Omaha Adventure

Rev. Kate Rohde

Given April 22, 2007 - Candidating Week

I’ve been visiting Omaha all my life ---- even, I’m told, before I was born.  Both my parents were raised here, met here, and married here.  And, after they left town and became the parents of four, we came back to visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.   I remember how much we looked forward to the trip! It was our summer adventure!

For many years we traveled from Oregon to Omaha on the Union Pacific railway.  With Grandfather’s help, my mother and the four of us could afford a sleeping compartment,   a little room with two seats that magically became an upper and lower berth at night, while we were in the dining car.  ----  the dining car which, in those days, had white table clothes, fancy menus, flowers, and well-dressed waiters,  and an upstairs dome car where you could look at the Rockies as you traveled through them.   We would get on the train in the afternoon, travel overnight, all the next day and into the early morning hours of the next night, before we were wakened by the porter for our stop in Omaha . Grandpa met us in the train and we were ushered into the majestic train depot --- bigger than any building in the little college town we lived in. 

And then we would go out into the hot, humid, summer night and smell the particular smell of rich vegetation, water, and heat,  that we would ever after associate with Mom and Dad’s hometown.

That, of course, was only the beginning of the adventure.   There was my Grandfather’s meat market in Benson ---- a place where he made his own hot dogs, and barbecued spare ribs in a store that smelled of the sawdust put down on the floor.  Even more exciting was Uncle Olie’s toy and hobby shop next door,  with all the latest board games --- at least one of which we could get for our visit.   There was Grandma’s yard where they had a swing hung by twenty feet of rope from the limb of a large oak tree, a swing especially for visiting grandkids, a goldfish pond, and enough room on the lawn for a game of croquet.   There was refrigerator filled with ice cream and soda --- things we almost never got at home.   And there was Peony Park .  It had a huge swimming pool surrounded by a man-made sandy beach and featured lots of diving boards and slides.

It had a miniature golf course where each hole represented a different country.  A whole section of the park was amusement rides.   On the weekend there were grandma’s Swedish pancakes.  Aunt Grace made beautiful miniatures that she would show us.  And uncle Olie took us to see him fly miniature airplanes. Sometimes there was a special trip to Brandeis Department Store for a nice luncheon and a special children’s menu where for dessert you could get ice cream made to look like a merry-go-round with animal crackers and a little umbrella on the top.  For us, a trip to Omaha was cause for great excitement.

I wasn’t too old, however, before I began to become aware that a trip from Oregon to Omaha in early August was not everybody’s idea of winning the lottery.   My parents’ friends would give my mother a certain “look” when she mentioned the trip.   Now no doubt, it was partly because most adults would look at nearly two days on the train with four children as an adventure they could do without --- I’m sure that was a good part of “the look”.   But I bet I don’t have to tell you that that wasn’t all of it. 

I don’t have to tell you that people who live on either Coast, even if it is in a small town in Oregon , frequently wonder why anyone would be interested in doing anything other than fly over the middle of the country.   And in Oregon , after all, their great grandparents had traveled two thousand extra miles by wagon train to avoid stopping in the middle.

When I announced to the small congregation in California that I am serving this year as an interim minister that, I would be coming here this week as your candidate, people were ---- kind.   They congratulated us and said things like, “You look so happy that we are happy for you.”  But I swear I got something reminiscent of “the look” my Mom used to get.

But when we got the call from your search committee asking me to come as your candidate we were excited.   This is where I had most hoped to be asked to come.

It wasn’t, though, about the past. There is a sweet nostalgia for me about the Omaha of long ago.  But my grandparents and my great aunt Grace died decades ago.  Peony Park is only a cement sign near a Hyvee supermarket.   Brandeis is gone, as is the Meat Market and the Toy Store. The elegant train trip from Portland is something of a bygone era.

And even though even a quick glance has shown me that Omaha today is a much more happening place: with lots of wonderful arts venues, cute ethnic restaurants, and an NPR station --- That isn’t the reason we are excited about coming either, though it is a nice bonus.

Part of my reason for coming was that I really liked your Search Committee and they assured me that they are very representative of the congregation. Actually, this year I was lucky enough to like all the search committees I talked to, but there was something about the folks here that made me feel especially at home. I had made up my mind that if they offered me this opportunity, I would accept. You can’t underestimate the importance of feeling at home with the people you work with in a church.   It wasn’t a surprise to me.   Even in the East, I found that I often felt particularly at home with people from the Midwest .   When I chose a seminary,  I could have gone to Boston or San Francisco,  but I went to Chicago,  I went because I thought I wanted something in between the Boston Brahmins and the devotees of Zen Baseball  ---- not stodgy but rooted.

