Red Dirt and Rose Rocks

A Worship Service by the Reverends Mark W. Christian and Jonalu Johnstone

Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday November 20, 2005

Reading

From—“Letters from the Dust Bowl”

"Dust to eat," a letter to Henry a. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture—July 26, 1935

. . . For twenty seven years this little spot on the vast expanses of the great plains has been the center of all our thought and hope and effort. And marvelous are the changes that we have seen and in which we have participated.

The almost unbroken buffalo grass sod has given way to cultivated fields. The small rude huts or dugouts of the early days have been replaced by reasonably comfortable homes. The old trails have become wide graded highways. Railways have been built, reducing our journey to market from thirty miles to fifteen and later to two and a half. Little towns have sprung up with attractive homes, trees, flowers, schools, churches, and hospitals. Automobiles and trucks, tractors and combines have revolutionized methods of farm work and manner of living. The wonderful crop of 1926 when our country alone produced 10,000,000 bushels of wheat—more, it was said, than any other equal area in the world—revealed the possibilities of our productive soil under modern methods of farming. I can shut my eyes and feel yet the rush of an almost painful thankfulness when we looked out over our fields that summer and watched our ripening grain bending, rising, bending again in golden waves swept on interminably by the restless wind. It seemed as if at last our dreams were coming true . . . .  Yet now our daily physical torture, confusion of mind, gradual wearing down of courage, seem to make that long continued hope look like a vanishing dream.

Meanwhile the longing for rain has become almost an obsession. We remember the gentle all-night rains that used to make a grateful music on the shingles close above our heads, or the showers that came just in time to save a dying crop. We recall the torrents that occasionally burst upon us in sudden storms, making our level farm a temporary lake where only the ducks felt at home. We dream of the faint gurgling sound of dry soil sucking in the grateful moisture of the early or the later rains; of the fresh green of sprouting wheat or barley, the reddish bronze of springing rye. But we waken to another day of wind and dust and hopes deferred, of attempts to use to the utmost every small resource, to care for the stock and poultry as well as we can with our scanty supplies, to keep our balance and to trust that upon some happier day our wage may even yet come in.

Prayer and Meditation

Welcome Morning

By Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry "hello there, Anne"
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,
dies young.

Red Dirt and Rose Rocks

A Sermon by the Reverend Mark W. Christian

Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday November 20, 2005

I had to travel to the Pacific Northwest last Labor Day.  It was an odd time for a business trip—but the Saturday of Labor Day weekend was the only time that meshed with the schedules of the members of a committee on which I serve.  “Oh Drat, I have to go to Portland and Seattle,” I thought as I planned the trip, “But someone has to do it.”  It is hard being a martyr for the cause sometimes.

A funny thing happened on the way to Portland, though.  About half way into the three-hour flight from DFW to PDX—that’s Dallas to Portland for those of you not up on travel lingo—something happened.  Perhaps it was that second bag of pretzels, maybe the lulling roar of the engines or something re-circulating in the air conditioning, but somewhere over Colorado I began having a very lucid sense of many things Oklahoman. 

It started with Red Dirt—the way that the August heat brands little fissures—teeny-tiny Grand Canyons on the exposed surfaces of the Oklahoma ground.  I remember as a kid looking at those gaping lines, wondering how far down they reach while marveling at the little patches they formed. 

Red Dirt—I thought of the way that dried Red Dirt flakes off the surface in the summer heat.  I thought of the miles and miles I have driven on roads made of that dirt and the way it pounds hard as concrete—except for the tiny specs that hang in the air, forming choking contrails behind passing cars and trucks.

Red Dirt—It’s hard to remember that it’s really red clay, until it rains.  When wet, the once dry gaping exposed ground becomes miringly slick.  It was after one of those rain storm slip and slide sessions that I first learned that Red Dirt not only becomes slippery but that Red Dirt stains don’t ever come out.

I laughed at myself.  “I’m 30 thousand feet up traveling at half the speed of sound, heading to one of the greenest, lushest, places on the continent and I’m thinking about Red Dirt.  Really?!”  Then my mind drifted again, and I thought—“I bet they don’t have Rose Rocks along the Columbia River.”

The Rose Rock—our state rock—I remember finding one for the first time as a kid and wondering how a rock could end up looking just like that?  I could see the raised ridges, the twisting, turning, delicate, spiral.  The rose-petal spiral is really a just series of small arcs in sedimentary sandstone—each arc building further outward on the motion of its predecessor.  But even on the plane, I could feel my finger tracing along the Rose Rock, crossing the grain of the spiral feeling one ridge then another and another.  My mind imagined running my fingers along those turns—first chasing them outward, then following them in again. “How are Rose Rocks even possible?”  I wondered, “Could they have had some purpose in a divine plan—other than capturing my imagination?” 

Rose Rocks and Red Dirt … I hadn’t been out of Oklahoma for more than three or four hours and I was somehow feeling homesick?  Surely not.  Then I drifted again to consider some of the other things I associate with my home, its land and surroundings.  The great billowing storm clouds of April—reaching twice as high as my plane was flying.  Those puffy, but dangerous, clouds that bloom in the afternoon heat before dumping sheets of rain and spitting out icy balls of hail.  Horny Toads—those now endangered odd-looking little critters that scamper between tufts of grass on open land.  Mud Cats, those fish I used to pull out of Casady “Lake” as a kid—that were no good eat and were best thrown back into their murky home. 

