Faith Works 6-1-19

Faith Works 6-1-19

Jeff Gill

 

Don't look up

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Our prayers are certainly with everyone affected by winds and rain and flooding, which covers a great deal of the country this year.

 

From the recent Dayton storms to the earlier Oklahoma and Missouri tornados to rising waters along the Missouri and Mississippi, everyday people and sacred structures have been damaged by the insidious work of water going where it's not wanted.

 

Water has been called the universal solvent, and we all know how a dripping spring can carve a hole in solid rock. What's faster is a leak in a roof above plaster.

 

Something they don't tell you in ministerial training (it's quite a list, actually) is that you'll never look up at the ceiling of a worship space the same way again. It's something like going from being a child to a renter to a homeowner, and you realize when the toilet clogs or the drain backs up that there's no one to call: it's your problem.

 

Stains on the ceiling evoke the same feeling of helpless dread.

 

Depending on your polity, there may be trustees or a property committee or even a diocesan office to call for help. But in the immediate realization that a) there's a problem, and b) it's not going to get better, and c) the longer a solution delays, the more costly the final bill will become, it's often the parson who stands there in the middle of the week thinking "I need a bucket, and then  . . ."

 

And there are roofers, and there are roofers. But after the roofer comes (hallelujah) and goes (oh, but wait), there's the damage done and repairs within, all of which involve ladders at best and scaffolding and/or harnesses at worst.

 

Not to be flip, but a windstorm and massive damage means an insurance call and contractors. The steady drip-drip-drip of managing a physical plant is less the big boom than the everlasting question of what needs painting up there, versus what needs work up above those discolored areas of paint or plaster.

 

Ideally, you have a team and a good contact person beyond your church to help with the big stuff, but it's the little incidents of a leak here, a drip there, a stain in that corner and a little crumbling plaster along the wall that pulls your attention away from where you're trying to focus.

 

Looking up ideally should be a religious impulse of hope and joy, but if you have any kind of building responsibility at all, it can be a hazardous undertaking. I've talked to pastors of large churches, college presidents, and theatre managers, and we all agree: you never look up quite the same way again. Even some retired clergy have told me they visit a church and glance skyward and think "uh oh . . . " and can't look away.

 

Last summer we had a few days in New Mexico, and visited an adobe church we know well, first built in 1812 (and trust me, there are plenty older). Adobe is a form of architecture that has the built-in knowledge that you have to keep rebuilding; it's ideal in desert climates, but it's not that it never rains in an arid place, just that you deal with water differently.

 

So you know with adobe you will re-mud on a regular basis, and it's an art and a skill to apply the materials properly and durably. Still, you have to put a roof on top of those mud brick walls, and need a decent overhang, eaves to keep the casual shower from melting a bit of the exterior, plus solid sheathing up above to prevent the infiltration of run-off from the interior of the structure.

 

I enjoyed our visit to this sacred place, but I knew it hadn't been renovated since our last visit some years ago, and as I looked at the eroded ends of the beams, and considered the patches of adobe crumbled off inside and out, I just kept thinking "someone's got a big job ahead." My first visit was decades before that, and at least one resurfacing cycle back; I'll bet the same signs of decay and needed maintenance could be seen then. But in my early non-ministerial twenties, it was all just quaint.

 

Now, I'm thinking "hope they have a good property committee here" all through my time in the pews.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been in a few attics and on a couple of roofs. Tell him about patch jobs you've regretted at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.