Garden City KS and the Finnup Foundation Trust

And so I arrived at Garden City KS on Friday, Feb. 9, to lead a conversation over dinner on current issues in American religion and law (Feb. 9), to guide a Book of Job seminar all day on Feb. 10, and to preach at two services for the Community Congregational Church on Feb. 11. I was in town courtesy of the Finnup Foundation Trust and the efforts of my friend and former student, Lance Woodbury. The weekend was a full and delicious one, and it confirmed my long-held belief that the most interesting, down-to-earth, welcoming people you can meet are from Kansas. Perhaps it is the relatively nondescript character of the scenery in mid-Winter that brings it out of them, but Kansas also has more "characters per capita" than any other place I have visited. Some of my readers might have a theory for this, if it is indeed true. What do you say?

At the Finnup House

My accommodations for the weekend were not in a box-like motel room but were in the gracious/spacious/roomacious (I just made that one up!) Finnup House. Built in the early days of the last century, the Finnup House was the long-time residence of George and Alta Smith Finnup, leading citizens of Garden City. Their children, Frederick and Isabel, inhabited the home until their deaths in 1988 and 1978, respectively. I was told by Katherine Hart of the Finnup Foundation that the house wasn't much used since then, but that someone had once mentioned the possibility of ghosts in the residence. Just what I needed to calm myself down from the perilous trek up Mount Sunflower. Actually, I joined in on the fun one night. Perhaps I was a little daffy after leading my day-long Job seminar but I decided to sit upstairs late that night for about 20 minutes behind the shade of the one of the front windows, hoping to stir a rumor in town that the shadow I cast on the shade might have been Frederick's ghost. Well, the accommodations were wonderful, and I had some memorable moments there.

Among the memorable moments were poring over some of George's books which were neatly stored in a glass-front bookcase in the living room. I paged through many of these early 20th century books, mostly of history or social studies, stopping every so often to look at pictures or read snippets of text. I was expecially entranced, however, by his copy of the 1916 Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. My love of words is no secret to anyone; I decided that I had to write an essay about this dictionary. I also picked up a copy of Frederick Finnup's autobiography/diary (it is written by the first Frederick, who came to Garden City in 1878), which Katherine and Caverly Hart had "translated" and put into typescript a few years ago. I put translated in quotation marks because Frederick's language is a combination of conversational English mingled with the German of his youth. It dawned on me as the weekend progressed that I could probably spend a lot of time in the house just sifting through all this stuff. But, I was there to lead seminars, and to them I will now turn.

Conversations on Job/American Religion

About 20 of us gathered for dinner on Friday night and the Job seminar on Saturday. They came in couples and single. Penny came the farthest, from Syracuse (KS, that is), while some who came lived just down the street. The weather hadn't been very cooperative in Western Kansas all Winter, and we ended up sliding in together on Saturday morning for the seminar. Who was there? Well, I recall Bob and Mary Beth, Jan and Mike, Wayne and Ellen (CA transplants who were probably longing for San Juan Capistrano over the cold weekend), Shirley and Steve, Jim and Penny. Then there were Kandee and Vivian and Katherine and Caverly and Jeanie and Leonard and Lance and Doug, who had to leave early. Mary came, even though she had been working and her husband, the pastor, was out of town. She actually provided some helpful comments on kidneys and nutrition (Job talks about how he feels God has "slashed open" his kidneys--16:13). There are probably others that I am missing, but this was almost everyone.

And we connected. We laughed and patiently read the text of Job and talked about things politcal and religious. The story of Job seemed to resonate with just about everyone. We talked, for example, about the brutally honest and painful passage in Job 16, where Job complains to God about his mistreatment. What seemed to catch all of our attention, however, were the four passages we discussed on Job's struggle between hope and hopelessness. I posed the question, "How do you 'get over' your losses and return to a hopeful life?" Or, to put it differently, "How do you learn to hear or see life in such a way that the storms of the past don't become the squalls of the future?" We saw from Job that the process of hope begins with a confession of no hope. That is, I had us read from Job 9:30-33, where Job says, "There is no umpire who might lay his hand on us both." My point, which was picked up and expanded on by many as soon as I said it, was that hope begins when we deny that we have any hope; the mere mention of the fact that "there is no hope" gets our minds working and our brains whirring. Hope begins in the confession of no hope.

But I think the "high point" of the day was in our discussion near the end of our six hours together.* We were discussing the idea

[*Let me ask you this--where else can you go and find people who will give you undivided and eager attention on this most difficult biblical book for six hours on a Winter Saturday?]

of how Job changed his mind about his distress. During the entire book he was fighting God, challenging God, asking God to appear in person to defend what He had done to Job. But then, in Job 32-41, two figures enter--Elihu and God--and give long speeches to Job. Something about their words brings Job to the most remarkable confession in 42:5. "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." We had a significant discussion on the nature of what Job saw, and concluded (tentatively, of course!) that Job had learned to reframe his distress and to see just how little he was in the cosmic order of things. He gave up his claim to being right at that point, just two verses before God came in and said to Job (42:7) that he had been right all along. Something about the vision of God tends to relativize every complaint and concern that formerly occupied so many RAM of our mental processes.

Conclusion

Actually, my last view of Garden City wasn't on Sunday but on Tuesday, Feb. 13. I returned to GC from Hutchinson/Sterling and needed to get out of GC quickly because another snowstorm impended. So, I rushed over to the church to see if I could get some weather information to Denver. Shirley, the efficient secretary whom I had just met the weekend previously, was now an old friend. How do I know? Well, she greeted me with a "What are YOU still doing in town?" So I told her that I needed some maps and weather reports--quick. Together we figured out the best and safest route for me to Denver. Then, just before I left, she gave me a big good-bye hug. I felt as if the whole weekend was in that hug, and it kept me going through the ice and snow until I reached Denver and flew home to Oregon.

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