Saisquoi?

Before anyone freaks out, the Beloved and I are fine. It's not that kind of a breakup. But...it still sucks.

I have been a pretty regular church-goer for most of my life. My Mother is a church organist, so church was simply part of our lives growing up. My sister and I were expected to sing. My father was expected to play trumpet on special occasions. We went to Sunday School (though not always at the church where Mom worked), we had our first communions, we were confirmed.

When I went to college, I pretty much ditched church. I didn't like the place where Mom was working--it was just way more conservative than I was...or am ever likely to be. At the end of my freshman year, she took a new job with a different church in town--one of the Episcopal churches--and she asked if I would go, just once, to see her new place. Just once, I promised. And so I went one late spring or early summer morning in 1995...and I kept going. As long as I was in town, I went to church. And I became involved on an adult level. I sang in the choir. I gave a pledge. I was a lector. When things got hard financially, I stepped up and learned about Mutual Ministry. I developed a church school program heavily based on Godly Play. I became a representative to convocation and convention and attended the convention that elected Gene Robinson the 9th Episcopal Bishop of NH.

I loved that community--I was married in that church. My daughter was baptized there. I honestly expected that I would die there and my ashes would be buried in the Columbarium. But, as the song says, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky. Everything changes. Even communities. And sometimes the change leaves you behind.

Things had not been great for a while. My Mom had had some problems and seriously considered quitting. Apparently, mean kids still exist when you're in your 50s, and they still suck. I had some angst about what I would do if she left--would I stay? Would I go? But things got...better...tolerable anyway. So she stayed. And then they got worse for me.

I should start out by explaining that C has grown up in the church and therefore has no fear of it. She would gleefully run around and play. She'd chatter with her friends. Also, she's three, so voice modulation is something we have not mastered. I really did try to keep her quiet--I brought snacks and water and quiet toys--but none of these things compare to OMGplaymates. So, we had started to get comments regarding her...vivacity.

Then came a new priest. And with the new priest came new complaints--not directly from the priest, but from a small group of parishioners. C is loud. C is distracting. You need to keep her quiet. As far as I can tell, the parents of other children (who you can bet were not sitting all quiet and angelic-like) were not approached and chastised. I'm not sure why I was singled out, but there you have it.

Next came the decision to move the Sunday School classroom to a location known as "The Bride's Room," a small room off of the Narthex (entryway), where, traditionally, the bride would put on finishing touches and wait to make her big entrance. The dimensions of the room are 15' x 7.5'...giving a grand total of 112.5 square feet to hold two adults and a class of children. I had some serious concerns about safety issues in a room of that size, and I was irritated that the decision was made without ever notifying parents. So, I asked the Safe Church Minister if changes would be made to allow the room to meet Safe Church standards. I e-mailed the priest and the senior warden with my concerns. And I got a phone call back from the priest in which I was told that she never wanted to receive a letter like that again and that any concerns I had needed to be brought up in person. None of my actual concerns were addressed, except to say that the current head of the Sunday School program approved it, so it must be fine.

This about made my head explode. But, I thought, she's really busy right now. There's a big service coming up. This was probably a bad time to raise these concerns. I will give it another few weeks. And in those few weeks I was told that again, it was not my problem, because, actually, the teachers (the head teacher anyway) did not want C in Sunday School--3 is too young; they only want children 5 and older. Also, if they leave the door to the classroom open, everything should be fine, right?

Finally, on Palm Sunday, I got yelled at because C and the other children were swordfighting with palms during the sermon and didn't I know my child was really loud and distracting?

And that was it for me. I told my Mother that I wasn't going to ditch her during Holy Week and that I would sing all of the services, but I would no longer bring C, because apparently my ideas of open and welcoming to all no longer meshed with those held by the church, and I didn't particularly want my child learning the lessons they were offering. A lesson that says we will put children into a glorified storage closet in order to make way for a church cafe. A lesson that says the needs of adults will always be greater than your needs. A lesson that says berating your mother for allowing you to act like a 3 year old is what church leadership should do.

I had moments where I wondered if I was being hasty and then on Good Friday I found out I was pregnant again and I knew I couldn't go back. I need to be in a place that's going to help me teach my child--not a place that's just going to tell me all the ways I'm doing it wrong.

