A community puts aside differences to come together

May 11, 2020

For this country pastor, spring means Town Meeting Day is here.

A Vermont tradition since 1762, Town Meeting Day is where residents in sleepy hamlets and frozen-in-time villages throw on their boots and trudge through the mud (or sometimes a foot or more of snow) to get to schools or village offices to speak for or against proposed policies, budgets, prospective town clerks and supervisors, and then to vote.

I’ve always been intrigued with Town Meeting Day. Why call it a “meeting” when really no one is there to have deep discussions? Just like church parking lot conversations, meetings have already taken place inside musty general stores and, of course, in the most popular gathering place — the rural post office. Still, Vermonters will discuss, debate, disagree and hopefully cast votes that will benefit the many who are struggling in the Green Mountain state.

While running errands and out on pastoral calls, I see the “Vote for…” signs hanging from dilapidated porches or stuck into the ground near mailboxes. Many of these signs are written in marker on poster board and stapled to a wooden stick. These are simple signs, yet not so simple issues. Vermont, like many places in our country, is struggling with families moving out because of the lack of jobs, the inability to get high-speed internet that prevents businesses from moving in, farms closures and the rampant use of opioids. And don’t even get me going on the state of our churches. I’ve never held onto the promise of resurrection so tightly as I do now as a rural pastor. Those who idealize country living for its simplicity fail to see it is anything but simple. There was one recent Town Meeting Day that proved just that.

The vote was about merging rural schools into larger districts to save money and resources. Those for the merger cited that rural schools couldn’t continue as is with the number of children and funding shrinking. Those against the merger supported the tax increases that would keep the current school system in place. I would like to tell you that there was a resolution, but sadly, the school debate has seen no clear winners or losers. The issue is complex and ongoing.

Still, as the sun went down on that particular Town Meeting Day, I was thinking about the vote that was asking us to change, and how scary that change can be. But no matter how unsettling, doesn’t change give us a chance to see how God can take our dashed dreams, failed attempts and deflated hope and make something wonderful out of it all? Can we see beyond winners and losers and focus on bringing people together in way that moves everyone forward?

When I moonlighted as a reporter at a local paper, I interviewed a woman in one of Vermont’s hamlets that had been dotted with “No to school merger” signs. She was planning a “pie for breakfast” event the weekend after Town Meeting Day. After asking her the important question of what flavor of pies would be served, I asked why she was doing this. Her answer was “to bring the community back together.”

“We are still to be a neighbor to one another, and what better way to remember that than to gather over homemade pies for breakfast?” she said.

Without realizing it, she was capturing hope and redemption.

I couldn’t stop thinking how Vermonters would be doing something very holy when breaking into the flaky pie crusts with their forks. For in the breaking of the pie crusts, they were in fact inviting the spirit of unity to fill the room. And, I believe, the Spirit of God was with them in a powerful and healing way that Saturday morning.

Votes might get contentious as change can be hard but fear not. God’s steadfast love changes not.

Donna Frischknecht Jackson, Editor, Presbyterians Today

Today’s Focus:  Hope and Redemption

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
T.P. Coleman, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Heather Colletto, Board of Pensions

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we thank you for the witness of the church. We ask that your mighty hand would uphold them and guide them as they seek to serve you. In the name of Jesus. Amen.