WOULD JESUS HAVE VOTED FOR THE LIBRARY? 20 November 2005
I had to meet with two families about upcoming baptisms Monday night, so I was late for town meeting. It was a little after nine o’clock when I parked my car on Green Road and walked to the high school. As I arrived, other people were leaving, and they didn’t look happy. I saw someone I knew and asked her what had happened. She was crying. “They voted down the library,” she said, and added, “I can’t believe I live in a town with people like this.”
Former town moderator Clyde Wheeler arrived late, too, and he and I compared notes near the rear doors of the high school auditorium. We guessed that the proposals to buy the Taggert land and the Smith land would be voted down as well, and we were right. The town meeting was clearly of a mind to vote “No.”
Parishioner and Bolton Common editor Lynda King and I traded emails on Tuesday, trying to figure out what had happened in town meeting and why and what it implied. On the surface, one might be tempted to say it was a battle between the haves and the have nots, between those who can afford to pay several hundred dollars more in property taxes each year and those who cannot. One might also be tempted to say it was a battle between “old Bolton” and “new Bolton,” between the town as some have known it and the town as some want it to be. Lynda and I agreed that “it ain’t necessarily so.” Some haves did not vote for the library, and some have-nots did. Some people who have been here forever voted for the library, and some people who moved here yesterday and may leave tomorrow voted against it. I even think the “vision thing” had little to do with it. Most of the people I talked with who voted against the library agreed that our present library is insufficient.
I have said that this church is slightly ahead of the town in confronting the challenges presented by change. We had our major conflict a decade ago. The town is due for one soon. The church dealt with the necessity of having to hire a staff person to do some of the work that had always been handled by volunteers two years before the town created the position of town administrator. And the church had a debate similar to that regarding the library a year- and-a- half ago. Our debate was about a new organ.
Like the current library, our pipe organ is insufficient to meet the current needs of the church and even if it is not replaced needs major work. The church had received a proposal for a new organ that was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Sound familiar? The proposed organ was magnificent, designed visually to fit in with our classic sanctuary but yet having resources far beyond those of many churches our size. Sound familiar? A group of committed people supported the project, and partial funding had been secured. Sound familiar? But when the church had a special meeting to consider the proposal, it was not approved, even though most at the meeting agreed that we do need a new organ. Sound familiar? And the comments that were made by some in attendance at the church meeting were exactly the same as some of the comments I heard regarding the library. “We have other priorities that need to be addressed.” “It’s too big.” “It’s more than we’ll ever need.” “It’s more money than we’ve ever spent.”
Isn’t it nice to know that our church is ahead of the curve? Perhaps I should run for selectman. NO, THANK YOU!
I have heard something in the current debate about the library that I have also heard here, in conversations about our church. One thing keeps coming up here again and again --- the yearning for community, the desire the create community. In the Letters to the Editor in the BOLTON COMMON and in the speeches at town meeting regarding the library, this word, “community,” keeps coming up again and again.
One would be forgiven for thinking that we were not considering building an addition to the library as much as we were considering building a community center, a place where people could meet, a new meetinghouse, if you will.
And I will admit to feeling a bit put out. One letter writer referred to the library as our only community building. Another said that the library was one of only three public places where people in town could meet one another, aside from our schools. Our church was not on that letter writer’s list, and neither were Trinity or St. Francis Xavier. I will not speak for the other churches, but this is very much a public place, a place where people in town meet one another. The library holds many of its events here. The Conservation Trust has its annual meeting here. The Bolton Historical Society has held lectures here. The town’s long-range planning committee has had public forums here. The Boy Scouts the Cub Scouts and the 4H meet here. The Florence Sawyer School has its eighth-grade dance here. The new postmaster of Bolton had his installation ceremony here. Meetings too large to be accommodated in the Town Hall but not large enough for a school auditorium have been held here. Hundreds attend the Halloween Party we provide for the town’s children. In two weeks, we will welcome the town to our annual tree-lighting. This is very much a public place, a place where people in town meet one another. You may not know this, but that’s why Davis Hall was built, not merely to host coffee hours after worship. It was built by both the church and the community to be a gathering place for the entire community, and it is.
What’s interesting to me is that as far as some members of our community are concerned, we are off the radar. What’s interesting to me is that as far as some members of our community are
concerned, we need a new place to meet, a place that is not tied-in to most of the past incarnations of this town nor to its places of worship.
I believe that the library project is not just about building an addition on the library or even about what sort of community we will be or about how much money we are willing to spend. It is about the longing of people in this rapidly-changing town to be a part of something substantial and enduring that connects them to each other in meaningful ways. And it is about the insufficiency of all the old institutions and networks to do this work.
Isn’t this the conversation we are having here, in these halls, too?
So, would Jesus have voted for the library?
I don’t know. But I do know that he would have told us that we need to look at each other, that we need to see each other. That, for him, is what it is all about.
In a sermon about the Gospel lesson I read to you this morning, Barbara Brown Taylor writes “Say that Jesus is present in every single person whose path crosses ours....the only way to tell if they are really Jesus’ eyes is to look into them, to risk that moment of recognition that may break your heart, or change your mind, or make you mad, or make you amend your life. Whatever effect it has on you, that seems to be the one thing the sheep know how to do that the goats have never tried: to look, to see, to seek Christ...I am sure Matthew would not agree with me, but if you ask me, that is enough to start with. The food, the drink, the welcome, the visit - -- all those things will follow in their own good time. They are necessary for life; they are not optional, but by themselves, they are just quarters in a cup. Charity is no substitute for kinship. We are not called to be philanthropists or social workers, but brothers and sisters. We are called into relationship, even when that relationship is unlikely, momentary... We are called to look at each other and seek Christ, who promises to be there when our eyes meet, and in that glance to teach us something we need to know.”
Haves and have-nots, we are called to look at each other. Old Bolton and new Bolton, we are called to look at each other. Pragmatists and visionaries, we are called to look at each other. Penny-pinchers and spendthrifts, we are called to look at each other. Senior citizens and thirty-somethings, we are called to look at each other. Advisory Committee and Friends of the Library, we are called to look at each other. First Parish and Trinity and St. Francis Xavier and those who don’t even know who we are and don’t care, we are called to look at each other. Gay and straight, we are called to look at each other. Democrats and Republicans, we are called to look at each other. Clueless husbands and desperate housewives, we are called to look at each other. Buff or bulging, we are called to look at each other. Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jew, Christian, we are called to look at each other. Fox Run and Bolton Woods Way, we are called to look at each other. Back of the church and front of the church, we are called to look at each other.
We are called to look at each other, to really see one another, and in that glance, we will learn something we need to know, like how to serve one another, like how to build real community, community that transcends our differences, and transcends any structure that could be built to contain it or to try to create it.
If we want to build community, we have to be community. And it starts with a look.
This is one of the few public places in this town where we will hear that suggestion. I pray, as I always have, that we will act on it. Let us be ahead of the curve in this way, too. Let us show our town how to be community and how to build community. It starts with a look.
