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| Central Congregational Church (Providence, RI) |
I joined this church last fall and will be baptized by Claudia during the Easter vigil
service. As a new member, I want to thank you, and everyone in the congregation, for so
warmly welcoming me. It has been great to have so many
varied opportunities to join in shared fellowship. At the same time, I also
appreciate the respect shown for my pretty private, serious and contemplative
nature. Professionally, and by
inclination, I spend a lot of time deep in thought, and it is not always easy for me to quickly transition from that place into the public realm of “Hello!” And words, sentences. All the happy
sounds of voices sharing. So I might ask your patience. It takes me longer to
the swim to the surface than some of you.
I want to send a special shout-out to
my shepherds, Ann & Jim Scott, who couldn’t be here tonight. They went out
of their way to make sure I got introduced to everyone - when I would have been
much more inclined to try and blend into the woodwork, maybe for years. But Ann
had me immediately jumping in to work on the Gift Baskets for the Christmas Bazaar
– and it was a good thing. As was attending the Women’s Retreat, reading the
book of Matthew together by candlelight, helping out at the Camp St. food pantry,
joining the UCC- state-wide event, visiting the Coptic Church, being offered
this opportunity to share my faith journey (in progress) during Lent with you
tonight -- these are some of the special
events I have cherished, alongside coming to church every Sunday – a
fundamental commitment in my life now.
I could repeat what many have said
before. We worship together in an amazing sacred space, filled with luminous
music. As those that went on the Women’s Retreat know, I admire people with
beautiful singing voices. And it has been a delight to hear my own voice,
un-judged, joining a church filled with singing voices. I like everything about
the service: Rebecca and Claudia’s meaningful sermons, the Bible reading,
Aidan’s generous work building the next generations, getting to know so many
remarkable women – especially those older than me. (Shout out to Betty Selle - so
vibrant and inspiring! What a mentor for how to live fully at 94!!!) All of
this is giving me the strength and wisdom to imagine how to conduct a well-lived
final third of my life. I want to get this next phase of my life right, and I
am looking to this congregation to help me with that one.
So. This is my snapshot of the church
that I joined a short seven months ago. Everyone has been wonderful and I have
no regrets.
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| Central Congregational Church Christmas Bazaar, Dec. 2013 |
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| Nancy Austin at the Women's Retreat, Feb. 2014 |
But why did I come to this
church? In Providence?
All the way from Newport? What can I say about my personal faith journey
that has brought me to stand here in front of you? Here is the way I’m going to
try and convey that story tonight.
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| Nancy Austin at eight years old. A pensive me (May 1962) |
In my first memory of church, I
am in elementary school, and holding my father’s hand as we walked up the looong
walk up to the austere un-ornamented, tall, steepled, all white (in every sense) Presbyterian Church
in Westfield, NJ, a Barrington-like suburb of NYC where I grew up. I loved my
father then and now very much and asked him as we made our way like slow
pilgrims up to the church door that Sunday: "How is my Grandfather doing?" Since
I knew my mother had flown back to Ohio to be with my Grandfather - who was
sick. And my father, the Marine, looked into the distance, as only a Marine can
do, and said: “Well, Grandfather had a few crackers to eat last night, and then
he went to sleep." My mother would be back in a few days.
Since I was a child, and so much in
my family already struck me as cryptic, inexplicable and often, in truth, down
right secretive, I gathered that my dad, whom I loved, was trying to tell me
something important but I really had no clear idea what. And I shouldn’t press
the issue. No one in church that day (or
ever for that matter) said anything
to me about dying or my family’s loss or the mystery of heaven. We just each
individually soldiered on with our day.
Around this same time my father was
diagnosed with kidney cancer and had one of his kidneys removed. As it turned
out, my dad became one of the few people at that time to live 5 years after a
kidney cancer diagnosis. What is relevant here is that my parents were
tremendously worried. Rightly so. And this worry was compounded by the anxiety
that my dad would lose his job if anyone at Union Carbide far away on Park
Avenue in NYC knew. So they kept his cancer a secret that we were never to talk
about or ever mention to anyone in any way. My mother, raised in the Depression,
became even more draconian in her need to never spend money, have no debt and
save as much as possible. My father, who eventually died at 81 at home, with
me, of a different cancer, spent all those years under this private death
sentence and later said he felt that he never could justify spending even a
quarter on himself.
