Saturday, June 02, 2007
A Cowboy Poetry Ministry at Tinney Chapel
A Cowboy Poetry Ministry At Tinney Chapel
Although Tinney Chapel UMC is not a “cowboy church,” many of its attendees talk the talk, walk the walk and are steeped in cowboy culture. Tinney Chapel pastor, Rev. Duncan Graham, usually serves Holy Communion while wearing cowboy boots under his elder’s vestment.
But no one is more authentically cowboy than was the late Jim Asbill, a memorable Tinney Chapel member who raised quarter horses and helped inaugurate the church’s first Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 2002. Jim read cowboy poetry and decorated the event’s stage with his own prized antique saddle.
After Jim was killed in a tragic horseback riding accident in 2003, the event was re-named in his honor, and he is still considered present in spirit. His antique saddle has remained onstage every year since.
Readers and singers at Tinney Chapel’s recent Sixth Annual Jim Asbill Cowboy Poetry Gathering, June 2, 2007, include:
Odena Glover Brannam, at 97, this event’s oldest poet and biggest hit for the past several years,
Danny Lake, a working rancher and the event’s perennial MC,
Angela Wylie, Winnsboro High School (WHS) teacher and one of Tinney Chapel's three certified lay speakers,
Larry Mitchell, a perennial Wood County entrant and, for the past two years, pastor of Rimrock Cowboy Church,
Dianna Mitchell, Larry’s wife,
Sarah Doke, a young mother of four and one of Tinney Chapel’s newest members, who read a traditional cowboy poem titled The Zebra Dun,
Larry Shepherd, who attends Mitchell’s Rimrock Cowboy Church, kept the audience in stitches with his description of a cowboy riding the coin-operated horse outside a department store,
Dennis Roberts, a yodeling cowboy singer whose signature performance is an old musical standard, Cattle Call,
Bob Deitering, chair of this event’s sponsoring agency, Tinney Chapel Men’s Ministries, and
Joe Dan Boyd, Tinney Chapel communications coordinator.
From the get-go, the goal of this interactive Tinney Chapel ministry event has been to encourage art that mirrors life.
Poetry topics don’t have to be overtly cowboy, on the assumption that many of today’s cowboys are, for the most part, ordinary human beings who adhere to a certain code of conduct.
Brannam, whose readings move effortlessly between profoundly inspirational, unapologetically spiritual or outrageously funny, draws from a vast, eclectic body of work.
One new poem, I Feel Like Talking, was finished just in time for Brannam to read at this event:
“Wait a minute, God...
I want to talk...
There are things I need to say.
The world is too busy to listen.
It goes hurry, hurry: All the time.
I am a little person, God,
Very unimportant...
No one has to listen to me
So no one does.
Are you listening, God?
Is anyone on your staff listening?
Somebody, somewhere, sometime should stop
And hear me!
Wait, God, please: I have something to say!”
Danny Lake, whose ranch is just down the road from Tinney Chapel’s Family Life Center, is another prolific composer, who also occasionally reads the work of other poets.
In addition to serving again as master of ceremony for this year’s passel of poets, Lake read Copenhagen Kisses, which details the inconvenience associated with trying to kiss his wife Pat while also nursing a wad of snuff between cheek and gum.
On a more serious note, Lake read Daddy’s Belt, an elegy to the inevitability of punishment for childish misdeeds by a father who termed it love when he “tanned the hide” of an errant son.
Larry Mitchell, called to ministry since the 2005 event, now pastors Rimrock Cowboy Church at nearby Pine Mills. One of his readings this year, Saddle Pards, is a description of his increasingly intense walk with the Lord.
Another, What Is A Cowboy Church, shed light on Mitchell’s brand of ministry at Rimrock.
Another Mitchell reading lifted profuse praise to Dianna, his wife and partner in ministry, while yet another spoofed the entire cowboy poetry concept by pretending that he had misunderstood the event as an invitation to a cowboy poultry gathering:
“Just imagine some old cowpoke
Jabbing his spurs into his steed.
Chasing chickens through the sagebrush,
With Colonel Sanders in the lead.”
Dianna Mitchell, Larry’s wife, made her debut last year when she read Standing In The Gap, and was back this year with added confidence and increased inspiration. Dianna’s two new poems recalled her girlhood goals and described her recent participation in a western heritage event at Abilene.
Tinney Chapel’s own Bob Deitering usually helps cook the event’s meal before walking onstage, and then only after donning the duds and dash of a rodeo clown. His readings have included a variety of subjects, including this year’s “serious humor” about a cowboy’s disappointment with someone’s behavior at a certain church, and his relief upon learning, via personal revelation, that God could not recall ever having been in that particular church.
Joe Dan Boyd is another perennial entrant who also plays guitar and sings traditional cowboy songs: Cool Water in 2006, which he later reprised to dramatize a lay speaker sermon on Living Water, and a Tex Ritter medley this year which included excerpts from Blood On The Saddle, Cowboy’s Dream and Rounded Up In Glory.
Angela Wylie read three new poems, including Roses On The Table, dedicated to the everyday thoughtfulness of her husband David.
Her previous entries helped her decide to enter, and eventually win, first place in a WHS faculty poetry contest earlier this year.
Angela shared her winning WHS poem, Life, which concludes with this amazing finale:
“These thoughts are in my mind as I reach out
And take into my arms
Life
Precious
A warm, slightly sticky child
Clinging trustingly, astraddle my hip
Sweat-dampened curls of fine hair against my shoulder
I carry her up the steps
She is pleasantly heavy
Solid and full of life
She is the future waiting
The seed of dreams yet undreamed
The hatchling with new songs to sing
New skies to climb
The sweaty, strong assurance of joys and sorrows to be encountered
Life to be embraced
A little bit of me
A little bit of her mom and dad
A big-eyed mix and whirl of all those who have gone before
In one curious, busy, demanding bundle
My grandchild
A piece of my life
The future in my arms.”
