almost everyone knows, the United States was invaded by polar vortexes bringing unusually cold air from up north and distributing it as far south as Texas and traveling as far east as New England. Polar vortexes are not new phenomena and exist in and around the Arctic Circle more or less trapped there by the jet stream which circles the globe at a slightly lower latitude. A leading theory explaining the liberation of the vortexes southward from their Arctic home involves the melting of the Arctic ice cap which formerly reflected solar glare. Instead of reflection, the rays of the sun are absorbed which leads to added warmth in polar regions. The Arctic is warming at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world. This added warmth appears to weaken the jet stream which thereby allows cold from the vortex to escape to the south. Interestingly, this new weakness in the jet stream may push it north at times, thereby increasing the ever-warming temperatures across the globe and hastening the kind of droughts which have become stronger in certain areas such as California, the Middle East, as well as parts of South America and Africa. In addition, the evaporation mentioned above increases moisture in the atmosphere which contributes to the kind of extreme precipitation events seen recently in Southern England and parts of the U.S. It’s a scientific fact that the overall temperature of the earth is increasing year by year. Recent conclusions by the World Meteorological Organization show that 2014 is on track to be the warmest year ever recorded. Scientific consensus declares that this warming together with all the other well-known facets of climate change—ocean acidity, sea-level rise, glacial melting, as well as catastrophic storms such as Sandy and the typhoons plaguing the western Pacific—are all caused by human intervention. Weather forecasters work effectively on the scale of several weeks, but new atmospheric behaviors such as the inundating polar vortexes will increase with time, and make it difficult to predict any further. Unless we are able to put a stop to the causes of climate change, what is now considered “prevailing” will become more capricious and chaotic with time.
George Sargeant
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In addition to serving as Old South Church’s Associate Organist and Choirmaster, I make a hobby of chasing tornadoes. For each of the last five years, I have taken a two-week excursion to the Great Plains to witness the myriad atmospheric wonders Mother Nature has to offer. My fascination with severe weather in general and tornadoes in particular dates back to early 1974, when I was nine years old. One of my great-grandmothers died just before the “Super Outbreak” spawned 147 tornadoes across the Midwest and Deep South on April 3rd and 4th. My family lived in Waverly, New York at the time, and on the way home from the wake in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, we drove through a nighttime thunderstorm associated with the system that triggered the outbreak. While this thunderstorm did not produce a tornado, it did feature nearly continuous lightning. I can remember being terrified yet strangely curious. During the fifth and sixth grades, after my family had settled in Erin, New York, my science classes were shown two public safety films about tornadoes. These piqued my curiously further, much to my father’s chagrin. Because tornadoes are relatively infrequent in upstate New York, he would put a stop to my chatter by insisting that I would never see a tornado. However, on May 2, 1983, just over a month before I graduated from high school, a strong tornado passed through the southern part of my county barely ten miles from where we lived. It injured six people and did extensive property damage. Though I did not see it, I did experience 15 minutes of intense thunder, lightning, and wind. A few days later, my father drove us to see the destruction. After that, he stopped claiming that I would never see a tornado. Another close encounter took place in 1985 towards the end of my sophomore year of college. I did my undergraduate work at, today, Ashland University in Ohio. Away from the Northeast and the West Coast, cities and towns are more likely to have sirens to alert that a tornado may be on the way. When a weak, short-lived tornado touched down in a rural part of the county, the sirens were sounded. To this day, this is my only experience of hearing tornado sirens during an actual tornado warning. The music director at the church I attended (who was one of my musical mentors) later took me to see the damage. After I moved to Boston in 1987 to begin my graduate studies at Boston University School of Theology, my severe weather fascination was put on the back burner for a while as I worked to start my career. Through the 1990s not much attracted my attention weather-wise, though I do distinctly remember the deadly Great Barrington tornado on Memorial Day 1995. That storm had lost its tornadic potential by the time it reached Boston, but it still provided a spectacular nighttime lightning show.
