It was Dave who called attention to the irony. We had been visiting with the pastor about the shape and character of their ministry, and he had unambiguously narrowed the focus to worship. Deep worship and good preaching. When I asked about other programming he mentioned a Wednesday night Bible study, but "we don't expect people to live here" he retorted. As to activities or involvements with the community, he dismissed the notion. "I don't much care for other preachers, and we're not here to be a community center." They don't, he went to amplify, make the building available for birthday parties or the like. "Let them mess up their own houses," he chortled.
Recently, as church savings had begun to accrue, someone had suggested they help fund a Habitat for Humanity project in the area, but the pastor had quashed the idea. They were concentrating on getting their own house in order, he explained, which involved endowing the pastoral position.
Finishing our conversation, he handed us off to one of the docents to interpret for us the famous Matisse and Chagall stained-glass windows. The Matisse is a rose window behind the altar. Facing it from the back wall -- facing the preacher as he or she proclaims the Word -- is an immense design by Marc Chagall depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan. That was the irony that Dave had discerned: in this edifice made famous by its depiction of the one who went out of his way to help, apparently worships a congregation who routinely passes by on the other side of the road.
He came across as wily -- or perhaps cagey. The introduction matched the preliminary impression I had gleaned from emails we had exchanged arranging our visit. He seemed to prefer sparse communication -- a few words, emotionally economized. After the fact, our group members were conflicted as to just what to make of him. After listening to our introductory summary of the reason for our visit, he ajudged with a mocking laugh that we were "goldbricking," pursing little that was likely to further the cause of the gospel. But he was happy to visit with us if we wished.
He seemed to enjoy parrying our questions. When I asked what drew him to this particular church, he curtly responded that he had been "called." When we asked if it could sometimes be intimidating to have the Rockefellers in your congregation, he dismissed the suggestion, avowing -- somewhat unbelievably we thought -- that he hadn't really even known of their involvement until after arrived, despite his later admission that Mrs. Rockefeller had served on the Call Committee.
He took great pains to insist that despite the artistically significant windows by Matisse and Chagall that drew a steady stream of visitors, that this is a church, not a museum. It's reason for existing is to gather people for worship, not to gather people to gawk or even necessarily to gather people to serve. "This isn't a community center," he asserted.
But finally, as we continued to press and explore the nature of ministry at this curiously magnificent little church, he said it:
"This is a unique place."
That's what I had been waiting to hear. It is different. Indeed.
After all his protestations about the ordinariness of his church -- all the reasons it is just like any other, with "real people" gathering for solid worship and good preaching -- I would like to think we left him a gift of terroir-related insight. Along with those very accurate elements held in common with congregations the world over, his little flock is nonetheless unique; that their Rockefellers and their windows and their busloads of tourists and their symbiotic relationship with the local historical society codified in the legally crafted "sweetheart deal you would die for" indelibly influence the taste of their place.
And so we "goldbrickers" took our leave, sensing that unlike the other interviews, we gave, in this one, more than we got.
Anticipation is a tough act to follow. After all, imagination only works with the finest raw materials. Reality is routinely stuck with...well, reality, and in the grand scheme of things, reality is often, to put it frankly, not so good. So it is that I found myself approaching this evening with no small measure of reticence. After all, I had invested a great deal of anticipatory energy and imagination in the vision for this experience since at least last October when I was scurrying to put the finishing touches on the grant application that would -- hypothetically at that point -- pay for the fulfillment of it. When, beyond my wildest imagination, the grant came through, I began to make actual inquiries about such a visit.
The "visit" would be to Stone Barns Farm in Tarrytown, NY, and the associated Blue Hill Restaurant operated by Chef Dan Barber. I had never heard of it or him prior to listening to a podcast of a panel discussion in which Barber took part last summer that spoke of sustainable agricultural practices supporting local food expressions. I know, it sounds complicated. But the conversation was compelling enough to stimulate further research, and it wasn't long before I knew that this was a place I had to visit. And so for months I have been savoring the anticipation. Since February I have been communicating with Robert the restaurant concierge, who helpfully connected us with other opportunities in the area. I made the arrangements. We bought our plane tickets. And then we waited.
Waited, all the while knowing that imagination is always -- virtually always -- better than reality. And so we arrived at Stone Barns tonight trusting that it would be a delightful experience, but hardly daring to believe that it would be anything more.
But a funny thing happened. Reality, in one of those rare, almost mystical inversions, exceeded imagination. Perhaps it was the farm tour that created the perfect frame of reference. Perhaps it was the almost timid server who proudly showed us the greens that he, himself, had harvested that morning that were to find their way into the next course's salad. Perhaps it was Bri, our server, who mentioned that she had helped to harvest one of the other greens that afternoon that found its way onto our table -- siblings of the greens that we had been shown growing just minutes before. Perhaps it was the culinary imagination that turned egg into art, or the simplicity of a grilled asparagus whose proud flavors were allowed to shine without adornment. Perhaps it was the mini-tutorial of the bio-char made from pig bones over which the vegetables had been grilled -- yet another way to prevent anything from going to waste.
