My relationship with my church is complicated, kind of like the one with the eternal. Logic keeps invading. Nobody alive right now, even those who claim that they've seen the effects of death because they expired momentarily on a hospital table, knows what lies beyond.
Maybe there's nothing beyond that bright light that keeps popping up in their descriptions. Maybe they weren't actually dead yet, but at the very last vestige of being alive. Maybe. But maybe not.
Yes, the person known as the Christian savior is said to have died, risen from the dead, and gone into heaven. Pretty special deal. But was that reserved just for him? Are we poor slobs relegated to the waste pile, "food for worms," as Mercutio called it, adding to the world's pollution? You could make that argument. It's left to our imaginations.
My spiritual side has faith, yes. But my rational side raises an eyebrow.
Is that why I go, in wonder and keeping connections in reserve just in case? Yes, and no. It is, above all, a place of repose, where you're supposed to have time to think about things, where those things are (potentially) important yet more simplified because there's no noise to disrupt it.
After all, it's quite the mystery. Too much has been made of it to look past it. Not that I'll ever 'be ready to go.' Few people know quite when that's going to happen, anyhow, and fewer have the chance to prepare much, besides having that proverbial power-of-attorney arranged, and papers in a knowable, accessible spot.
And readings from whatever holy book you happen to be following are often challenging and philosophical, written as they were long ago, and both undeniably applicable and inapplicable in the present day. So there's that. But you can read those things in a copy of a holy book that you can get in any reputable bookstore, so on paper, there's no need to cultivate a crowd to think by oneself, which would seem contradictory.
And I do not pretend to be holy or wish that that's at all possible. That's been abandoned long ago. As I said more than once during my more sinful days: I'm not running for Pope.
But there is comfort in knowing that you're part of a community of faith seekers. At some point, too, their thinking dovetails with yours, and disagreements and arguments are muted if not extinguished for at least a few minutes a week. There is comfort, too, in knowing that week in and week out, you'll be running into the same people. They may not know me well, and vice versa--many among my group are fierce about protecting their privacy, and I'm one of them--but the familiarity is well enough, and it serves us all. Ironically, it used to be a place of retreat from the noise and clamor to which I'd attached myself. Now, it's a chance to be with people, to balance the silence of retired weeks with human contact.
We practice a religion that is compassionate and, for the most part, not punitive, that wishes to expand the understanding of the Bible instead of a following that is unquestioning, literal, and rigid. Knowing that works for me.
So when my congregation's session--the folks elected to make the vital decisions--chose to make a limited re-opening of live, in-person Sunday services, I was among the first to sign up. We had lurched through the pandemic with virtual services and Zoomed coffee hours, tolerable but ultimately futile, like everybody else's loneliness.
I, like so many others, craved a handshake, a face that could be reached with an outstretched arm, even a hug. The knowledge that it would be no longer anonymous, not just someone on the street, brought a certain amount of anticipation.
There was a nice revelation, too, in discovering that my usual worship spot--we common goers have our spots; back in the day, they could be reserved with a certain level of tithing--had been left open after social distancing, both horizontally and vertically, had been guaranteed. Maybe someone would notice me--hey, he's back, too. For whatever effect, it might add to the feeling of community.
For me, it was like returning home, or to one of my homes. I'd felt that sense of belonging more than once. I had been on two long journeys during the last eighteen years--one intentional, one of necessity, both lasting years, both filled with victories and defeats. I don't have enough ego to pretend that that seat was intentionally left vacant, awaiting my return. Yet, it's a big church, and only 125 were allowed in Sunday, so there would be a lot of room. And if in the future someone wishes to claim it, well, it's got no one's name on it.
But there it was, and I don't mind telling you that there was some joy attached to that. When things go wrong, when it feels as if all has become undone, a little thing like that can have a value you never considered. Others have their spots, too. I could never imagine dislodging them.
