Church

I sat in church with my son today.  I went to the contemporary service because I was tired and didn’t feel like getting dressed up and sitting with the older people singing hymns.  I just wanted to sit near the back and rest for a while.  Sometimes it’s just peaceful to be around worship.  The music, the sound of the pastor I’ve listened to for so many years, the Lord’s prayer.

I have always believed that Jesus opens up a seat for everyone and is a soothing balm to the worst of all pain.  I know this because I’ve been through a great deal of pain.  I believe the stories Jesus has preached. I attest to their truth and veracity.  He is a trustworthy God, of this I’m sure. And this trust is a deep, deep well that brings up soothing water to my mouth and soul and mind.

God’s only child, a man among us, taught us that we got it all wrong at times.  He was  furious with the religious establishment and tirelessly spoke of love as if it were inside of him, as if he was made from it.  As he was.  The name of Jesus holds a great deal of power.  But also the name of Allah, the father of Mohammed, and the God of the Jewish nation.  In my mind, we are all worshiping the same Father. It is not my place to sort out the details.  I always say to my kids that God will work it all out in the end, the differences among us.  It’s what in our hearts that matter.  And sometimes I just need to rest for a while and stop trying to sort things into orderly rows.  Because often there simply are no answers to hard questions, and you have to be comfortable with that.

I realize not everyone feels as I do.  Many friends have no relationship at all with God. I am not immune from the social media rants from Christians, about the borders and the trash they call immigrants and the homosexuals that are commonly referred to as weird or gross or perverted.  I cringe and curl away from people filled with judgment in the name of such a precious God that does not stand for these things.  I grow more bitter and make jokes, as I do when I’m confronted with things I cannot control.

I sat there today in church thinking about those on the fringes, who don’t feel comfortable in a church filled with young/beautiful/straight/smart/thin white folks, swaying and holding their hands in the air.  Because the people leading worship don’t look like them, don’t talk like them, don’t welcome them.  Because they are foreigners, even in their own skin.  Even if they are also Americans. Even if they are neighbors. They are set apart, even in their own minds.

I used to sing in the worship team, but I never fit in.  I have a deep low alto voice, bluesy and big, which does not lend well to straight-tone harmony of praise and worship music that everyone can sing along to. I sound like an old black lady and I don’t follow the time well.  I tend to slow things down and move to the music and end up with a throaty version of whatever song I’m singing. It makes people feel uncomfortable.  I tend to not stand in back and harmonize because I prefer to be the lead singer.  I am more comfortable in that place.  I recognize that’s not humble and I don’t fit the profile, so I stopped singing.  At least I’m being honest.

I used to write a lot more faith-driven essays.  About how much God is faithful and how Jesus was a friend to me.  I’d travel to conferences and meet other like-minded Christian writers.  But in this world, too, I stood a pariah.  Humor is one of my spiritual gifts, which is often irreverent and biting, and diffuses tension but causes people to laugh nervously because I said something they don’t agree with or is too progressive or I end up cursing and making fun of the President.  So I stopped writing in this space and attending these events.  Because it was too exhausting.  At least I’m being honest.

And honesty makes me wonder if the lady in front of me uses dry shampoo or whether these men are having affairs with their wives or whether this woman in the row over is actually tan or uses a self tanner.  That’s a good self-tanner.  I’ll bet it’s expensive and comes from Nordstrom, not the cheap crap at Target.  Pass the plate, give money, put my arm around my son, smile at the usher.  That man walking by sure has nice calves.  I’ll bet he rides bikes.

And then about halfway through church I start talking to God directly, which is dangerous.

My God, look at your people up there today.  They are so young.  They are barely of age to drink alcohol, not that they would since they seem so full of Jesus.  I’ll bet they don’t sob or get drunk or text an ex or have nightmares about their childhood.  I’ll be they don’t get mistaken for a criminal on the streets for simply wearing a hoodie or have to process trauma or go through the ripping of divorce or the tearing of cancer or seeing a child die in their arms.  They are twenty years old.  And yet you love them so.  I know this.  Just like I love my own daughter, who is barely a teen, and yet what does she know of the world?  They cannot help their own naivety.  Lord, they cannot help it.  Do not close my heart off to the young. Even if all of these damn millennials are quitting their jobs to start beet farms in Oregon.

I was practically born in church, worked in church, led youth missions and youth groups and was seeped in the spirit. I know the stories, the verses, the books. And yet here I sit in a different place.  Through the battlefield and on the other side.  When you pass through the underbelly of the world you see things differently.  It’s easy to sit in a tower and declare how beautiful the view.  It’s not as easy when you are face down in a gutter and all you see are used needles and trash.

And yet through all of this: the cynicism, the bitterness, the lack of diversity around me, the hate disguised as religion, my love of comedy, my busy mind, I get quiet.  I am still in order to hear the truth of what I have spent my life knowing.  That God loves us the whole and incomplete and ugly parts of all of us.  The insecure and broken parts, the parts that sing too low or too slow or use humor to mask other emotions.  He simply loves more deeply and heals more completely than any man-made substitute.  God is in the air, the smoke of the sage, the sunsets, the whispering voices of our conscience, the good we feel when we help other people, the smile in one’s tired eyes.

I soaked this in, so I can go out into the world and be fully me.  So I can more fully love.  So I can use up the whole of me, broken and injured and put back together, for good.  More Happy Wednesdays.  More fresh muffins. More lessons and hugs and smiles and hard work and long nights and time with friends and care packages.  I have love inside to give, and work to do.

The way to diffuse hate is to add more love into the world.  This is what Jesus did, mile by mile, in sandals and through villages, on hillsides and in small homes.  Soak it in and spread it out, like a good French butter on a warm slice of bread.

I sat in church with my son today, but mostly I just felt God.  It’s good to feel God from time to time to remind yourself that you are worth it, that you have love inside to give, that God’s not done with you yet.  He is never ever done using us for good, reforming ugly things into beautiful things, transforming people. Even these young people on stage who know nothing yet.  They too will also see hard times. May they rest in the deep well of you and not give up too soon.  Life is hard.  They will need all the help they can get.

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