Since then, I've had a couple of e-mails or phone calls from people asking if I'll consider coming back, asking what happened, apologizing for whatever pissed me off so much. It's hard, because there are a lot--perhaps most of the people there--who I really do miss. Leaving this church feels like leaving part of myself behind. It feels like being estranged from family. It has been one of the hardest things I've done in my adult life.

In the meantime, C and I have been to a couple of different churches. We basically switch off between the Lutheran Church in town where I had my first communion and was confirmed a hundred thousand years ago, and an Episcopal Church a couple of towns over. Neither feels like home yet. But neither has ever said anything other than We're so happy to see you and your daughter, or, on a particularly...busy...morning with C at the Episcopal Church, Wow! You sure had your hands full this morning!

I hope it will get better. Just like any breakup, I'm sure it will just take a lot of time. And, in the long run, I hope that by doing this I'm teaching C about the importance not only of community, but of finding the right community and knowing when it's best to move on, even if it's hard and it hurts.

C has been going to church with me on Sunday mornings since she was 2 weeks old. We rarely miss a week. The upside of this is that I have a child who is very comfortable in church and who blows my mind on a regular basis with her grasp of what is important and what it means to live in community.

The trade-off is that she is comfortable enough to run around like a maniac until it's time to "share the bread." Fortunately, our fellow parishioners are kind enough to tolerate my curious and naughty girl.

On Sunday, she helped me pick up the toys before we went up for Communion. And then she put herself away while we waited our turn.

I have very clear memories of my First Communion. I was ten years old and it took place during the Maundy Thursday at the Lutheran Church in town. I remember the dress I wore--it had a dropped waist and tiered skirt and was covered in cabbage roses. (Hey--it was 1987. If you think back that far, you may have had one JUST LIKE IT.) The whole family went to church. It was a BIG DEAL.

Preparation involved extra classes and the ability to recite the books of the Old and New Testaments. To this day, I cannot tell you why I needed to be able to tell you all the books of the Bible in order to participate in Communion, but there you go.

What I don't remember is what I actually thought of Communion once I was able to receive it. Which is funny because I clearly remember what it felt like to be excluded from The Table. And it isn't just me--my sister has very similar memories. And a much better story which I'm going to tell because it really is that important.

When I was in the second grade...my sister was probably three years old...my mother was hospitalized on Christmas Eve with toxic shock syndrome. My mother was the organist for the Roman Catholic service at the Air Force Base where we lived. Christmas Eve is not the best time to be without an organist, so a friend of hers substituted during midnight mass, and my father helped by bringing his trumpet. And, of course, my sister and me.

During Communion, Dad was playing and no one was really watching my sister. She took the opportunity to go up to the priest (a friend of the family) as he was handing out the Body of Christ and ask him for "one of those Bread Things," which, of course, she could not have because a) she was not Catholic and b) she was only three, and, therefore, uninitiated into the ways of Holy Communion. But, being three, she didn't understand why everyone else got to have one except for her. So she continued to pull, and cry, and plead, "But Father Jim, I want one of those Bread Things--Give me one of those Bread Things!" The priest is laughing and has tears coming out of his eyes as my father goes up to grab my sister and haul her back behind the organ...still wailing for one of those Bread Things.

As an adult, I understand that the idea of First Communion was very important to my mother. It was familiar to her. It was what she knew. But, as an adult, I have trouble with a theology or a liturgy that denies participation based on age or expertise or comprehension. If we are all the Children of God, we should all have a place at the table, regardless of how old or experienced or smart we are. So I decided that C would get to have Communion when she was ready. And that I would know she was ready when she could recognize exclusion.

What I didn't expect is how early children know that something is going on without them. I was thinking maybe when she was two or so. When she would be able to verbalize wanting one of those Bread Things. But last week at church I watched her during Communion, and I watched the wheels turn in her head and the look that said "Everyone is getting something here but me." And so even though she's only 13 months old, she's ready.

Yesterday was my daughter's First Communion. She didn't have a special dress, and she can't recite the books of the Bible. She will have no memory of her First Communion. But she will have no memory of being excluded from the table.

She may not remember her First Communion. But I will.

[An aside before I start this post re: my previous post. Yes, I knew they were going to get bigger. Babies do that. I didn't know they would grow 2-3 cup sizes in 3 months and that the maternity store clerk would make me feel like a circus freak. Anyway. On with the post.]

