Saint Sullivan

News flash: Local church says “Everybody welcome”!

Compare and contrast with Martin Luther King, Jr’s observation that eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.

Is it just me, or is western culture becoming more and more segregated? As well as the usual suspects of race and class, we are increasingly fragmented in the 1,000 channel universe, able to avoid any music, TV show, dance, theatre, etc. that we think we don’t care for in favour of stuff that confirms our own prejudices.

When i was a youngster, one of the most unifying hours in North America was the Sunday evening at eight o’clock TV show, The Ed Sullivan Show. With a host who could only be described as unbelievably uncharismatic, the show offered a true variety of entertainment. It was on The Ed Sullivan Show that i first saw and heard the Kirov Ballet, the Moscow circus, the great African American singer/actress Ethel Waters breaking my heart with her song, “Suppertime” about the mysterious disappearance of her partner, old burlesque comedians like Henny Youngman and Milton Berle, puppetry (anybody remember Topo Gigio?), Broadway musical show-stoppers with the original cast in costume (Carol Channing singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”; Julie Andrews and Richard Burton singing the title song from Camelot and even the hirsute kids from Hair). Sullivan was famous for the Beatles’ appearance and Elvis before them, but he also made sure that African American performers – Harry Belafonte, Eartha Kitt, Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, the Supremes – got airtime. To a kid growing up in the WASP enclave of suburban Toronto, this was heady stuff. Is there an equivalent of Ed Sullivan on air today – a show that eschews niche marketing and seeks to expose us to a broad palette?

Last spring, i had a great rambling conversation with Cynthia Dyck, the administrator of the Refinery (the arts centre affiliated with St. James Anglican in Saskatoon, SK). Although hired by the church, Cynthia is an arts administrator. She maintains that not being a church person makes it easier to do her job at the Refinery. As someone well-known in the arts community, Cynthia had the credibility to bring in the artists/renters. Any defences the artists might have felt about coming into a church space was dissipated when they asked Cynthia, “Do you go to the church?” and she answered, “No, I don’t, but this building is for everyone.” That leant credibility to the Refinery, as potential renters thought to themselves, “Huh! It really is for everybody, or you wouldn’t be working here.” For Cynthia, the joy of her job is that people can’t silo – they have to deal with each other. She says: “The yoga students have to deal with the theatre people upstairs. The theatre people have to deal with the tai chi class. The 12 Step Program has to get directions from the weird gay guy up there. So they’re always forced to deal – they can’t silo. If they want to work here, they can’t silo. Even if it’s just sharing the same doorway, it’s amazing how we are changed by sharing space. We’re going, Hey! This is important! Look at these two people having to work things out, and they normally wouldn’t run into each other. Relationships are the most important. If you get those relationships right, then everything else falls into place.”

At the church i live and work at, our congregational demographic doesn’t match the demographic of the neighbourhood. Nor the city. While i would like to think that Martin Luther King’s statement about churches and segregation is no longer true, i am not convinced that churches, rather than being meeting places, are silos. Perhaps these silos are reflective of our wider culture, the iPod age when we download what we already like and ignore the rest. Congregations tend to have their own “playlists” – musically, theologically, socially. How do we Ed Sullivan our churches so that we can expose ourselves to rhythms not our own, to arts that challenge our spirits, to the music of Saturday night (as opposed to the four-square hymns of Sunday morning)? When i consider a new pantheon of saints, Ed Sullivan now comes to mind.

Soft Chairs, Warm Lights

Marriage is a great institution, if you don’t mind being institutionalized. So said the always quotable Mae West. Me, i would say the church is a great institution, if you don’t mind being institutionalized.

Think of your typical church basement. What screams INSTITUTION more than stacking tables and chairs (especially the panty-hose snagging wooden chairs...and don’t get me started on the haemorrhoid-inducing metal chairs)? Add in the overhead florescent lights and walls the color of whatever was on sale at Home Hardware 15 years ago and the hand-me-down early student sofa ...let’s just say it’s not a pretty sight.

What would it be like if we spent money to be hospitable?

St James Anglican church in Saskatoon has done just that. When the long-term lease of their parish hall to a Ukrainian dance school wasn’t renewed, they were faced with an opportunity. Situated between the university and Broadway Avenue’s thriving arts community, St James decided to transform the parish hall to serve the community, and The Refinery was born. It took renovation and commitment, and most of all, an embrace of the spiritual practice of hospitality.

Today, The Refinery is a place for tai chi and yoga, book launches, art shows, belly dancing and meditation, quilting, concerts, local theatre troups, the Fringe and its own box office (yes, they take VISA), to mention just a sampling. Refinery events often spill over into St James’ church basement.

Visiting last week, i met with several folk, including The Refinery’s staffer, Cynthia Dyck, an energetic and forthright theatre person turned arts administrator. We met in the reception area of The Refinery, a large yet intimate room with soft chairs and warm lights. In the center of the room is a seating area with matching sofas and comfy chairs, strategically placed on a tasteful carpet. Around the edges of the room are some retro chrome kitchen tables and chairs, each table boasting an individually decorated table lamp. A couple of tall cafe tables with stools give lots of options for intermission conversation. The kitchen offers up wine, beer, coffee, soft drinks and water to thirsty thespians. As Cynthia and i met, a group arrived to set up for that evening’s concert reception – “Wow, this doesn’t look anything like a church basement,” said one.

i asked Cynthia what churches might do to be more hospitable to artists. Among other things, she said to ditch the florescent lights and go for something warmer. Get rid of stacking tables. Get rid of anything that says INSTITUTION in favour of something that says COME IN. This includes our heavy exterior wooden doors, which church folk think look lovely but project the image of fortress and secrecy.

Perhaps it’s time we in the church stopped settling for good-enough-for-the-church-but-I-wouldn’t-want-it-in-my-own-living-room cast offs. i’m not suggesting a return to the days of the Ladies’ Parlour (a lavish room that very few were actually allowed to use). But imagine if we furnished our sacred spaces not only to welcome the community in, but to say, you are important to us, you are an honoured guest here. Could we spend money on hospitality, not in the hope that we would get something back (maybe they’ll join our congregation, especially to be hoped for if they have kids), but as the spiritual practice of our faith? Could we spend money on hospitality because we love our neighbours, because we care about the community?

What does hospitality look like to you personally? To your faith community? Are those two streams of hospitality different – if so, how? What would a generous hospitality look like in your own life? In the life of your faith community?