Gettin' Religion

With all that is terrible going on in the world it is difficult to get back to writing for this blog, especially with any humor or optimism. The non-stop coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy has left me feeling a little blue and strangely uncertain, but I want to continue with thoughts of deep sympathy for those involved. The death of Romanian holocaust survivor, engineering professor Liviu Librescu, who sacrificed his life for his students, is an example of how senseless and deeply tragic the whole thing is. I don’t necessarily think that it is time for debate, humans need time to heal. I am finding this subject extremely difficult to write about.

While the catastrophic news of the world seems to define every moment these days, I’ve been feeling bitter-sweet, having won awards at my college for this academic year. This makes me happy, but the troubles for others around the globe, and this ongoing Iraq debacle, is causing uneasiness and a deep urge to do something, anything, involving effecting positive change. I don’t know how yet, but it seems the time has come to search for ways that I can put my degrees to positive use to at least join the effort to stem the flood of deep hatred that is festering in far corners and backyards. Some may say, “its useless, how conceited to think that you could change anything, this is all part of the human condition, war, conflict, violence, this time is no different than any other time in history, in fact, there is less violence now than, say, ninety years ago.” I would have to do research to get into a debate like that, but I don’t think we should chalk this up to the “truth” that humans are inherently violent. I believe that some societies have an inherent tendency to foster violence and that it is this societal trend that has to be examined in order to be corrected. With all of the broad steps taken in understanding the human mind, we should find some way to come to reconciliation between individual psyches and the collective psyche. That is, what is the group telling the individual about what is acceptable, what is possible even, and how is that individual turning it into anti-social and violent behavior? With my declaration about no debates in the introductory paragraph, it seems I’ve already broken that edict—good to see I still have the capacity to be hypocritical.

I went to church with my mom on Sunday. We went to a little church that my sister attends (she sings in the choir) and I’ve asked her permission to write about the experience and she said yes, but I will change (or just omit) the names to protect the innocent. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be about being saved, it had just been a long time since I had darkened the door of a church and I’m somewhat surprised that I wasn’t struck by lightening on the way in. The experience was fun, funny even, which is an odd and vaguely blasphemous thing to say about church but I left feeling good, and isn’t that part of what church is for? That, and doing unto others.

The church has a small sanctuary, painted bright white, which was welcome on a day like last Sunday, when the rain fell steadily and the chilly weather persisted. We sat about midway down the pews, and instead of the hinged kneeling stool that many churches have (the ones that run the length of the pew—I still think that word is funny “Confucius say, man who fart in church, sit in own pew.”) this church has cushions like small ottomans really. I like this system, but I was a little out of practice and had trouble positioning the cushion just under my knees and had to squirm a little to keep my balance. Also, the man in front of me didn’t feel the need to kneel, so I had to lean back from the rail of his pew which gave me little anchor to attach myself to the kneeling position. So I kind of flailed around during the kneeling parts, precariously balancing on the tiny ottoman and trying to look like it had been less than two Easters ago since I had been to church. There must be all kinds of symbolism in just this predicament alone.

Before the service got under way, I was thinking to myself how nice it was going to be to be involved in a community activity where all you had to do was follow cues, listen, stand, kneel, sit, listen some more, eat the body, drink the blood, say howdy to your neighbor and sing. At the college I go to, general spontaneous discussion is encouraged at every level from physics class to keg parties, and the idea of letting the traditions and rituals of my family’s faith dictate my actions, with little effort on my part, for the next hour seemed relaxing. I know you don’t go to church to “take a load off” and kick back, but the structure of the service was appealing to me strongly at that time.

The service started with announcements. The minister announced that after some consideration she had decided to allow some members of the congregation to preach sermons in the upcoming months. A general murmur of approval seemed to generate from the congregation. After this had sunk in, the minister also announced that she would be accepting submissions for hymn choices, but here she had to make some things clear. “No Baptist hymns.” She declared. I wondered if this preacher had something against the Baptists. “…or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or any other,” she continued. Wow, this is kind of exclusive, I was thinking. But the explanation was simple, the church only had the Episcopal hymn book, and hymns not included in that would be difficult to sing without the corresponding hymn book. “Also, no Christmas hymns, or Thanksgiving.” She went on to say. The reason for this was more obvious; it was not the season for these hymns.