Today, I am better able to understand
how different generations are differently shaped by different world historical
events. And this spills over into church life. Perhaps for my father the
austere white church in Westfield reminded him of the vast acreage of white
crosses at Argonne Cemetery in France, where his Uncle Raymond and 14,000 other
American soldiers had died during one offensive at the end of World War
One. Or, closer in time, the miracle that he had survived active duty as a
Marine, for the entirety of both WWII and the Korean War. I better understand
how unwelcome the 1960s were to my parents who were both raised in the Depression,
and deeply shaped forever by the trauma of WWII. As I mentioned, my father was
on active combat as a Marine Corp officer (mostly in the South Pacific) from
the moment he graduated from college until Oct 1945 when his orders to invade
Japan were stopped - in his view, just
in the nick of time - by the bomb. (How we argued about the V.J. Day Holiday here in Rhode Island!) Today, I can understand and empathize with
all my parents were trying to do in moving to Westfield to live a normal, post
war life. Although after my father got cancer, perhaps the normal was always
just out of reach, or maybe it was all they could do to take care of all the
many daily challenges of raising a family far away from the support of extended
families?
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| Our Family on Easter 1962 |
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| The Presbyterian Church, Westfield, NJ |
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| Easter Sunday 1966 at the Presbyterian Church in Westfield, NJ |
Both my parents were very active in
the church in Westfield, and perhaps they did turn to the church for their many
private worries. But in my upbringing, I don’t recall anyone ever stopping to
have a deep or forthright conversation with me about anything. Not that Sunday
that my Grandfather died. Not in compassionate response to any of the many red
flags I began raising from 4th grade on. Nor at any point in my
career as a promiscuous Girl Scout or on through high school Confirmation -- despite
many indications I was a girl with things on her mind, looking for someone to
talk to and hear me out. Indeed, my few tentative efforts to speak even
privately with someone I thought I could trust about what I had to say, …my
efforts were met with behavior not unlike the authorities in Rebecca’s sermon
last Sunday who wanted no one to disturb the status quo. … I still ponder the
questions: How do we learn to listen and really hear another human being? How
do we listen across generations and in changing times? What does it take to
stand up for the innocent and vulnerable?
I offer this anecdote with compassion
for my parents, to give you all perhaps some insight into why I am a keen
observer, private, accustomed to being alone, self-reliant, keeping my own
counsel, and not inclined to ask for help or trust that someone will respond to
my request for help. On the flip side, this perspective has made me sensitive
to the plight of vulnerable people, innocent people, changing teens and young
adults – trying to find themselves, for better and sometimes for worse. And also I
am attentive to outsiders. Often since innocent childhood, people in crisis or
distress have turned to me privately, even secretly, for counsel or wisdom or
solace against the void of their own demons and despair. And I have been strong
helping to carry their burdens as my own. Even when it was never my job. I have walked this walk for people,
deep into the night, with good people, confused people, even broken or
downright evil people, even at the risk of my own death. And I have survived to
be here with you in this congregation today. Only God knows what I have seen,
soul to soul.
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| Burying Mom next to Dad, near Ohio Wesleyan (June 2012) |
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| Howard, Marshall & Nancy - pilgrimage to bury Mom |
When I was 19, I met my future
husband in Worcester, and we moved in together the day we met. For ten happy years we dreamed together our
dream of the future, as we worked and saved and Bert became the first person in
his family to go to college, then the first to become a medical doctor. I finished a
Masters in Art History at Brown on a full scholarship and began teaching as an
adjunct college professor. Both my brothers were physicians, married to
physicians at the time, and my parents sighed relief that all had turned out so well. 3
married children and 5 doctors! What a bonanza!
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| Nancy Austin, Bert Woolard, Mary Alice Austin (Westfield, 1976) |
And then there was me, who completed
a double major in chemistry and math, but left science in graduate school to study
sacred painting and architecture – which in many ways is really what the
classical canon of Art History is composed of. … Only we leave out the faith part. I have probably visited more
churches, synagogues, and temples all over the world than many of you, including prolonged stays in
Rome, and over time the emotional experience of sacred spaces overwhelmed the analytical historian I had been trained to be. What was the mystery of faith that kept some of these buildings alive with worship for generations, even centuries, .. even millennia?
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| c. 1200 Apse Mosaic of the Tree of Life, Basilica of San Clemente, Rome |
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| 50 Stimson Ave (May 1983 - Dec 1995) |
Speaking of architecture, many people
love the nearby yellow house at 50 Stimson Ave, tucked into the corner, and
when my husband and I managed to actually buy that house for $170K in 1983,
after he finished his residency at Rhode Island Hospital, I really felt like we were the luckiest
people alive. We were an incredibly happy and committed couple poised to start
adult life after 10 years of hard work spent dreaming of this very moment. And
yet. It is a shock I never really quite get over. Bert & I discovered – as many do - that
dreaming a future was a very different occupation than finally getting the
chance to live that dream. Within the year we discovered how much we didn’t
know about one another, and how few skills we had to address our mounting adult
challenges. Before our second child was born in 1985, we were discussing
divorce.
