Kate Battagline - Methodist Discussion

Hello, welcome back to When Faith Endures. I’m your host Angelyn Foster.  This season I’ve begun by opening discussions with my most immediate circle of Interfaith friends.  I wanted to start this way for two reasons: First, to discover and build on commonalities that I've suspected were there, and second, to gain experience with this kind of dialogue in a safe space, making it seem to listeners like it’s doable to have these kinds of conversations. 

These objectives were definitely easy to achieve with our next guest, my neighbor Kate Battagline.  Kate’s children have gone to school with my own kids for 12 years.  Kate is a Methodist, and though we’ve raised our kids together, we’ve never really talked about religious belief until this project.  In our conversation we talked about one of my favorite subjects: the singing of hymns.  We also talked about how closely interwoven familial ties are with religious practice, and how grounding a religious upbringing has the potential to be for kids in their adolescent years.   

IN THE GARDEN LYRICS

1 I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.

Refrain:
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

2 He speaks, and the sound of His voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing;
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing. [Refrain]

3 I’d stay in the garden with Him
Tho’ the night around me be falling;
But He bids me go; thro’ the voice of woe,
His voice to me is calling. [Refrain]

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:02

Hello, and welcome back to When Faith Endures. I'm your host, Angela Foster. This season I've begun by opening discussions with my most immediate circle of interfaith friends. I wanted to start this way for two reasons. First, to discover and build on commonalities that I've suspected were there, and second, to gain experience with this kind of dialogue in a safe place, making it seem to listeners like it's doable to have these kinds of conversations. These objectives were definitely easy to achieve with our next guest, my neighbor Kate Battlein. Kate's children have gone to school with my own kids for 12 years. Kate is a Methodist, and though we've raised our kids together, we've never really talked about religious belief until this project. In our conversation, we talked about one of my favorite subjects, the singing of hymns. We also talked about how closely interwoven familial ties are with religious practice and how grounding a religious upbringing has the potential to be for kids in their adolescent years. So first of all, thanks so much, Kate, for just being willing to have this conversation with me. I'm really grateful that you're here. I'd like to start off by just giving our listeners an idea of your education, your background, and kind of what you do as a what you do professionally. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

I grew up in Ohio. I went to college at Miami University, which is in Ohio, not Florida. Um I studied education there and I taught for several years in the Cincinnati area before we moved to Colorado. So I've lived in Colorado for 23 years and been a teacher of a variety of ages, preschool through third grade.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

Awesome. Cool. Okay, now you were a Methodist growing up, right? Just from when you were a kid. So um what was that like growing up as a Methodist? I don't know. Did I mean I guess you probably didn't know any different, but what were kind of some of your thoughts when you were younger about it?

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Yeah, I was thinking about that a little bit because, you know, as a child you just attend church with your family or have traditions with your family, and I didn't really consider that that was different from other people's experience until, you know, maybe I started to attend church with a friend, or I was in a wedding and I was a flower girl at a Catholic church, and I didn't understand the intricacies of the service there, the standing and kneeling, and when you say things and when you don't. So it made me kind of have to think a little bit about how my experience might have been different. Growing up Methodist, my parents are Methodist, and their parents um grew up in a small town, so it was the same physical church that we were attending. So there was a lot of family tradition that was wrapped into the religious tradition. So some of that is a little bit challenging to tease out because I just saw that as this is what my family does. Um, so we would attend church regularly. My dad was in the choir. There's there's always a lot of music and a lot of singing at my house. I didn't get all of those talents, but um, Methodists believe in doing everything with gusto. So if you're gonna sing it, you just sing well. Um, so music and prayer were a part of the the Methodist service. We spent a lot of our holidays, of course, were spent at at church, and then we would have lots of family events that would follow. But I don't think I really thought a lot about how Methodism was different from other Christian religions at the time, like in my youth in elementary school, um, maybe even in middle school, maybe high school or beyond was when I started to meet people that had different backgrounds or different traditions. Um, my family would always attend Sunday school, and in junior high and high school, we had a big youth group that we were a part of. So part of being Methodist for me at that time or growing up in the church was doing. We did a lot of, they weren't necessarily all mission trips, but we did a lot within the community, and that was really important in my family. My parents were both very active in community boards and groups and Rotary Club and things like that. And it took me a while to kind of figure out that that came back to the roots of being socially active, you know, believing in through the church that that was an important part of participating in your community and improving your community. So my parents and my grandparents were all very community-minded. And I guess I didn't realize maybe until college, even looking, reflecting back on that, that the roots of that were in the Methodist church and you know, loving our neighbors and you know, believing that we could be a part of an active community.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Can you tell me a little bit about you mentioned the youth groups for a minute? I just wanted to ask what if you feel like that gave you any sort of sense of stability through like your teen years or kind of if it helped you through your teen years, I guess, like the scaffolding and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

