A Lesson in Grace...or Diplomacy

On Fridays I go to read with my friend Charlie, and this week we read through much of the poetry in Purpaleanie and other Permutations by Sietze Buining (English prof Stanley Wiesma), a minor Christian Reformed classic that came out in 1978. Purpaleanie was all the rage in CRC circles 30 years ago and eventually was shaped into a lovely play by Dordt theatre prof Vern Meyer. Purpaleanie is a collection of free (very free) verse poems told by a young Sioux County farm boy of the ‘40’s celebrating and critiquing the rural Christian Reformed Dutch-American folk of his time.
One poem that I did not remember from my earlier readings of the collection (and viewing of the play) struck me as most profound. I find the “lesson” of the poem, the non-arguing acceptance of criticism by the pastor, to be a potent challenge to my own way of dealing with unfair criticism. It is titled “Diplomacy” but I would have called it “Grace.” Here it is:

Diplomacy

Prayer
and fasting
went into the critique
as well as insomnia and loss
of appetite, not to mention the effort
of a carefully kept notebook.
Is it any wonder
Asa’s voice quavered now that he confronted
The dominie face to face in the parsonage?

“On
June 5
in the morning
you said that immersion
shows what happens in baptism
every bit as well as sprinkling.
On June 12 you said in the evening
that God loves everybody. You were on
John-three-sixteen again. On June 19 you quoted
the Pope—about the need for peace. On June 26
you asked the Presbyterian minister to pray.
He used to be Reformed, but even the sister-
in-law he was visiting says he doesn’t read
the Bible anymore—not after meals he does-
n’t. And your Fourth-of-July sermon was
anti-American. When Jesus said ‘My
Kingdom is not of this world,’
the founding fathers hadn’t
even written the Constitu
tion yet.”
Asa
folded away
his notebook and afterwards
he wondered how it had all happened
so fast.
Any one of the charges was enough
certainly to get the Consistory to reprimand Dominie.
And who knows? To get Classis to censure him or get Synod
to silence him forever?
But the dominie had asked,
“Is that your whole list, Asa?”
“Ja, Dominie.”
“Well, Asa, those were certainly
foolish things for me to
preach. I’ll try to
be more careful.
Bear with me.
And now we
consider
the case
closed,
Asa.”

The case was closed
because the Dominie
said so. Asa’s in-
somnia and loss of appetite
disappeared because the case was closed.
The prayer and fasting disappeared because
the insomnia and loss of appetite disappeared.
And Asa sold his farm and studied to be a dominie
because a dominie can call a case closed to avoid a fight
and thus do a world of good.

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