I'm not a small person, so I've made sure that my 'spot' wasn't right in front of the preacher's glance. Looking outward, I'm to the right of the podium, four rows (or five, some weeks) from the front, just inside the aisle. I'm not sure if it's been squatter's rights, but the number of times in more than twenty years now that someone made me scoot over to the middle of the pew can be counted on one hand. I seek to learn, though, not to intimidate by my mere presence. And, though pretty close, it also feels appropriately humble.
This isn't politics. This isn't a place to make a big deal out of oneself. But it's also saying that I'm not hesitant to get close to the proceedings, unlike many students who typically made sure to stay back from my lectures at Cedarburg High. Yet I don't want to seem too eager to suggest desperation or pretentiousness. Appearances aren't supposed to matter in church, though it is often the place where they matter a little too much.
What did happen strangely was that, because cordoned-off pews had reduced seating capacity, a family I'd never seen before--not necessarily new members--slipped in beside me, down pew a bit. My relative proximity to the front normally keeps relatively few from easing in next to me, save Christmas or Easter with their typically large crowds. I would say that a good eighty percent of the time, I've had the whole pew to myself. Most people are not that comfortable being that close.
When that happened before, though, I'd acknowledge them cheerfully, and I'd sure to sign the small folder provided supposedly for that purpose in case one would want to extend greetings after the service. There's a small space provided for a comment, and I make it a note to say something typically friendly, like "Nice to see you!" or "Have a great day!". Sometimes it led to a brief conversation.
None of that, though, could happen that day or can happen for a while. The session removed such items to make it very impossible to spread germs from common handling of otherwise common items. The said family did not acknowledge me, though I was masked. The four of them stayed the required six feet away. I felt safe, largely because I've had the gateway two vaccine shots.
We were even advised that, if we handled copies of the Bible and hymn books, we should leave them on the pews instead of putting them back in the holders. Someone would have a long cleaning task ahead, but haven't we all done that here and there?
All those preliminaries out of the way, the service proceeded pretty much as it always has. There was no choir--good as it is, it was post-Memorial Day so it's usually on break anyhow--only a brilliant soloist, and of course those in the congregation who stood to sing, this time doing so through masks (there's that incident, early on, in Seattle where a choir sang sans masks, staying the dictated six feet apart, and a whole bunch of them still got sick and a couple of them died, seeing as how they hadn't accounted for their breath spray sailing around them. So I'm guessing someone thought of that.).
The effect was as muffled as one would guess, but the enthusiasm was still there. Singing brings emotions out of me; I felt myself choking up in the second stanza of the first song. I'd missed it all more than I knew. At the conclusion, we were invited to turn to the back and sing toward the camera so that those at home, beyond the 125 who'd been allowed to attend but still viewing virtually, could feel something of renewal and welcome, too.
The Bible is sometimes strange and unapproachable, but at other times it's so prescient it stuns. Sunday's reading was such a day. The New Testament's excerpt was from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, in which he says:
- We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
- Perplexed, but not driven to despair;
- Persecuted, but not forsaken;
- Struck down, but not destroyed.
If that isn't the pandemic's effects on the survivors, I don't know what is. It leaves you thinking: Whoa. In the popular vernacular of the day, we're all that.
As such, an actual coffee hour to visit and catch up, as you might expect, wasn't allowed, either. But seeing as how the day was marvelous if a bit warm, a bunch of us gathered outside the rear door and had a coffee hour, sans coffee, on the back patio. Many of us took off our masks; after all, we've all been told that once outside, the risk of transmission nearly disappears. There was a marked uplift and cadence in the voices. Smiles abounded.
So it was normal if a bit odd. The pastor brought up D-Day allegorically in her sermon. My mind shot back to when Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., who commanded the American effort on Utah Beach, found that his landing force, one of the vanguards of the retaking of Western Europe, had been thrown about a mile off course by the prevailing current. He was asked for next steps. No sense marching down the beach to the proposed landing spot, he decided; they had made one of their own, like it or not. Inland they would go. "We'll start the war from right here," he said.
Much of what has happened is unprecedented, like that invasion, and so shall be the adjustments. I was glad to be part of my congregation's vanguard, the first group back after a wait of much consternation. Our destinies, of course, are still waiting. We'll continue that preparation from right here.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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