It was very grounding. Okay. Uh, it was a great group. Some of the people in my youth group were my neighbors that lived right around us in our neighborhood, and some were their kids I knew from school, but some were also kids that lived kind of way out, and I only saw them through the youth group. Right around the time that that group started, we had someone who was very young and fun that became the youth director. Okay, and she really understood us well as a young adult herself. So we did a lot of contemporary singing, which was new for me at the time, but nobody really thought anything of it. You know, we had our own youth choir, which I realize now is a bit unique, especially with my own children, are not interested in singing in front of other people. Um, but she was very musical, so she brought in a lot of music that we would listen to and talk about, and then other things that we would sing. And we always had a time where we would play ridiculous games, like embarrassingly ridiculous games, which you know, as a teenager, I realized now that that was really building trust within our own circle and community. And it did really become a place where maybe I didn't realize it right away, but we shared a lot of deeply personal things and fears, and we took a lot of trips together, and so I think it really helped us depend on one another and grow as a support group, and so that became a really important part of my high school years. So it was musical, it was silly, it was a lot of fun, but also it became really easy to talk about things that were challenging in that space. Things that I might not have mentioned to my peers at school. Uh-huh. Just it was okay to have a pretty deep conversation, and you didn't have to have a lot of lead-in for that. It was just a really safe space.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

As you became an adult and had started having your own family, what made you want to sh um stay active and share your religion with your kids?

