March 14, 2025
Unexpected Gifts
I put a book on my Christmas “wish list” this past year. A short, light read of a book to explore on my then upcoming flight to Japan. It was a book in the “33 1/3” series of short monographs on important records from the 1950s to today. My request was for the one written on Dusty in Memphis by Warren Hanes. Dusty in Memphis was Atlantic Record’s experiment bringing British pop singer Dusty Springfield to the US to record with some of the top musicians in Memphis; the same musicians that played behind some of Springfield’s favorite rhythm and blues records. Although the album was not a huge success, save the single “Son of a Preacher Man,” it has quickly entered the pantheon of great records of the post-World War II era. I have come to appreciate the record with each new listen and wanted to learn more. A brief, breezy read for part of a long flight.
Or so I thought. Short yes, clocking in at 121 small pages. But rock musician Haynes who wrote the book is also a PhD in Cultural Studies. What I got was an essay which was at the same time, personal, reportorial, and analytical. Haynes used this record to explore the way we view both the past, and the past in the present. In particular he explores in some detail both “Southern Culture” and the perception of the continuity of the South’s present with the South’s past.
Not lacking in scholarly theory or resources, Haynes pulls out a salvo in quoting cultural scholar Andreas Huyssen and his essay from 2000 entitled “Present Pasts: Media, Politics, Amnesia.” In this, Huyssen argues that a shift occurred in western cultures from the beginning of the 20th century to its end; a shift from focusing on the future to focusing on the past, often with a rather rosy memory of the past.
One of modernity’s permanent laments concerns the loss of a better past, with a sense of stable boundaries and a place bound culture with its regular flow of time and a core of permanent relations. Perhaps such days have always been a dream rather than a reality, a phantasmagoria of loss generated by modernity itself rather than by its prehistory. But the dream does have staying power, and what I have called the culture of memory may well be, at least in part, its contemporary incarnation.
My father used to say, “The ‘good old days’ are now more old than good.” Life for him as an adult was much easier for him than being a poor immigrant child where he and his brother taught their parents the language of their new homeland. But now the dream of a better past has become a “reality” by people believing it to be true. This sounds like our politics today. It also sounds like our view of the church.
One of the reasons I was considering returning to pastoral ministry before I received that fateful call from Sandy Nelson about applying to be your pastor was I was tired of people claiming the church was dead. The church has had its ups and downs throughout history, but God has remained faithful. I believe to my core that there is nothing that cannot be redeemed and made new. (Revelations 21:5) Moving towards a future focused on the past is moving backward. We have a present and future hope firmly rooted—but not stuck—in the past.
I have no idea what the future holds, but I believe deeply that good days are ahead for First Covenant Church, Seattle because our community is growing in so many ways, and God’s faithfulness is unimpeachable.
Might we be confident that we are not only in a great season in First Covenant’s history, but this generation is building a platform for even better days in the future. And when people start complaining about today and pining for the good old days, point them to track four on Dusty in Memphis, “I Don’t Want to Hear it Anymore.”
With audacious hope,
~ Pastor Todd