All this was related in a kindly tone which made for more comfort on my part. Then she opened the floor to more announcements and things got a little confusing. There was a rally of some sort going on in the near future and many feminine voices from around the church spent several moments trying to clarify when the rally would be and who was speaking when, and there was a general aside from one of the choir members about how her memory isn’t what it once was, and then a gentle calling in from the minister and the service resumed. It was looking more and more like how things are done at my little college, and I was worried for a moment that I might be asked to stand, identify myself, and tell a few interesting things about myself, being a visitor of the church. Luckily this didn’t come about and things started to go as I remembered them, with the standing and the sitting and all.

What is interesting, and I mean this with no disrespect whatsoever, is that while we were singing one of the prayers I couldn’t help noticing how the melody resembled a TV theme song from a 1950s western. I thought this was monumentally cool. I mean, every evening during my junior and senior year of high school, I had to endure evensong whose music sounded like it was written by a choir masters in strong need of anti-depressants, and here I was listening to the same prayer where you could almost hear a whip cracking in the background. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Rawhide---heeyaw!” Please don’t let my dad read this, he might disown me.

Later, my confusion returned when we stopped the service to greet and bless our fellow worshipers. The standard phrase always changes between the times I go to church, and I needed to wait for someone to greet me to find out what I was supposed to say, and then I just echoed their words. I think it was something like “peace in the Lord,” but I didn’t quite get the “in the Lord” part and I just shook everybody’s hand saying “peace,” like I was at an Arlo Guthrie concert or something. It was the warmest greeting break I had witnessed, and everyone moved around the church until each member had greeted all the others. I saw everyone move toward the back of the church and for I moment I thought the service had ended—the minister was almost out the door—but soon everyone returned to their seats and we pressed on in our worship. I became a little distracted when someone who knew my father wanted to tell me a funny story about him right in the middle of all this, something about him starting one of his classes by declaring, “I was born in the shadow of Monticello.” I did my dutiful best to laugh and appreciate the story, and declared that it sounded just like him.

After communion (I neither choked on the wafer or slurped the wine) the service ended in short order. After the hymn, the minister had the congregation turn to the back of the church and told us the reason the minister says the final blessing at the back of the church was to send the congregation forth, out of the sanctuary, to spread the word around. I like explanations like that.

I got trapped in the church (more symbolism) when my mother got to talking to the minister, who was greeting people at the door, and the two ladies in front of me began talking about a trip to Vienna. Three older sisters got me used to these types of conversational quagmires, and I looked interestedly around the church while they took their time wrapping things up. There is only so much décor in a church that one can consider, however, and soon I was trying not to convey a blank expression while the women chatted on.

In the social hall—don’t they call them fellowship halls now?—there was more conversation going on, and I was greeted by the husband of the woman who had told me the story about my father. He proceeded to tell me the exact same story, and I reacted in the exact same way. Then he found out what college I attend and found a congregation member who had graduated from the same college. It was good to talk to an alum. Another member of the church was born in Cape Town, and I congratulated her for this impressive feat. The coffee and conversation ended with topics inherent to little churches and places of worship world wide, small town gossip.

When we moved to England in 1979, my sister became enamored with the small town we lived in. The village offered something more than the subdivision existence that we were part of in our middle-American upbringing. She went on to get both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Britain, and developed lifelong friendships in all of these places. Now, living in a small town in Virginia, I believe she has found some things that remind her of those other places, and it’s neat to see her thrive there.

As for me, I didn’t explode by going to church. In Travels with Charlie, Steinbeck writes about going to a little church in Vermont. He speaks of a preacher from a “John Knox” church who was all fire-and-brimstone. Here’s how Steinbeck describes him:

The minister, a man of iron with tool-steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumonic drill, opened up with prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot. And he was right. We didn’t amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since.”

I’m tempted to write out the entire passage because it is so damn beautiful, but this gives you the idea. After the service Steinbeck declares that he is revived in spirit and places five dollars in the collection plate. The experience, Steinbeck claims, made him feel so gloriously sinful that he didn’t begin to lose the feeling until the following Tuesday.

My experience, although it didn’t involve a fire-and-brimstone preacher, has stayed with me as well. It is good to have this fresh memory to return to while so much suffering is being experienced. Community may be what causes the problems, but it is in community where we find the greatest solace as well.