SPEAKER_03 6:56

I think moving away from home made me reflect a lot during my college years and even you know, in my young career, how much you realize that that's embedded into not just your beliefs, but just the ritual and the the cadence of your week and your your day, what you've incorporated into a practice, I guess. I really found that when I attended different churches, both Methodist and otherwise, I went to a variety of churches to try to find. Was this in early adulthood before you got married or? Before I was married. Yeah, I went to a variety of churches, and there were some places where it actually felt uncomfortable, not because of the content, but the ritual was very different than anything that I was used to. And um, I guess I really found that, oh gosh, I really do like understanding what the order of prayer and service and what is expected of me in participation in a ritual or in part of a religious service. Am I listening? Am I talking? Am I like, what is an acceptable role for me in this congregation? And then when I went back to the Methodist church that happened to be close to where I was living, it felt so comfortable. I I understood all of what was happening, and I guess I hadn't even realized that I had missed it when I'd been attending in different places. But I was like, oh, this is it's like home. Yeah, this is home for me. So both prior to getting married and then after I was married and and moved out here, and then kind of reconnecting and finding that same kind of environment here. I guess I just didn't realize how embedded that was for my spiritual practice. Uh-huh. But also going through life and being a teenager and a young adult, kind of finding what you feel is important for your like your spiritual practices. Um, I didn't think that my parents were wrong in any regard, but just finding what felt right for me. Yeah, it's a very personal experience for everyone, I think. And it's hard to really voice and explain because on campus, or even shortly after, even when I did some of my graduate work meeting people and attending different social events that were Christian events, and some felt very comfortable and some didn't. And again, it wasn't bad. It just I think it was just my own understanding of who those people were, what my comfort level was in talking to them and what was expected. And so for me, there's a lot of comfort in the Methodist Church and the rituals of the Method Methodist Church that have been home to me. So I really wanted my kids to experience that and build my family in that same kind of community. And you and I had talked before, my husband's Catholic, and that that was that was an uncomfortable space for him going through Catholic school and being a part of the Catholic Church. And for him, he felt that it wasn't a welcoming space, but my experience was very different in the Methodist Church. And so when he started to come to church with me, I think that was helpful for for him and for us together to find a more comfortable space to explore what we wanted to do with our family, and that was really life-changing for him to understand that not all religions or not all denominations felt the same way. Yeah. And he hadn't really been to many other congregations to to feel that or to see that on his own. Okay, so where would you say you derive your moral compass from? That's such a great question. That's a hard question. Yeah. Because it doesn't feel like it's all one, all necessarily coming from one space. I mean, obviously it's coming from the Lord, it's coming from Scripture, and I think at different points in my life it's looked different. Uh-huh. COVID was actually a really strange time, but like a regrounding time for I would say our family, but for me in particular, because I wasn't participating in spiritual activities in person. And so I was forced to really look back within myself. So that was a hard time, but also a really great time. And I found myself reading scripture so much more as a part of a church service or a weekly prayer group. You know, there's always things that we'll pick out and look at together and pour over and just consider. But I guess I just had so much alone time. Um, some of that felt lonely, but some of it was really reflective and helped me reground and think about my own direction and my relationship with Jesus. And so, I mean, as far as my moral compass goes, yes, it comes from Scripture, yes, it comes from the Lord. Um in the Methodist Church, grace is a big part of our denomination, just believing that we can have that relationship with Christ. And no matter it is what we do, there's always grace and forgiveness within the relationship. I think I had time during COVID to really look into that. Um, but that's always, I mean, it's always been there. But during my young adult life, when I had kids during COVID, I feel like that all had a little bit of a shift. And so I know that's kind of weird to say it's like a recalibration of my moral compass. Not that I was ever making big changes like of in right and wrong, but just maybe in the way that it felt or where it was coming from. Because I really felt like I developed a much better relationship with God at that time because I had the time. Yeah. There was part of it was a good slowdown. Yeah. Part of it was a strange slowdown, right? But part of it was was really good. But I feel like scripture has really helped me and daily devotionals. Okay. I really like to wake up before the rest of my household, which gets hard. Yes. Um, but there's only a small amount of time when it's quiet, yeah, or when I can be in my own thoughts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:08

Can I just ask you really quick, what time do you have to get from a mother to a mother?

SPEAKER_03 13:12

I was just wondering what time do you get up in the morning? Usually around 4 30 or 5. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 4 30 is a little on the early end. So it feels cloudy at first, uh-huh, but it's actually been a really good thing for me. Like that's the time that I read devotionals or you know, sit by myself with a cup of coffee or tea and kind of consider what's happening. But I'm trying to allow the time, not just to look at the calendar and what's up today. Like that will come. Right. Yes, yes. That hits you in the face whether you want it to or not. But to really, to really find how I want to be in my day.

SPEAKER_05 13:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

And that's really led me not just in my family life, but in my life as a teacher. Because kids just bring so much. Yeah. There's so much charge and energy. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not so much. You know, there's just so much that you're kind of absorbing in. And I found that I was really stressed and not able to handle all the things that the kids were bringing to me every day. And then I just kept getting up earlier and earlier, and that felt better. It was helpful to me.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Oh, I was wondering if you could reshare with me what you said about what you get out of your weekly church attendance. I don't know if you remember when we were talking about before, but like some people would say that that's an extra burden, you know, what you're participating. But why does it, why is it worth it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

I mean, at at one point it felt like I need I need to show up.

