On handwriting in the digital age

I am a dinosaur. I know it, and am proud of it. I am at the age where I can remember life without computers and the Internet. Don’t get me wrong, both are wonderful things. I just remember what life was like without them.

I can remember when it was a big deal when a movie premiered on television. I can remember that each August the Wizard of Oz was on national television, and everything stopped cold. In the slightly previous generation it was said that during the commercials during “I Love Lucy” the water pressure in cities would drop as people used the bathroom and flushed in unison.

And, I still write things by hand. Notes at meetings, and most especially, notes for my sermons.

There are really two ways to preach--one is to read your sermon from a manuscript, or to preach extemporaneously. I do the latter, using anywhere from six to eight pages of handwritten notes. A sample is shown here.

Awhile ago a colleague suggested that because I didn’t write my sermons on my computer and didn’t read them from an iPad, I would be considered old-fashioned. So I am. Let it come. I will retire in about ten years, maybe do a couple of interim positions before retiring completely.

I have been preaching for thirty six years, and have never regretted doing it the way I do. No, it isn’t trendy, and I don’t wear trendy clothes either. If that’s what is going to attract people to my church, then that’s pretty shallow. Although some evidence may argue to the contrary, I refuse to believe that my children’s generation is shallow enough to place image before substance.

Many people don’t write by hand that much. No surprise there. A lot of people don’t read books, either. We have ways of communicating that don’t involve a pen and paper--texting, email, Twitter, and all the other forms of electronic instant gratification. Using pen and paper is becoming a lost art.

So, my use of handwritten notes for preaching is a form of rebellion. It is quaint, I guess. The stylish thing is to use an iPad. I understand, that it’s easier than bringing paper into the pulpit. It’s just a modern version of typing out the sermon. It still leaves me cold. Then again, reading a sermon from paper (or an iPad) leaves me cold too.

A number of years ago a parishoner asked me if I could make a copy of my sermon, as it had resonated with him. I told him that I use handwritten notes, and that he probably wouldn’t be able to read my handwriting. He said that he was able to read pretty bad handwriting. So, I copied the notes for him. He told me the next week that he couldn’t read my handwriting, and he appreciated the effort. I told him I sometimes can’t read my own handwriting either. That’s what appears as a pregnant pause.

People will ask me on a Saturday sometimes if I have my sermon done for the next day. I’ll always say “no.” They will ask when it will be done, and I’ll respond that it will be done when I’m done preaching it.  Preaching is always spoken. It’s another one of those arcane things that we do in the church. It isn’t electronic. It’s me and my handwritten notes talking to a group of people.

I like it that way. I believe they do to. Instead of reading to them, I’m talking to them. That's the bottom line.

Sound From the Past

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time in the basement, working on my woodturning lathe. In particular, I’ve been working on a couple of chess sets. I do things in spurts until I get tired with it, then move on to something else. I will get back to a few paintings that I haven’t finished, but right now, woodturning feels just right.

I remember many years ago that our family was in a museum of some sort, I can’t remember where. It was when I was a kid. I remember there were rooms from several different 19th century shops, and you could press a button and hear sounds that would have been heard in the particular shop you were looking at. Workshops have always felt like home to me. My father always had one in the basement, and I have many fond memories of working on projects with him, and sometimes alone. Since we’ve moved to Rocky Hill I have the best workshop I’ve ever had, and it’s ours. We own the house (that is the bank does, for the next 29 years more or less). This time around I dont’t feel as though I’m just camping out for the next five or six years until it’s time to move again. 

So, my workshop is shaping up. Last night as I was turning the second king for my oversized South German/Czech chess set, which is related to the Vienna Coffee House style, I was listening to the sound of the knife as it was  cutting the wood and I realized I had heard that sound before. Not just recently, because I’ve done a lot of turning over the last few years. It was almost an archetypal sound, one that you can’t quite put your finger on but sounds so familiar. After a few minutes I realized it was one of the sounds I had heard in the museum so many years ago, that sound that stuck with me.

I discovered woodturning in high school. I made a few things, none of which I have now. I realized that I really enjoyed it.  After high school I worked in a pewter shop, learning how to spin pewter. Then I left a year later and went to college. Spinning is done on a lathe. I never quite got the hang of that, but it was interesting.

Then, many years went by until someone gave me a lathe, which is the one I use now. It’s almost meditational, because you have to focus on what you’re doing. The rule is that you never look away from your work when you have the tool engaged with the piece of wood you’re turning. One false move and you could have that tool stuck in your shoulder, or worse, in the middle of your forehead. One tiny slip is all it takes. So, focus is the thing.

I learned a number of years ago that my great grandfather (my paternal grandmother’s father) was an expert woodturner. I always knew that he had a woodworking shop where they made victorian trim for houses, and furniture. I have a piece that was made in his shop. But apparently turning was his specialty. I thought about him as I reflected on the sound my tool made against the wood. It reminded me that it is an old sound, the same sound that a woodturner would have made centuries ago. It was not a sound made by a table saw or a router. Sure, the machine was run by electricity instead of water or steam power, but it was an old sound that my great grandfather would have been very familiar with.

It’s funny how little things can bring me back in time. Time to go downstairs and make a couple more chess pieces.