The Ball-Cap Crisis
ONE CAN NEVER KNOW how delicately balanced a long-term truce is until its equilibrium is shattered by the weight of a straw, a straw that lands as if it were a ten-pound hammer.
In a church I served, the straw was a few kids wearing ball caps in the worship service.
The church was a hundred years old in a town barely older. Both showed their age. But the town and the church stood as landmarks of human determination to beat a living out of poor soil and bad weather. These people were tough. They put up with a lot to live there, and generally they put up with a lot from each other. Their main prejudice was against disingenuousness. The rule was, "Don't act like one of us if you ain't." People who moved in and right away bought fancy western clothes didn't last long.
I grew up in big cities and preached in a dark gray suit that would have worked in Boston. Yet it was not uncommon when calling on older people in the congregation—lifelong, cow-punching Montanans—for them to say to me, "You're just like one of our kids." I didn't look like their kids, I didn't talk like their kids, but apparently there was something about me that reflected the place's ethos more deeply than clothing or language.
I learned that I could talk about things they talked about only if I knew something about what they were calking about; otherwise, I should ask polite questions or keep my mouth shut. Once they figured out I was a good fly-fisherman, they enjoyed sermon illustrations from fishing, but I never tried illustrations from hunting.
I learned about my new culture's antipathy toward disingenuousness at a potluck supper following my candidating sermon. I was sitting at a table with several men who started talking about chain saws. I offered some opinions ...
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