SPEAKER_05 14:37

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

And it was just what needed to happen. I need to get the kids out the door, we need to get it together, we need to get to church. Like it was just part of the week we needed to be there. And at some point I kind of shifted my thinking a little bit that we get to be here and the kids get to go to Sunday school and they get to participate in the fun kid things, and I get to reset myself, or I get to ponder whatever our pastor or congregants have kind of put together for the week, what the musical offerings are. And it was a great chance to take a deep breath because the weeks just get to be so hectic and so busy, and there's so many things that we're showing up for. Um, but for me it brought a lot of calm and it was a chance to to reset a bit, and just the idea of being able to really take the Sabbath more seriously. And that's a funny thing for me too, because I've through friends of ours who are actually Jewish, it's allowed me to rethink the Sabbath a bit because we would be trying to plan things, and what was good for them wasn't always good for us, since their Sabbath is at a different time. Uh-huh. And I was trying very hard to not make Sunday, or just some point in the weekend at least, so hectic. Right. Because there's always so much to do, and it's helped me like my weekly attendance at church has helped me make boundaries.

SPEAKER_05 16:00

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

And I didn't even realize it was doing that. But I found that that was a really good thing for helping me create this space that this is my time for me, for my relationship, and for connecting with my church community and not having family live here in the Denver area. It's so neat to have this generational support from my congregation. And so even if I'm at my wits' end getting, you know, when the kids were tiny, especially like, okay, we showed up.

unknown 16:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Points. Yes. Everybody's dressed and had shoes on. We were in the car. We were at church. Yay. Yes. Um, someone was so happy to see them. So I might not have been in the best mood always, but like somebody didn't eat, somebody was unhappy about something. Uh-huh. But it just always felt so good to walk through the door and someone else would take a kid by the hand or chat with them about school or just ask them about their lives as they've gotten older.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

And so for me, every week it's so cool that they can go off with their friends or talk to someone who's more like a grandparent to them, you know, just about what's important in their lives. So I think it's been really good for them to see that people care about them throughout all these stages of their lives.

unknown 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

And for me to be able to connect with different people and just kind of have a time to be calm, to reset, and actually receive the message. Um, there are too many times when I guess I'm not ready to hear what God wants to say, wants me to hear. Um, so I have a great relationship with our pastor. She's been at our church for six years. And in some some churches have that and some don't. So in the Methodist church, usually somewhere between four to six, eight years, pastors move. And so it's normal. It's it's almost like a matching. So the church talks to the the pastor, they review things. How does the pastor thinks they're going, think things are going? How does the church feel like things are going? And so then overall in the conference that oversees our church directly, you know, is the pastor happy? Is the congregation happy? Is everybody's, you know, are their needs being met? Yeah. And so I feel really fortunate that we've had this particular pastor for six years and she knows our family so well. And so she can ask, I mean, she knows when I'm stressed, she knows when I'm visiting, she knows when I'm teaching, you know, so she it's just a great relationship to have with her. I'm sure there'll come a time when, you know, her calling will be someplace else. But we've had three different pastors during the time that I've been a part of this church, and I've had different relationships with all of them, but I'm much closer with her than I have been with pastors in the past because she's very open. So I feel like just the regular attendance allows me time to connect with her, time to hear the message that she has, time to connect with the church community. So it's yeah, it's it's just been really important to me. And that has made it easier to get there. But sometimes I feel like there's a big barrier. But that has the relationships that's much easier to show up.

SPEAKER_04 19:11

Okay, you mentioned earlier like feeling familiar with the Methodist rituals. Can you can you, for people that don't know, like tell us what the rituals are like in Methodist Church and how they've like what practices in Methodism are meaningful to you? I know you talked already about prayer and song and stuff, and you feel free to say anything else more about those if you want other rituals and what they mean to you.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

I mean, some things would be regular rituals, some things would be special rituals like baptism, things like that. Okay. So, you know, regularly within a church service or a gathering, um, whether it be for Ash Wednesday or a regular Sunday, you know, there's always an an order of service. There are prayers that are silent, prayers that are said together. And so just knowing that and be able to kind of work through the the service, what is expected of you. Um, there's always singing in any sort of a service. And I love the hymnal. Like I actually have an old hymnal that, you know, we got new ones at church and they weren't using some of the older ones. So we brought some of those home, which was it was funny for me because the ones that we were like the newer ones replaced ones that probably maybe when I was in high school were ones within the church, and they're the same color and the same print and everything that I had at my home church in Ohio. So like that feels like my hymnal. Yeah. That's kind of a weird thing to say.

