Harrumph!

I’ll be blunt. UU churches are not known for charismatic preachers. We have a long, distinguished history of bright and even brilliant ministers. We have led in social causes. Our liberal pulpit occupants are often exemplars of compassion, reason and wit.

Yet here in Boston, we have one of the few who simultaneously inspires and enchants. Now is not too soon to write — in ink — on your 2010 calendar to attend Christmas Eve at the Arlington Street Church. Whatever your ritual that day and time, it is not as moving nor as memorable.

We were there as usual yesterday, wife, hubby and the two sons who still live in Boston. If you have never been in the nave before Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie, this is the right introduction. More on that later.

Angst in the Back

I found indisputable proof of Kim’s power 20 years ago when she was a candidate for senior minister there. I was stepping up to chair the board (the Prudential Committee or Pru, as they say at Arlington and Boylston) and I was supporting her. As is the norm in UU churches and others with congregational polity,  the leading candidate gives a sermon and the members vote up or down.

Nervous and slowly pacing in the back of the nave behind the last row of those grand, doored walnut pews, I could not believe what I heard. She began complaining about her terrible relationship with her father.

That was not the UU way!

The previous senior minister, Victor Carpenter, was what New England UUs know and both the Unitarian and Universalists before they joined knew for a couple of hundred years. Victor was extraordinary in his drive for social justice, but he epitomized his profession. He was a wise graybeard whose sermons were intellectually grounded, well researched and seeming to have footnotes. Often the homilies carried supporting citations from those whom UUs jocularly call saints — Channing, Emerson, Thoreau, and the like.

The interim minister whose job was to prepare us and help us through our replacement search was similar. Farley Wilder Wheelwright had a huge voice and powerful presence. He too had marched with King’s people in the Civil Rights struggles. He too laid out a cogent argument well documented in a sermon.

Then and there with Kim’s candidating sermon, I thought I might be bleeding through my tweed sports coat. My candidate was in the imposing high pulpit speaking sweetly and sadly to virtually the entire membership on her lousy relationship with her dad.

What Matters

The search committee had done a difficult job well in winnowing the candidates. They were also plain about the obvious. Kim was not a greybeard, not a man, and an out, partnered lesbian.

Having heard her in P’town, I knew she could preach. I figured if she sounded anything like that, even the little old ladies who had been picky about this, that and the other would vote for her. I found confirmation in asking around as well. A couple of long-term members did have an objection or rather question, but it was none of those matters on the committee’s fear list. As one elderly member said, “But she’s so young.”

At 32, she was indeed much younger than many of the famous ministers at the ASC or its previous names in the original location of the Long Lane and Federal Street churches. I could remind people that the most storied minister, the definer of American Unitarianism, William Ellery Channing had taken the church’s pulpit at 23.

As Kim spoke, she did nothing to play the game as we had been used to it. She didn’t fall back on lengthy quotes of others. She spoke directly from her own experience. She drew lessons from herself. It was personal and not academic.

Doom. The vote would come after the sermon and I deeply dreaded it.

As she finished, two long-time members at the back fairly rushed me. One woman gripped my right forearm with all ten spindly fingers. “I felt like she was talking just to me!,” she exclaimed with great pleasure and I think misty eyes.

Of course…that’s what matters. Kim is a rarity among ministers and extremely rare among UU ones. She is charismatic.

I have preached several times from that pulpit. It is intimidating to stand that high facing a nave that seats up to 912. There are always at least several hundred there and the feeling of exposure is powerful. All eyes are upon you is accurate.

Yet, Kim has the personal power to make each person feel there are only two in the room. A sermon from Kim Crawford Harvie is the most personal group experience you can have.

Even without the footnotes, even speaking personally, she swamped the vote that day and has been senior minister there for the past two decades.

High Pulpit Theater

To really get the most from Kim, you need to attend a month or so of her sermons. She is always powerful and inspiring. She is charismatic enough that people would do virtually anything she tells them. That’s her superpower.

However, I find that once or twice a month, she is truly on. She goes beyond the home run. When she is in her zone, the church almost levitates.  (A touch of irony here is that it is not on solid ground at all, but rests on 999 pilings driven into the Back Bay muck.)

When Kim is on, you’ll feel and hear what you do not in other UU churches, or almost any church. No one whispers. No one coughs. No one fidgets. No one shuffles orders of service. No one checks a Blackberry.

Many do find themselves tearing up. At other points, the whole church gently laughs when she leads them to those moments too.

Honestly, she has ruined other ministers for me. I have heard dozens of UU preachers and maybe 200 clerics in various Protestant and Catholic churches. Her personal gift is extraordinarily rare.

So on Christmas eve, you get the easy introduction. She is backed up by the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus. Last evening, they accompanied the processional carol and such, as well as performing as a group five times. I suppose you could say the singing was well worth the 7 or 9 p.m. visit.

Kim always delivers a full sermon on this occasion. That is tricky for any UU, in churches that don’t buy into creed, dogma or a theological trinity. She is splendid at tying together the underlying concerns and passions of non-Christians, Christians and even atheists and plain old humanists. You’ll have to hear that sort of magic yourself to understand  how she can burrow to the essence without strain.

Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this.  There aren’t a lot of empty seats on Christmas eve at that church facing the statue of Rev. Channing. I suspect there’ll be room for a few more this coming December though.

Tags: harrumph, harrumpher, Arlington Street Church, UU, Kim Crawford Harvie, charismatic, Christmas eve