I thought of the open prairie—expanses of land where you can see horizon to horizon, silo to silo.  I could see those open spaces where you spot towns by their looming grain elevators and where the only trees you see either tell you where a house is (or used to be) or where the creek bed runs.  I saw old rusty barns—covered with dinged up pieces of wavy tin that buffer and bang in the wind.  I even remembered those two-foot wide anthills where everyone has to learn for themselves that “yes” ants do get that big and “yes” they hurt when they bite!

The voice on the intercom telling the flight attendants to “Prepare for arrival” broke me from my daydream.  I met my brother at the Portland Airport happy to catch up on events big and small.  The next day I took the train from Portland to Seattle—and while gliding along a beautiful ribbon of land, over looking over the Columbia River, travelling through the shadows of Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Ranier—it happened again.  Suddenly I could see Scissor-Tail Flycatchers—dancing and ducking on the June breeze.  I could feel the smooth back and pinching claws of the crawdads we used to chase in shallow creeks.  I could taste the sticky sweet smell that comes from freshly cut alfalfa on summer morning.  I could even feel the reddened sting of the sunburned arms and necks that you get when you’ve been out too long in the August sun.  I remembered chasing hats blown off my head in a “typical” Oklahoma breeze.  I thought about the futility of using an umbrella when the rain comes in parallel to the ground and the number of times I have had those tricky gadgets pop inside-out ruined by a sudden gust of wind.

On the flight back to Oklahoma, I wondered what all these images were trying to tell me.  It could have been homesickness, but I don’t think that was it.  It could have been a kind of red-dirt withdrawal.  It could have been an embodiment of the ambivalence I felt about the task that had taken me on the road.  It could have even have been some subconscious mental pre-posturing since I knew I was going to get big dose of “How hard things are in the “Red” states from my “Blue” state colleagues in that “Green” part of the world.  Maybe it was these things.  Maybe.  Maybe, not.

One of the advantages to preaching sermons is that you get to pay attention to these kinds of anomalies that life dishes out.  One of the disadvantages to living in the cycle of a sermon every week is that you have to pay attention to these kind of events never knowing where they will lead.  I am constantly amazed at what the Spirit puts before me.  This week, as we are perched between last Wednesday as Oklahoma Statehood Day, this weekend’s Grand Opening of the new Oklahoma Heritage Center and next week’s celebration of Thanksgiving, the Spirit leads me to share these images with you.  The question is, “Why?”

As I reflect on these experiences I now understand that this flash of images and sounds and smells and scenarios speaks directly to feelings about Thankfulness.  I believe that this slide show was really my way of seeing how blessed I am; how lucky I am, how much I have that demands my earnest thanks.  On this Sunday after Statehood Day, I reflect on my Oklahoma heritage.  On this Sunday before Thanksgiving—I share these images as a testament of the thanks I feel.

It’s usually easy for me to be thankful for people and for the actions of people.  I am frequently thankful for a family that is, for the most part, healthy and happy, sane and safe.  I say thanks with some regularity for the chance to do work that fits and feels worthwhile.  I find it relatively easy to be thankful for the gifts of our church staff, for your generosity—financially and spiritually.  I can readily acknowledge my thanks for growing up in a family—that while far from rich—never failed to provide for ultimate needs while providing a safe and caring, nurturing and (often) exciting place to grow up.  I am able, with some regularity, to think thankfully on the network of friends I have amassed in my life—even the ones I’ve lost touch with.  I am able to be thankful for the many things I have been given by people.

I do these things pretty easily.  I have learned, along the line, that the important things in life really aren’t all “about me.”  I was a slow student at times—but somehow I finally got that lesson down.  That trip to Portland and Seattle, though, expanded my horizon of thanks.  I named what I knew already—but couldn’t quite touch.  I was saying thanks not just for my life but for my place of life.  I am thankful for this place.  I am thankful for this church.  I am thankful for Oklahoma and Oklahoma City.

I would not be who I am if I weren’t from here…of here.  I think one of the things the Spirit was telling me that wherever I go—Oklahoma is with me.  Wherever I go—like those old Red Dirt stains—this place goes with me.  Wherever I go it’s somehow like being on one of those ridges I used to trace my finger along on a Rose Rock.  Edging outward, circling inward—always somewhere on the journey but always connected to core from which the ridges spiral.

At Thanksgiving our thoughts turn to Pilgrims and a mythic feast.  At Thanksgiving we decorate with squash and pumpkins, kids make pretend Indian ornaments and cut out construction paper turkeys—but these things don’t constitute the real spirit of Thanksgiving.  The false history of the Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving feast is but the accident that reminds us of our need for thankfulness.  It is a useful means—much as my trip to the Pacific Northwest was a useful means—to encourage us to broaden the spiral and sphere of our thankfulness.

This week—actually every week—but especially this Thanksgiving week that morphs into the holiday season—this week, please stop and take stock.  Take stock of who you are, where you are, what you are and give thanks.  I won’t pretend that this won’t some times lead to acknowledging some things that aren’t pleasing.  The Red Dirt, for which I am thankful, doesn’t wash out.  Sunburns and anthills sting.  A spring storm can be as frightening as it is energizing.  Still, I think the act of searching our lives in the power of the Spirit can transform us.  Noting our weaknesses and flaws can—and should—call us into ever more compassionate living which in terms demands thanksgiving.  Noting the gifts we have received that we didn’t earn—Grace—also calls forth a thankful response.

Each Sunday we begin by noting that this day is a gift.  The lesson I learned on my trip to the Northwest, the lesson I offer you today couched in terms of “Red Dirt and Rose Rocks,” is that the very minimum that the Spirit demands of us for what we have been given this day is to say “Thanks.”  AMEN