Brigadoon

For years, I have heard pastors and laypersons alike talk about Chautauqua Institution in upper New York state. I had a couple of preconceptions about Chautauqua before I arrived. One was that the accomodations in the Disciples House were rather primitive with no air conditioning and shared bathrooms. This proved to true in this house that dated to the 19th Cenury. Nonetheless, it was quite comfortable, well-kempt, and with updates. I also had this idea that experiencing Chautauqua was like stepping back in time and resembled something out of the Music Man or Mayberry RFD. This was also generally true except that there were plenty of modern amenities mixed in with the hundred-year-old houses and facilities.

Chautaqua Institution was founded as a place to train Methodist Sunday School teachers. Within a few years, other churches including the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)discovered this wonderful summer retreat. Every year, since 1874, Chautauqua comes alive for nine weeks in the summer. It becomes a place of worship, music, arts, lectures and discussion. It reminds me a bit of Brigadoon which is the mythical village of musicals past where a little town came alive one day every one hundred years. Why do I say that? Because Chautauqua is blessed each winter with an average of 300 inches of snow. The Disciples House alone had EIGHTEEN feet of snow built up between the houses blurring where one house began and another began. Believe it or not, some people actually live in Chautauqua year round. I can't figure out why, but they do.

Every week of the summer has a theme and the worship and lectures all center around this theme. Our week's focus was Ethical Leadership. Every morning, we heard a compelling sermon by Dr. James Forbes, pastor emeritus of Riverside Church in New York City and President of the Healing of the Nations Foundation. He is listed on numerous surveys as one of the top preachers in the world. Using numerous Biblical texts, Dr. Forbes emphsized that God didn't give us the responsibility of leadership to perpetuate a spirit of victimization, a spirit that he says is rampant in the United States right now. Americans, who have never thought of themselves as victims of anything before, now see themselves as victims of terrorism, victims of the economy, victims of government and Christians aren't doing enough to counter this predominant mood of the nation. God didn't create us to drown in a spirit of victimization. Our nation wasn't founded on a spirit of victimization and it can't thrive there, said Forbes.