Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder Column # 3
Exploring Principles and Perfection
As I mount the steps into our church foyer on Sunday morning, our pastor greets me with a wide grin and extended eye-contact as he descends them.
Why is he so especially friendly this morning? I wonder.
I mount a few more stairs and hear his voice behind me. He has reversed directions to talk with me. He grins again. Then he asks, “Well, should I watch for you to stand up during this morning’s message, announce you disagree, and stomp out?
Whaaaaat? I am puzzled. Then I remember the first “I Wonder” Column, in which I wondered what would happen if I did just that. [If you missed that first column, you can see it here.]
He’s not one of my Substack subscribers. But, uh oh, he read that column!
I take a deep breath. “I’ve never been tempted to do that during your messages,”
I reassure him. “But I have thought that occasionally listening to a guest pastor or attending worship elsewhere.” Those words are easy to say, because they are true.
Then he answers the other question I asked in the same column. “I do know one thing that would happen if I walked downtown in my underwear — I would be fired!”
We laugh together. He tells me he appreciated the column, and he heads back down the stairs.
I stumble toward the sanctuary, still puzzled by his non-subscriber status. Light dawns. I think his wife Becky subscribed recently after I posted a link to the new series on Facebook! Mystery solved.
Worship begins. I focus all my thinking there. Well, almost all. I do wonder several times: Did he believe me when I reassured him that my bizarre thought about stomping out of worship, was random and bizarre, not a regular occurrence? And I have not thought that during his sermons?
After worship, I find him in the foyer, and repeat my appreciation of his ministry and his messages. He takes the reassuring role and says, “I wasn’t offended. We know each other well enough, that I know you would tell me if you saw something differently.”
“That’s true,” I mention some questioning emails I have occasionally sent him, and he nods.
Phew. I am relieved.
Now, Sunday afternoon at the dining room table, I reconsider what I wrote two weeks ago: What would happen if, halfway through a Sunday morning sermon, I stood up, declared to the pastor and congregation, “I disagree. That is totally untrue!” and then marched out of the sanctuary?
Notice the words in bold, “the pastor.” Originally, I used the word “our,” but decided against that. Readers could understand it as implied criticism of my pastor. That was not my intention. So I changed “our” to “the.”
But I could have done better. Using “the pastor” still links the statement to my regular place of worship, just less completely.
The words “a pastor” don’t carry that implication at all. It could be any pastor I hear preach anywhere I travel. “A pastor” would have been a better choice.
Mademoiselle Editor failed me!
Can she really do perfect work? I consider this question awhile. A saying from decades ago floats into mind: Writing is never finished. It is always abandoned. Hm. Who said that?
I search and discover French poet Paul Valery coined the phrase. He actually said, “A poem’s never finished, only abandoned.” I discover that other writers have applied it to prose.
Novelist Graham Green claimed, “The writer is doomed to live in an atmosphere of perpetual failure.”
No wonder Mlle. Editor is so crabby! She never succeeds in reaching perfection. Now I understand why I have to banish her so often. [If you haven’t met Mlle. Editor, see column two here.]
Perhaps both Valery and Greene overstate the case, but I have learned over the years that no writing ever attains perfection.
I have learned to live with imperfection, sort of. Mlle. Editor is still sometimes a tyrant. I will always need to limit her power. But I will always need her.
This Sunday afternoon Mlle. Editor also reminds me of one important principle I should live by: I can tell your own stories freely, but you need permission from other people if you tell theirs.
I tell her, I have already obeyed your principle.
Before I ended my second conversation with my pastor this morning, I said, “I’m thinking that our conversation would make a good beginning for a column. Are you OK if I write something and get your approval or changes before publishing it?” He nodded.
The following Monday I do that. His story appears above with his approval.
I assure you Substack readers that I will give you that same respect. Your stories belong to you, and if you tell them to me in a conversation, I will ask your permission before you appear in print. That’s the policy I have used with my husband for decades And I will do the same for you, in our conversations and emails. If you respond publicly in Substack or in Facebook your comments are already public, and I can freely used them.
PS: You are welcome to consider these questions in the coming week: Why is using a rocking chair soothing? Do some people jiggle a knee when seated for the same reason— to soothe themselves? Or does that jiggling provide energy? I welcome your thoughts in comments, in Substack or in email (carolvk13@gmail.com).
PPS. After our pastor checked this column, he noted gently that he has been a Notes from the Prairie subscriber for about a year.
Mlle. Editor is in a tizzy. I will try to calm her, but it may take a day or two.
I would appreciate your sharing the pleasure of this newsletter with a few of your friends. Thanks!
Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts — and is available for reading performances of her work. Her latest book, A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff is scheduled for release December 2024. (Stay tuned!) Readers can contact her publicly by commenting on this Substack or privately at carolvk13@gmail.com.