Or, I don't know, perhaps it was simply because it tasted like nothing I had ever had in my mouth before. Whatever, it was an extraordinary night -- all five hours of the dinner, beginning with the appetite enhancing "bits" that we naively mistook for opening courses and continuing straight through to the haute cuisine Twix bars for dessert, not to mention the honeycomb thrown in as a kind of dessert after dessert.
We agreed that we would not likely have need for breakfast. As for learnings that we will take away, those will have to mature. They are there, but right now the intellectual is having difficulty getting much of an audience. The rest of my senses are still talking too loudly to hear much of anything else. And I am loathe to interrupt.
In planning his funeral they told me that Gary had gone to Los Angeles to pursue a musical career. He had a great voice. He was a wonderful entertainer. The odds, then as now, would have certainly been against him, but he would neither be the first nor the last to give it a shot. Some, after all, succeed. He, alas, didn't -- at least not in the sense of screaming fans and nationwide tours. But though it didn't work out the way he had hoped -- his name didn't make it to the tip of everyone's tongue -- he had gotten work. Bit things. Backup singing and the like. Among other things, they recalled, he had sung on the "demo" side of karaoke tapes.
I've been fascinated by that revelation. I haven't spent a lot of time around karaoke tapes, but I suppose I did know that -- back in the days of cassettes -- one side was just the music that you, presumably, were going to sing along with, while the flip side was a demo version with someone -- apparently like Gary -- singing along. Someone; some anonymous singer; some up-and-coming hopeful trying to make enough to pay the rent. Someone that, odds are, no one ever heard of before or since. It isn't fame but it is, I suppose, making music. And money. And someone's got to do it. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it -- not because I am that intrigued with karaoke but because it has prompted me to wonder about all those other people whose work it is to assist others invisibly. In the Broadway musical Chicago Roxie Hart's husband sings a song in which he describes himself as "Mr. Cellophane."
Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...
How many people, I wonder, are there like that -- cellophane people working cellophane jobs -- doing things others depend upon, transparently? We see -- or hear -- their work, but never them. Who, for example, are all those people who get up in the midst of bitter winter nights to drive snowplows along roads that, by the time I wake and dress and get on my way in the morning, I find miraculously cleared? Who are the nameless authors of the countless instruction manuals piled in our drawer for appliances and accessories, and the like? Who are the cooks who tested the recipes I clip from the magazines resourcing our kitchen?
How many invisible people are there out there, I wonder, propping up my life -- singing along, so I can learn the tune? Well, whoever you are, thank you. I need all the help I can get.
It was cool along the path -- especially beside the shaded easterly bank -- and pedestrian traffic was light. After a stormy, growling sort of Sunday, Monday was beginning blue-sky brilliant. The water had been glassy when I passed earlier on an errand into town, but by now the breeze had largely completed its daily dawning duty of brushing the glossy surface into matte. The tractor roared by, leaving in its wake the eponymous mown grass sent of spring. With iPod buds in my ears and a brand new Peter Mayer album to enjoy, I stretched my legs briskly along, pausing every now and then to enjoy a surprising blossom or an uninhibited bird.
And I shivered -- not for chill, but for sheer delight. Circumstances have kept us from taking much advantage of these footsteps in the last year or so; circumstances and, of course, winter. It's true that park personnel plow the trail throughout the snows of winter, but the thought has never held out much appeal to us. We tend to be more the afghan/fireplace/cozying kind of folk than ski mask/goose down/thermal glove hiker types when the temperatures plunge sub-zero. But we have missed it, and have looked forward to taking again, full advantage.
Taking another deep breath, I think how I could get used to starting everyday this way -- if everyday were early May, the air fairly sparkled, the birds were chirping and the sun were in the sky. Everything feels shower-fresh new -- including me, which is strange enough for a perspiring guy with still barely-concealed bedhead. Deep breaths all around, with no task to complete other than putting one foot in front of the other and navigating the 2-mile trail around gently waving and evocative beauty.
Coincidentally -- or perhaps just perfectly -- the last song of the album fades to silence as the trail nears my car. The sun is higher, the cars are louder, and it somehow feels right to head back home and shift into the next part of the day. I'm not sure what that will be or how it will go, but after the lake the bar has been set pretty high. Here, even the dandelions look pieces of art.
Recently, as church savings had begun to accrue, someone had suggested they help fund a Habitat for Humanity project in the area, but the pastor had quashed the idea. They were concentrating on getting their own house in order, he explained, which involved endowing the pastoral position.