When the 2000s rolled around, my obsession reasserted itself with a vengeance. I bought my first DVDs about tornadoes and gradually became aware that other people shared my interest. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 34, but once I had it I made up for lost time by taking long trips. I traveled to Florida, the lightning capital of the United States, in 2002 and 2003, and took a cross-country drive in 2007 during which I saw the Great Plains for the first time. Everywhere I went I encountered thunderstorms far more intense than those I had seen in the Northeast. I spontaneously chased a thunderstorm across the Arizona desert during my 2007 trip without really knowing what I was doing. Still, my first tornado continued to elude me. I now began to consider dedicating an entire trip to seeing a tornado. That meant learning how to find and observe them while keeping myself safe. I established contacts in the online storm chasing community and learned the basics of meteorology and how to read weather radar. I even became a trained spotter with the Skywarn program. Finances precluded chasing in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, I was ready to go. On June 11th, I saw my first tornado north of Burlington, Colorado, but it was only a fleeting glimpse. It was a nighttime storm with lightning as my only illumination … I couldn’t celebrate the moment I had waited for all my life until several weeks later. An online acquaintance pulled a still image from my video and confirmed what I thought I had seen. I had my greatest success in 2011, a year that will be long remembered for its unusually high tornadic activity. Notable events included the April 27-28th Super Outbreak, against which the 1974 Super Outbreak paled in comparison, and during which a tornado struck my childhood hometown of Erin. Not to be forgotten were the devastating Joplin, Missouri tornado on May 22nd and the June 1st tornado that struck right here in Massachusetts, cutting a 39-mile path through Springfield and several other towns. I left on my chase ten days later and saw two tornadoes in Nebraska: one near McCook on June 19th and the other near York the next day. The latter remains the best view I have ever had of a tornado. The past three years have been comparatively quiet, tornado-wise, and I have only seen one tornado during my last three trips, once again near Burlington, Colorado on June 17, 2013. My next chase will begin on June 8, 2015 and will feature a “twist,” so to speak, that combines my hobby with my career. After two weeks of chasing, I will head to Lincoln, Nebraska and play a recital at our sister UCC “flagship” church, First-Plymouth Congregational. The hunt is on.
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Jean Degnon
It’s hard to say how this phenomenon started. It really varies from individual to individual, but all of us would probably agree that San Miguel de Allende worked its magic on us. By this winter, there will be upwards of a dozen Old South Church members, past and present, spending significant amounts of time in this colonial town in the high desert of central Mexico. I first visited there in the 60s, when I spent a summer as leader of an exchange group in a nearby town. I met my husband Phil there in 1969; he was “dropping out”, trying to be a writer after a stint in the Navy and at IBM. Already in those days, the town was a mecca for ex-pat artists and writers, and it has become even more so today. Ironically, in 30 years of marriage, we only returned to the mountain town once, but after Phil died, San Miguel started
calling to me. I celebrated a big birthday there with a group of friends, including church member Maddie Burke, and scattered some of Phil’s ashes in the town plaza. Around this time (ten years ago), Pam and Bill Amidon started spending several months there; they have since moved to San Miguel full-time. I bought a house there as well, on a whim, feeling that things had come full-circle. I have been blessed with several more Old South friendships in San Miguel: Anna Yoder and Diane Gaucher have both visited various times, and Alice Verhoeven, Suzanne Bacon, and Jennifer and Ken Girvin all spend a month or more. Former church members Tread and Mark Strickland moved there full-time. This winter, we expect visits from Tom and Nancy Bulkeley and John Weingartner.