SPEAKER_04 20:34

But so within the Methodist Church, is it all one uniform hymnal? Or do is it okay?

SPEAKER_03 20:39

It's given by the Methodist Church in Ohio. The overarching church international?

SPEAKER_04 20:44

I mean, like, is it I mean, obviously it has to be in English, but like, is it does it cross country lines too, or just like American?

SPEAKER_03 20:51

It does, but I'm not sure what that physical book would look like in other countries. Gotcha. Okay. So, you know, the ones that that's printed in English, I know what that one yeah looks like. Yeah, but it is definitely an international okay, cool. Yeah, but yeah, just curious. Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. I'm not sure. So singing and hymns are a part of all the services, and as things have been more modernized throughout churches, I like the church that I attend now will project things on a screen in the front that has all of the words to songs that we're singing. But I open the hymnal every time. Like I just like the weight of it. If it brings comfort to me, like when we sing and there are parts that have different baritone parts, I can hear in my head people that I knew when I was growing up that would sing like the those parts, like the older men in my church. So it's kind of funny, like it it just reminds me of all that, or like my grandpa, yeah, you know, when they would when we were all in in church in the same creaky pew together. I can still kind of hear that. So the the hymns have meaning to me, you know, the ones that we sing now, just like they did 20, 30, 40 years ago.

SPEAKER_04 22:09

And you said that it it's a really big part. Does it would you find that the whole congregation gets involved with the singing or is has that like dropped off as like you know what I mean? Do people all get really involved in singing?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

I mean, I don't know that everybody is belting it out all the time, but it is sort of like a I mean, everyone is standing and singing together. We sing probably three hymns and then there are other ones that are performed or pieces by the choir or other musical ensembles, but there are always several as a part of each weekly service. And my church found that so many congregants wanted to sing hymns that once a month, about 10 minutes or 15 minutes before the service technically starts, there's a hymn sing. That's cool. So you just show up as you have anticipation. You don't have to be there early, but you can be. And they just okay, shout it out. Which one do we want to and so turn to this page and and sing? So I would say, yes, there's a lot of buy-in for hymn sings across the Methodist church in all the churches that I've been a part of. So that's that's part of the ritual. One of the things that I love so much that I didn't realize until I was older in the Methodist church, anyone can have communion. You do not have to be a part of the Methodist church, you don't have to be a part of any particular religion. If you wish to receive communion, you can. And like I mentioned before with my husband being Catholic, that's not the case in all congregations. So if you have an open heart and you would like to experience that in our church, I think so. Everyone's invited to come forward. Um, that ritual for us involves like a small cup of grape juice that you can receive in either a waiver or bread. So that that's something that's been the same in every church that I've been a part of. Um other rituals, baptism is a special ritual, and that can kind of vary a little bit from church to church, even though it's the same words, the same it's in the ritual, in the book that has rituals in our church. It looks different from pastor to pastor sometimes. I took all three of my kids back to Ohio to have them baptized because I wanted all of our family. At that point in time, a lot of my relatives wouldn't have been able to travel here for that. So it was actually a lot easier to take the kids there. So all three of my kids were baptized by the same pastor in the church where I was baptized. My parents were well, my mother was baptized, my father went to a small, a smaller uh church down the way that was also Methodist, but my mom was baptized in that church, my grandparents were baptized in that church, they were married in that church, my parents were married in that church. Um so um it's really neat that it's the same baptismal ritual, even though it might sound a little bit different to your pastor.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

How would you say your religious affiliation and training just brought meaning to you? Like how does it inform your purpose day-to-day?

