Piano Lessons, "Christian Contracts", and the Gift of Creative Doubt

Henri Matisse, "THE PIANO LESSON"

I loved her.  She was like a grandma to me and every summer day in the little town of White Lake, SD, she piled all of us (sometimes 25 of us) into the back of her old pickup and took all of us to the local swimming hole (we called it the Golf Course) just 2 miles west of town.  She taught me how to swim!  She taught me how to be brave enough to pull leeches from my calves, toss them into the weeds, and then head back out to swim again. 

And...

She was also my Sunday School teacher and taught me how to play the piano!  What a gem!

Her name was Lois Hilton and at the time I knew her she was a mere 70 years old! She was truly a salt of the earth person.

But what I remember Lois the most for was not her piano teaching, but what she made me do before I started taking piano lessons.  Now, mind you, I was only 6 years old!  Before I took piano lessons from Lois, she invited me over to her house and sat me down at the dining room table. And there on that table before me were three things: homemade oatmeal cookies (my favorites), a cold glass of milk (perfect for dipping), and a contract!  Yes a contract! 

On the contract there were three things I was asked to initial.  One, that I believed in God and Jesus Christ.  Two, that I believed that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, and three, I had to promise that I would never smoke tobacco, or drink alcohol in my life.

Now, I didn’t tell Lois, at the time, but I had no idea what inerrant meant...I couldn’t even sound it out right!  But I trusted Lois!  And the cookies and milk were wonderful.  And despite my grumblings to Mom and Dad, I really did want to learn how to play the piano.  So, I initialed all three without hesitation. 

Years later, while I was a freshman at DWU I received a letter from Lois.  I remember getting it on a Saturday.  And the reason I remember that it was a Saturday is that the night before I had had my first introduction to the “college” life of my day.  In other words, I was hung over, big time!  And so, when I opened the letter from Lois...secretly hoping she maybe had sent me a little cash...I was stunned to see in the letter, the exact contract that I had signed some 13 years before with my awkward initials written on all three of my promises!

That next morning, a Sunday, I got up early and headed out with a couple of girl “friends” to the First United Methodist Church of Mitchell, SD to go to church.  Guilt, after all, has its motivating power!

But I have to say, that like many college students, I found my “faith” in Lois’s understanding of faith and God and the Bible (especially the inerrant word of God) waning!  To be honest, I was turned off by the linear and unrelenting understanding of faith as blind assent to these unwavering ‘beliefs” that were written 2000 years ago.  Believing, the way I understood the church to be saying, was assenting to these 5 or 10 unnegotiable “certain-itudes”.  It was reading the Apostles Creed every Sunday and “believing” that it was absolutely true.  (Little did they know that starting at the age of 12 I used to cross my fingers behind my back when I recited words like “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.”  Come on now...even I knew where babies came from!)   

Often, in college, I would lay awake, wringing my hands in worry about what my mom and dad might say about my doubts. (Question: should faith make you lie to the people you most respect?) What would they say if I told them the truth...that I didn’t believe in most of the “Christian tenants of the faith”!?   And when I did go to church in those college years, (often singing in the choir for God’s sake) I felt like a hypocrite! Oh, the guilt!

Eventually I ended up in seminary of all places!  Why?  Because somewhere along the way (thank you Dave Heetland and Duane Wilterdink...my campus ministers at DWU!)  I learned of a different understanding of Christianity.  An understanding that didn’t shame others when they doubted and questioned but instead encouraged it and embraced it as an essential part of the journey!

Look!  I love Lois Hilton.  She did everything she did in love for me.  She didn’t know any other way of believing!  But her actions, while well intended, ended up “doing harm” to the creative doubter that I was. 

May we as a church learn to do things differently.

PS: This Sunday after worship at Bear Creek UMC, I will be leading a class and discussion around this topic and the book “The Shift” by Colby Martin.  My hope is that this can help any of us who are struggling with our faith to realize that “faith implies a dynamic evolving, not a static arriving” (Colby Martin: The Shift pg. 12) Hope to see you there!

Your pastor and friend, still dynamically evolving with you and yours, Brook