Just Another Jim's

Alaska Journal

Ch. 15: Marie

Posted January 12, 2007 by James E. Nelson

In a land where eccentricity and anti-social behavior is, if not more common, at least more visible, Marie was the most unusual person I knew mostly because she was so out of place in Alaska. She was French with Royalist tendencies. She despised California wine and Egg McMuffins. She typically invited me for brunch, serving properly done Eggs Benedict with espresso. I always thought that Eggs Benedict was an American dish first served at Delmonicos in New York City. Since it started with English muffins and Canadian bacon, I also considered it vaguely British. But I always kept my thoughts to myself when in her presence. Somehow when she served Eggs Benedict with Espresso it was thoroughly French.

Her husband was a retired Army officer who had been stationed at The Hague where he met Marie. She took quite naturally to being an officer’s wife and they spent many years together traveling the globe before his retirement. Everyone expected he would enter the diplomatic corps and eventually be appointed an ambassador. Instead he surprised everyone by settling into a quiet life of gardening and woodwork in out-of-the-way Delta Junction. Marie held court in their immaculate home and most people enjoyed her excessive but lovely parties.

Marie was a faithful church member although she never served on a board. Serving on something as democratic as the Session or Trustees would have been far too pedestrian for her sensibilities. Instead, when she felt that something needed to be done, we had brunch and she explained her position frankly, but with no coercion.

In my previous pastoral positions I had been very leery of business over a cup of coffee with people outside the official loop of boards and committees. Typically these were people who wanted to manipulate the decision making process for their own quiet gain. Most often these were people with less than noble aspirations. People who worked outside the normal authority structures were the snakes in the well tended garden of the church. I quickly learned that this was not Marie. Becoming American fairly late in life, and having lived nearly everywhere except the United States for the first half of her life, she didn’t suffer from delusions of democracy and equality. In her top-down world, she (being an officer’s wife) was far closer to the top than the bottom, so when something needed to be done, she went to the top and called the pastor. If I disagreed, I didn’t do what she asked; and I had no need to fear that she would work behind my back. I suspect working behind the pastor’s back would have been a bit treasonous, in her mind. She was loyal to a fault. In spite of her other-worldly class and vaguely superior outlook on the community, it was precisely this that made Marie so typically Alaskan.

In my first two congregations I learned about two approaches to group dynamics that I have since come to learn are quite normal in America. Both approaches to group dynamics require an understanding of the difference between power and authority. The first church I served was one of the very few mainline Presbyterian congregations remaining that had never had and women serve on their board. It was a men’s club and business was either conducted in the church boardroom or at 10:00 a.m. coffee break at the local café. But business always took at least two months to accomplish. After formal discussion nearly all business was tabled. The men then went home and discussed it with their wives. The next month, with the women’s imprimatur, the business was transacted. In that church the structure was patriarchal while the power was matriarchal. As long as the pastor understood that, things remained calm and orderly.

The second church I served was a “high steeple church” in Lincoln, Nebraska. When one walked into a session meeting, it wasn’t clear whether this was a church function or the board meeting of a Fortune 500 Company. In this church I was introduced to power brokers and the unbelievable influence they exerted. Fortunately, most of them were benevolent and had the best interests of the congregation in mind. One or two of them were quite selfish (if not malevolent) in their intentions. A previous pastor had aligned himself with this group and the scandal that resulted reverberated through the whole Presbytery, and even the Synod, for a decade after the scandal broke.

In Lincoln, decision making was an ongoing negotiation between those in authority (the boards) and those with the power. Occasionally one of the boards would buck the power brokers but when that happened it typically sent ripples of fear and discontent through staff and congregation. Most of the time the business done was a strange mix of quiet lunches and telephone conversations followed by official board action.

Delta was refreshingly different than all of that. Church business certainly got talked about over coffee and people’s living rooms, but those times were conversational rather than coercive. If someone outside the authority structure had an issue they typically came to the meeting to make their case before the board. Nearly everything was surprisingly up front and out in the open. People were simply what they appeared to be.

Of course there were exceptions. We did have one woman in the congregation who liked to think of herself as a power broker. She was feared, but mostly ignored until she forced her views upon one of th boards. If something major was going to happen it was also good to get the agreement of Harold and Maude simply because they would probably be the ones carrying out the task. In some people’s hands, church business was too public. Nancy, down at the Laundromat, would talk to everyone in town about whatever she was excited about at that particular moment. If it were a piece of confidential church business—well, nothing was particularly confidential to Nancy—and she was either excited or upset about it, chances are everyone who stopped in the Laundromat knew Nancy’s position. But other than a few exceptions, business was up front and public.

And in this sense, although Marie was world’s apart from the hoi poloi in Delta, she was of the same mind. Of course it was beneath her to actually attend a meeting but she was glad to have the pastor out for brunch when she had something to say. But what she had to say was never off the record, in secret, or behind someone’s back. Those brunches were a matter of style, not secrecy.

For the first year, it was Marie’s regal approach to life that impressed me. In fact it blinded me to her other activities. Two stand out in particular. She loved flowers. The Delta area had a lot of flowers in its public areas and Marie was largely responsible for that. If she didn’t plant them herself (and she often did), she saw to it that the job got done and that the flowers were tended and looked presentable throughout the growing season. Delta Junction also had a dance school where children were introduced to ballet. Although she was not a dancer, Marie was the driving force behind the ongoing success of that school.

One would not think of ballet in a backwater Alaska town like Delta Junction, and yet it was there and an integral part of the community (although invisible to anyone just passing through). Many small communities across North America have flowers or other forms of public decoration. As tourists drive through, they enjoy the beauty but rarely think about how it comes about. Whether its dance, or flowers, community singing groups, or dart leagues, or a ham radio club, each public activity requires an individual to be the driving force behind it, to see that it happens. In Delta there was Marie and a number of other people that made these sorts of things happen. They were largely responsible for making Delta Junction the sort of community it was.

Without Marie Delta would have still been a vibrant community. With Marie that community received her particular stamp and as a result took on a particular character. Every community has a personality that is relatively easy to recognize. What is more difficult is figuring out who the people are who push, prod, and lead in order to give a community it’s particular personality. In this sense, Delta Junction is exactly like every small town across North America. It is a product of those who are willing to pitch in. What made the community what it was had less to do with the mountains, the cold, the long winters nights and the wildlife; it had much more to do with the individuals who happened to live there—individuals who just as well might have lived in a thousand different communities across the nation. But in the case of Delta, it was Marie and others with like civic pride that made the town what it was.