SPEAKER_03 25:12

I really like that the Methodist Church is very open to questions. And so through the church, I feel like I've been able to ask a lot of questions and get understanding of scripture through Bible study and other smaller groups. And so then that's really helped my own personal development and my own relationship with Jesus to be able to just consider my direction. What type of person do I want to be? How do not how do I want my day to go like what am I doing today, but how I want to respond to that. And I think that has been a game changer for me to really reflect that my relationship with God is impacting how I am walking every day, whether I'm going to the grocery store or I'm teaching all day or I'm helping my kids, just the type of the type of person that I want to be, and sometimes a lot of deep breaths trying to get myself to be the better person that I would like to be. But I I feel like through my church, through scripture discussion, really feeling very valued and accepted as a part of that community, and even a part of the community that I grew up in that I am still attached to, but not a part of on a regular, yeah, regular basis. That that's still a part of my whole spiritual experience, like having that whole community, even though it's really widespread. Um, the support from that, the the prayers that are offered up through that collective group, um, you know, getting an email throughout the week, somebody telling, you know, I was really thinking about you today, which I know you have. These things going on, just to repeatedly have that support, you know, it's kind of spiraling throughout my life. It's showing up or showing up in interesting ways. Yeah, it definitely keeps keeps me going and keeps me coming back to my church family as far as physical attendance. But just knowing that I have that connection through my church, whether I'm there or not, is really comforting and it does help me kind of re-center. It also helps me think about things that are greater than myself. There are so many times that I think I should send that person a card. I should make a meal for that person. Like I know that they're having a hard time. And so, like we talked about resetting in the mornings or having time to really think about yourself. Um there are times that I've been kind of stressed thinking, I really need to get this meal to that person that would help them feel better, and then I'm all stressed out trying to get them that meal or do that thing or help them in a way. And even when I have felt that way, once I've spent time with that individual or prayed with them, or you know, whatever it was, it's been such a gift to me. And so I'm trying to look at that differently. So it doesn't always feel amazing when I'm walking through all those steps, but I'm trying so hard to hear that that's what God is asking me to do. And so it doesn't always feel right all the way through. So when you're asking like about moral compass, you think, oh, my moral compass is not awesome today. I'm trying to do better. I'm trying, I'm trying. Um, you know, so I might, you know, be thinking maybe not the most amazing thoughts in my head when I'm trying to do all these things or volunteer for something or show up for something. But it feels so great to walk through that and on the other side think okay, that wasn't really that hard, and it only took so much of your time. And what an impact that can make to another group or another person, and what an impact it's had on me when the shoe has been on the other foot, you know. Um my daughter had a procedure a couple of years ago, and somebody showed up and brought her a quilt, somebody else showed up and brought her dessert because they knew she didn't really care if they brought dinner, she just wanted you know right, they made her brownie, stuff like that. So just thinking about my family, what they need, what what each individual feels is valuable.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Um that just means a lot to me with my relationships in my church community. Great.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing all of that. This is just beautiful. And I wanted to ask you okay, so the hymn that you told me you would like us to come up with an arrangement for is in the garden, and sometimes it's called I Come to the Garden Alone. So just tell us a little bit about what you like about that hymn. I think, I mean, I think it's well-beloved.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

I've like a lot of people would be pleased that you picked this one because I think it's a favorite. Our congregation picks this one to sing a lot when we do the hymn sing, so oftentimes this one is tossed out. There are a couple of reasons. One very personal one is that my dad loves this hymn. And he's a tenor, he has a beautiful voice, and he and his brothers would sing it together. So that's very special to our family. But also, just with my relationship with Christ, the time that Jesus spent praying was often that way in in the garden or when you read scripture about Jesus taking time away from his disciples or trying to show his disciples what he was expecting from them or what he he really wanted. To me, that holds a lot of meaning. What am I expected to do? What you know, what my time of prayer with the Lord. And so I like that for both reasons. Familial, I just I I love the arrangement. Um it's a fun song to sing together. It has historical and family value to me, but also it's just a wonderful reminder about what prayer does and how if we take time that you know we can really bring our relationship with Christ closer and taking that time to pray and to connect. So several, several things for me. That's great.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

For this week's musical offering, we have four Very Special Guests to Sing in the Garden by C. Austin Miles. As Kate had nostalgic memories of hearing her dad and his brother sing this song. I thought it would be so fun to record a barbershop quartet version. Please welcome Brian Chudley, Darren Powers, Roger Gallup, and Tyler Steer, with Brian Chudley featured on the guitar.