But I also came because I was looking for a new adventure --- an adventure different that the one I looked forward to as a youngster, and different from the adventures I have had during two and a half decades as a UU minister.  I was looking for a new adventure in ministry.

The Unitarian Universalist ministry has been, for me, a precious opportunity and a great adventure.   Like in any adventure, there have been times of difficulty, but the rewards have far outweighed the difficulties --- and even the difficulties have been, as my family taught me, “learning experiences”.

I call it an adventure, because in Unitarian Universalism we conceive of ourselves and our congregations as on a journey, a journey with many events. I expect I am not alone in having learnt as my number one lesson to expect the unexpected and thus, to recognize, that life is an adventure.  Although I try to approach new situations thoughtfully and as informed as I can be, more often than not, things have happened to present me and the congregation with unexpected challenges and opportunities.  When we have had the wit to meet the challenges and invest in the opportunities, we have had wonderful results.

Before coming into the ministry, I expected that I would really enjoy the opportunity to preach and lead worship, and I have.  It is never easy, but I like to wrestle with the words and the ideas, and try to create something meaningful to communicate with those who gather in the pews.  The former drama student in me enjoys the act of preaching itself.   I am thrilled by the opportunity you present here to work with creative musicians and other staff and laity in the creation of a service.  I love the beauty of this sanctuary, and the way you have cared for it and how this space alone creates a feeling of peace and uplift.   I am especially appreciative of these things coming from a background where I had to work with congregations to build and renovate buildings, to hire their first musicians, to care for and beautify the places where we worshipped together. If I were your next minister, I would look forward to all these resources coming together to create a whole larger than its parts.

Every congregation I have served up until now, has been a congregation whose history was shorter than my own, congregations begun in the 1950’s or later.   Many had been Fellowships for most of their history and were learning how to work with a minister.   In West Chester , I was the first minister they ever called, and I stayed there for 17 years of their 50 year history.  In my very first church in Georgia , they had had only two ministers, both for very brief times.   Many of the congregations I served were small enough and new enough that they were not known in the community yet.   So --- much of my ministry has been spent in trying to help Fellowships establish a ministry and begin to reach out and become known in their communities.  Imagine how please I was when after working on this for many years, the Methodist minister said to me, “You Unitarians are always getting things going in our community!”  And indeed we had become involved in leadership capacities in racial justice, women’s rights, gay and lesbian concerns, and peace issues.  

So you can imagine how pleased I was to find in Omaha a congregation that has been around not only longer than I have, but one that was founded before the birth of my great grandparents!  A congregation organized just two years after Nebraska became a state!  A congregation with a long history of ministry with ministers both recent and long ago whose names I know and whose legacies still enrich you --- and a long history of lay ministry,  and laity that have, through the years, made a difference in this community and beyond.   This is a congregation that already has a place in the community.  For twenty-six years, I have been working with smaller, newer, congregations to have the profile in the community that you already have.  A congregation with the health, the history, and the visibility to make a difference in any area it chooses is an exciting opportunity for ministry.  Together we could build on that history, especially as this area is revitalized in the near future. 

One of the things I have most loved during my time in UU congregations has been being a part of the way they have made a difference in peoples’ individual lives.  That is, in fact, the reason I first chose the ministry.  I had been working as a social worker and I had begun to feel that most of the people I saw who were in the deepest trouble were not there only because they were poor --- although some were ----- or because the hard things that they had gone through had caused psychological damage ---- although that was true for many as well ----- I had begun to see that even when their finances got better and some of the psychological wounds were healed, an awful lot of them had something even deeper troubling them.  They had no reason for being.  They had no sense of a world in which their lives meant something.  They had a hole deep inside.  And I began to identify this as a spiritual or religious problem ---- although I had no idea how to address it. ( Nor, as a social worker, was it considered to be my job to do so.)    And, as I looked around at my friends and acquaintances in church and in the community, I recognized how many of us, also, felt a need for something deeper and more lasting than anything popular culture provided.  This, I thought, was the reason for churches, to be counter cultural forces to sustain the deeper values and meaning --- to help us find a place between the Trivial Pursuits of Pop Culture and the rigidity of Fundamentalisms of all kinds.  To be honest, I wasn’t always satisfied at the way our churches did this.   We UU’s can be silly and faddish or foolishly purist, we are human.  But at our best we can change lives.

Through the years the stories of the way UU congregations have made a positive difference in the lives of people I have known there through the ministry that the church,  the whole church,  ministers, staff, and laity working together, have provided,  ---- the stories have been many.

