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When
you push open the heavy front doors and walk into the foyer, your
senses come alive. From the smell of hotdishes and coffee, to the
sounds of the choir’s practicing in the loft overhead, to the
light beaming through the stained glass windows, you can’t
help but understand how people are drawn to the church as a place
to meet, eat and create.
Perhaps the first parishners in the
Fargo-Moorhead area had something other than hotdish and music on
their minds at the first church service, back in June of 1872. John
Karon, a Fargo-Moorhead historian of sorts and curator of the Web
site, www.fargo-history.com, which is dedicated to the history of
the area, shares a story of how “even though prohibition was
in full swing in North Dakota, locals were drawn out to that first
service by the promise of a drink.” Many of the people who
came for a dose of sermon and whiskey were probably solitary men
who sought company more than religion.
According to Karon’s Web site,
the first curch service in the Fargo-Moorhead area took place at
a construction camp that belonged to the Northern Pacific Railroad
in June of 1872. The second service, held in August of that same
year in a tent, included prayer and Communion for the five attendees.
Many of the first settlers were railroad
men and people seeking the opportunity of land ownership. Perhaps
some of them were the early cowboy poets who still populate the
area, even though technology has taken the place of wrangling. Today,
we still see how religion and poetry have strong ties to one another
in the community.
Each week, pastors and priests alike
step up to their pulpits and try to bring people into local churches
through their sermons—themselves a form of poetry. The sermons
are themselves a form of poetry. Eloquence and brevity are both
appreciated when it comes to the Sunday sermon. A skill for a well-turned
phrase is essential in both poetry and in the delivery of the weekly
church message. Religion and poetry also work together in another
area of the church. In the choir loft, people use the lyrics of
the music to share their spirituality. Music is often used for praise,
both as a means to comfort the grieving and to speak the churches’
messages. Just as many songwriters get their start in poetry, many
old hymns started out as a poem and have evolved into meaningful
hymns sung in churches today. The simply nursery song “Jesus
Loves Me” is easy to remember, due to its rhyme and cadence,
two things that are common in poetry.
Poetry is not just used as a medium
to talk about religion just in the church. Many people find that
writing poetry is a way to discuss their own views on religion as
well as to share their own personal memories about religion in their
lives. Local poet Jamie Parsley’s poem “Easter” is
just one example of how religion and poetry meld together as a medium
to express ideas, share emotions and link past and present.
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We wake
early into this blue dawn—into this weirdest of light
the moon still lives at this hour.
We ready ourselves in only that way we can—the water
still cold on our pale cheeks, our shirts stiff, our pants
creased and pleated.
It is Easter. The birds peal the dawn that happens—unseen
by us—behind the horizon and the heavy layer of morning
clouds that gather there.
Mists of escaping frost haunt the churchyard—fumey gray
selves moving among the leaning stones, obliterating the moss-encrusted
epitaphs and the closely cropped brown lawn.
The earth breaths. It does! We hear it. There is a steady
sighing coming up through the ground as we walk across the
parking lot into the hushed enclosure of the church.
When the sun finally breaks through the clouds, it spills
into the nave distorted.
Prisms of blue and purple fall over the wooden sills and onto
our laps in slashing haphazard streaks. Somehow it softens
the stiffness of holiness that lingers about somewhere above
our heads. It highlights the white faith of resurrection—hueing
it with an underlying yellow.
And we know—without saying it or professing it. This
is what Easter is—a careful faith that persisted through
winter, precise liturgy—pronounced with well-placed inflection.
And a hope so sacred it embarrasses us.
—Jamie Parsley
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Poetry
is also a way for people to discuss how religion affects their lives.
Just as church services brought the people of the Fargo-Moorhead
area together back in the 1890s, today groups of young and old alike
meet in local coffeehouse and at the cities’ three universities
to share their poetry and their views.
Whether they write in free verse or
rhyme, poetry allows those who seek a creative outlet to share their
views and stories. Whether through songs that are sung by the choir,
in the sermons each Sunday or in one’s personal poetry, religion
and poetry have a unique connection.
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