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One factor which unites most of “Old South of the Border” is the non-profit organization Feed the Hungry San Miguel. This program has provided and operated kitchens at 35 schools in poor, rural communities near town, providing nutritious meals to children who often went hungry before, plus starting school gardens and grey-water reclamation programs. In one of these communities, the poorly-named Los Ricos de Abajo (“the rich ones from down below” who are really the poor ones from a hard-scrabble, rocky mountain top), a tutoring program began. Pam Amidon was one of the first to start teaching English to the children at Los Ricos. Since then, a group of us have “adopted” this school and community, expanding the teaching program to include kindergarten and adult education, tutoring the kids who have gone on to middle school, building a substantial library, and providing scholarships to those kids who have exceeded the 6th grade. When we began, almost no one went on; now, with scholarship aid and our constant message that education is a way out of the cycle of poverty, every child goes on to middle school, most to high school, and, this year, our first kids are starting university! The library has become a very popular part of the school, thanks to book donations from back home: Friends of the Boston Public Library, facilitated by Eleanor Jensen; the Hurley School, a bilingual public school in the South End, facilitated by Suzanne Bacon; and More than Words, which re-sells gently-used books and provides job training for at-risk youth. Many Old Southers and other visitors have helped this effort by carrying duffel bags full of books when they visit San Miguel! Old South Church has provided funds for other needs at Los Ricos over the years through the Christian Service and Outreach Committee, and many church members have sponsored scholarships. Teachers include both Amidons, Alice Verhoeven, Suzanne Bacon, and myself. We eagerly look forward to the start of our teaching schedule in January.
They have instituted the Old South-inspired practice of inclusive language, and Pam sings in the choir, as she did for years back in Boston. We all appreciate the rich religious traditions of Mexico, some unique to the region around San Miguel. Day of the Dead celebrations are colorful and moving, though lately somewhat tinged with Halloween customs imported from the neighbors to the north. At Christmastime, there are posadas, processions which recreate the journey of Mary and Joseph to find room at the inn (posada). The Semana Santa, or Holy Week, observations are elaborate and among the bestknown in the country, if not the world. Often these Catholic traditions include a heavily indigenous component with processions of the faithful in full tribal dress. (Syncretism is alive and well in many Latin American countries which have a large indigenous population.) A San Miguel cabbie once told me that there are only 11 days—out of 365—that are NOT festival days in San Miguel. It is not unusual to turn a corner and find a neighborhood procession for the local saint’s day in full gear, with music, fireworks, and great street food—and all are invited to participate!
Time spent in San Miguel tends to be busy and enjoyable. Most of us do volunteer work in addition to teaching at Los Ricos. There are dozens of cultural events every day. Many study Spanish, and take advantage of the lectures and courses available. The Amidons have been very involved with a start-up church, the Community Church.
Mexico and her people are up against a lot of problems; there is no denying that. But, in my experience, the Mexicans are a generous, hard-working, forgiving people. They are proud of their rich history and culture, and love sharing it with those of us who are blessed to spend time among them.
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Rev. Nancy Taylor steals a moment with Baby Jesus and the (extended) Holy Family during Christmas Eve Family Worship, December 24th. (Colin Pape)
Funny faces, fun times at the Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser, November 16th. (Colin Pape)
SCENE around Old South Church
Voices, big and small, make joyful noise at Thanksgiving Festival Worship, November 23rd. (George Delianides)
Come for the worship, stay for the cookies at Thanksgiving Festival Worship, November 23rd. (Delianides)
All hands on deck at the Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser, November 16th. (Pape)
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Mouth-house
English translation of the German “Mundhaus”, a term used by Martin Luther for a Protestant Christian church, emphasizing that God’s word is an acoustical affair.
What are your snowstorm traditions? “We have a snow church! Luckily, we can walk about six blocks to the First Congregational Church of Melrose. So, we don’t worry about shoveling out our cars and trudging through the snow, and are greeted by the wonderful Rev. Dominic Taranowski, who says, ‘Oh, the Shus are here. It must be snowing outside!’ The congregation is very friendly and doesn’t try to get us to join their church, because they know our allegiance is with Old South.” The Shu Family
“We love a good pajama day, followed by time shoveling and playing in the snow. ” The Grant Family
“Hot chocolate, a good book, a fluffy quilt, and watching the snow fall.” Bethany Johnson
“Making angels in the snow with my sisters.” Holly Fletcher
“When I was a young child, building an awesome snow cave with my brother.” Nancy Taylor
Old South Church is a vibrant and historic congregation of the United Church of Christ in the heart of Boston’s Back Bay. To check out our Adult or Children & Family Ministries, visit us online at OldSouth.org. Or better yet, walk through our open doors seven days a week.