We all have stories of how a church has made a difference:

• I think of the young woman, mother of two small children, whose beloved husband was dying of cancer.  She was trying to support the family alone, take care of her husband, and deal with the worst thing that had ever happened to her.  Even though the family was not well known in the congregation, had not even formally joined, there were congregation members bringing meals, doing fix up chores, cleaning house, watching kids, and most importantly, providing emotional support through the long roller coaster of cancer treatment and the eventual death of her husband. 

• I think of a Lesbian couple from a small town in Georgia , who found with us, even back in 1982, a congregation that would bless their union in the church in front of friends and family. 

•  I think of two homemakers who had rarely ventured into public realms that the church encouraged to go to a church workshop for social activism.  Both became leading activists on racial issues in the community.  They helped lead the fight to name the new High School after the nationally known Civil Rights Leader who was raised in our city.

•  I think of the cute little red-headed three-year- old, who, over the twenty years I have known her, blossomed into a fine and spirited young woman. When she was asked on her college applications to write about an important part of her identity and an important moment in her life, she wrote about growing up in our church, and especially about the moment when she got up in front of the congregation to share with them her credo as a part of her coming of age class, and felt waves of love coming towards her. She is now at Harvard Divinity School working for her doctorate.

• I think about the shy homemaker, rarely noticed, that we convinced to chair the committee to buy and renovate a new building. She did a magnificent job, and became one of the most respected leaders in the congregation --- as well as a person who avidly welcomes newcomers and styles herself an evangelical UU.  

If we have been around a healthy congregation that is doing what it is meant to do, we all have hundreds of stories like that.  Stories about how the ministry of minister, staff, and congregation working together has changed lives.  Some stories are small:  the tough businessman who has a place where he feels safe to be caring and human. Some stories are big: the teenager with thoughts of suicide who, finding a place of acceptance and safety, also finds a new reason for living.   Here, with the resources you have, you would be able to reach out to many more people and make a difference in many more lives.       

A congregation is a human institution.  The best congregations and the best ministers have our flaws and we drop the ball.   We are better at some things than others, with some people than with others, better at some times than others.  Those who seek perfection might seek God, but they won’t find perfection in the church ---- just the reflection of the holy in the times when, as human beings we bring forth our best gifts within.  I have been privileged to serve with many congregations where we have made spaces for that to happen.

My past history with congregations has demonstrated to me how much congregations can do for individual lives, and as the congregation grew in numbers, resources, and commitment we began to have a real affect on the community.   What I find exciting and inviting about the ministry you and I might engage in together, is that this church has a history and a heft that gives you the power to do far more than most of our congregations, congregations, smaller, with less health and a shorter history of accomplishments.

Indeed, while the Search Committee checked my references, I checked to see what people had to say about you.  They had very good things to say.  In fact, one person suggested to me that you were a particularly good congregation that might be overly modest in how you see yourselves.

The next ten years will be a time of tremendous challenges and opportunities for all our congregations.   Change in social institutions and technology is faster than it ever has been and churches, even liberal churches, change slowly.    We have been slow to reach out, slow to change our way of thinking, slow to incorporate technologies that would enable us to reach out to those who are coming of age in the 21^st century.   And as faddish as Unitarian Universalism can sometimes be, we have been slow to embrace the new religious reality, a reality that could be a real opportunity for us.  We are in an era where brand names in religion are not important, in an era when religious pluralism is a way of life in families where there is a Protestant Mom, a Jewish step-father, a Buddhist Uncle, a Catholic cousin and plenty of people who call themselves, “Spiritual but not religious”.   We are in an era where the fastest growing church is not the megachurch; it is what Garrison Keillor calls, “The Church of the Sunday Brunch.”

I would like to partner with you, in finding ways that this church can honor its history and all the people who love it as it is, and yet become more relevant to new generations in a new century.  Technology allows for outreach we have never dreamed of.  Already many of our churches are reaching people by inexpensively podcasting services on the internet.   As our country becomes increasingly diverse, many of our churches are looking at how to build bridges to communities that we have not traditionally served.    As the way young people want to spend their volunteer efforts has changed, many churches have had to look at new kinds of way to do lay ministry.

In our conversations this week I want to learn about you and your congregation.   What has meant most to you excited you most about what you have found here?    If you could have two wishes for the future of this church, what would they be?  What journey would you like to take together?  What challenges and adventures might lie ahead?

I am ready for a new adventure in a good place, with good people.   I hope you, too, are looking for adventure.

Updated 09-05-2007 - wfr