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| Beloved Caroline, born January 1984 |
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| Beloved Cyrus, born March 1985 |
But. We agreed to soldier on.
Especially since we both adored our children, and loved loving them. And on
paper everything looked as if it couldn't have been more perfect. Except that
it wasn't. Like my dad’s secret battle with a real cancer, our estrangement
became a looming secret emotional cancer, and we didn’t even know how to find a
doctor, let alone an emergency room, really, ever. Although of course we tried,
in our own embarrassed, private, even secret ways. I panicked trying to finish
my Ph.D. and secure a tenure track job to support myself. But Bert worked all
the time and was happy to delegate running the household to me. Children got
sick, and had to be taken here and there; and I never somehow could line all
the pieces up for a Plan B.
Wait!!! WAIT!!! Was I blind? Here you all were as a congregation, all this time -- not two blocks from my house. With architecture, signage, a presence in place. What was my problem?
My now ex-husband & I never did figure
out how to be an adult couple that communicated. We never did find a way to negotiate collective
priorities and together as a family achieve shared goals. And so, in our daughter’s senior year at Wheeler,
after many earlier efforts to find other ways to deal with one another, we
agreed to privately – even secretly – to separate and divorce. We agreed that
since this was about our failings, not anything at all our wonderful children
had done, we would do everything possible not to impact them. I would set up a
downsized home base; Bert – who only wanted to travel and hated houses as it
turned out, would get a condo; never have more children; and we would continue
to honor and help celebrate the only family our children had known their entire
life. Needless to say, as almost anyone who has been divorced will likely warn
you, the last 10 years have not followed that script.
I began here tonight with the story
of my Dad’s failure to help me prepare for and process my Grandfather’s death. How
do we end up repeating behaviors from our parents we so desperately wanted never
to repeat? I am overwhelmed with sadness at how Bert & I sprung divorce on
our kids, finally, after it was quietly and legally put in place. I cringe at our inability to deal with
conflict and how we lied to ourselves as well as our children about how this “adjustment”
to living apart would change nothing, but really everything would change.
For a decade now, my two children and
I have worked hard to rebuild a different kind of family. There have been and
continue to be devastating moments of sadness. But it has been the journey to
life lived in community. And so I come to you now. Ask and you shall receive. (Note that the Bible doesn’t tell you what you will receive!) My journey of healing has brought me to this
congregation. Hospitals may cure you of
disease, but it takes a faith
community to heal.
What words could have reached the long-ago
30-year old me? A new mother trying on unrehearsed adult roles with no mentors? Self-conscious; untrusting; assuming everyone else had it all together? I just
don’t know, but I wish I had at least tried
attending church in my confusion and pain. Why was it easier to let a malady
fester into a terminal disease for my family rather than take the chance – a
risk – to just walk in the door here any Sunday? Maybe stay for coffee; find a
new friend? Why was it easier to endure, to soldier on, than imagine the possible
light of transformation in a faith community?
Tonight I stand before you as a
credible human being and share my story. I tell everyone I know: Come to
Central - even if you don’t think it will matter. Bring your kids, especially if
you think you have convinced yourself you are an outlier or carry burdens no
one could possibly understand or empathize with. Know that even though people
here look pretty pulled together, the congregation includes people I have
already met in seven short months who are open to offering a trusting ear to
listen. You are not alone. There is no need for the cancer of secrets. The Bible
is a wisdom book that has helped me beyond all the books in my pretty vast
library. Or just come to church on
Sunday and cry. Offer for those people to come sit with me! We can cry together
side by side, and mumble the words to the hymns through our veil of tears.
In closing, I want to sound like I
was a plant for the pledge drive this Sunday. But I am not. It matters to me
that even though this church was here when I moved to Stimson Ave in 1983, and
I was simply too blind to see… It matters to me that it remained a Beacon and a Reference Point that was really ALWAYS there for me to come home to.
I want to thank you for building an
incredible community day after day, and year after year, to where I got to
witness Rev. Rebecca Spencer’s 25 years of service celebration this fall. Thank you for
continually renewing a congregation that was begun generations before. I must
be a very slow learner, but 30 years later, God has reached into my heart and finally
brought me to a place where I could join
- and here you are!!! A thriving and established community, with deep roots
that continue to yield. Steadily welcoming new members, including me - among
many many others. Steadfastly continuing to do the work to care for the next
generation. Offering fellowship. Helping us all find wisdom and love and peace as
we age.
Thank you for welcoming me home to worship together in this faith community. Better late, than never. Thank you so much.
Thank you for welcoming me home to worship together in this faith community. Better late, than never. Thank you so much.
Nancy Austin
Newport, RI
Lenten Meditation, April 2014
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| Nancy, Caroline and Cyrus - Christmas in Newport |
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| Beloved Tugboat, 1997 - March 28, 2014 |