On Sunday, we had a really interesting discussion/sermon at church about a parable concerning the farmer who sows his field with good seed. In the night, an enemy comes and plants weeds. When the plants begin to grow, the weeds are mixed in with the wheat. The farmer tells his workers to leave the weeds and let the plants grow up together. When it is time to harvest, he will tell the reapers to separate the weeds from the wheat where the weeds will be burned and the wheat will be gathered into barns.

I don't really want to talk about the burning versus gathering into barns, because as far as I can tell, that's not my job. What we focused on in our discussion was the idea of weed control. Most of us...maybe all of us...in our personal and public lives...tend to focus on the weeds amongst the wheat. And when we see those weeds, we want to eradicate them as quickly as possible. But, the more I think about this parable, the more I think this isn't what God is calling us to do. God will separate the weeds from the wheat. Our job is to grow--and we can't grow if we're constantly worrying about separating the good from the bad or the right from the wrong.

Right now, many of the Bishops within the Anglican Communion are gathered at Kent University in England for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. (Official site is here. There are tons of blogs, newspaper articles, etc. providing coverage at different levels if you're interested.) My Bishop wasn't invited. He's in the area, anyway, meeting with folk who will meet with him (you can read about his experience at his blog, if you're interested), and doing what he can from the sidelines. Several other Bishops from around the world have also decided not to attend the conference because they consider themselves to be in impaired communion with the "liberal" Anglican church--particularly the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) and with Canterbury.

The more I think about it, the more it all strikes me as weed control. And it makes me very sad. Should we all agree? Hell no. There will always be conservatives, liberals, evangelicals, etc. It's part of what makes the Communion interesting and diverse. It's good to have opposing viewpoints. It's not good that people feel these oppositions are so strong that we can no longer meet together. Am I biased? Yes. My Bishop, and by extension my Diocese, has been excluded from the table. My understanding of Jesus' teachings are not about exclusion but about inclusion...about welcome. We're talking about a guy who hung out with women, tax collectors, lepers, and other undesirables. Someone who questioned the teachings, rules, and regulations of his day. Someone who got in a lot of trouble.

But this is just my reading of the Bible. I suppose I'll find out if I'm wheat or weed at the end. Until then, all I can do is grow and do the best I can. And pray. For my Bishop, for the Bishops at Lambeth, for those who stayed home, and for the rest of us who live and work in an imperfect world.

I know. I said I was giving up on it. But here's what happened....

A week ago Sunday, I saw Baby K and her mom after church. Someone asked about the upcoming baptism, and Mom responded that, well, her family couldn't find the...whatever...that babies generally use at family christenings. And since the baby has been sick a lot over the past several months, no one really thought to ask other family members if they'd seen it. And, in fact, they weren't expecting a large family turn-out, anyway. Did I mention that Baby K is our priest's daughter? Where, in some families, this may be a rite of passage with little actual religious significance (no one ever goes to church, but dammit, we're baptizing this baby and having a party), Baby K's baptism should have been an event. So I told her Mom, "I think I have something she can use."

Then I went home and knit like an absolute fool for the next week. I didn't do laundry. I didn't spin. I wasn't ready for the start of Summer of Socks 2007. All I did was knit the Christening Shawl.

I couldn't knit it as long as I originally planned. In spite of my best efforts, I still had to go to work and occasionally sleep or eat. But, this is what I managed:

Busy weekend. It may even have bolstered me out of my low-energy-I-don't-feel-like-writing-and-you-can't-make-me mood. Maybe. There was so much....stuff....that I think I'm still processing, and I may be processing for quite some time. You're just dying to process with me, aren't you?

On Saturday I opted out of my graduation. It was a hard decision, but arrived at after much soul-searching and an inability to locate my student ID coupled with a phone call to the URI Bookstore where they emphatically refused to sell me a cap, gown and hood without the piece of plastic. After much grousing, I was relatively pleased with my decision upon awakening Saturday morning to find that the weather flat out sucked. The drive to Kingston is loathsome on a good day--it is nearly unbearable in the rain. So, I followed through with "Plan B," or attendance at the NH Episcopal Diocesan Event, One Hope, One Heart, One World: Keeping the Promise. In all honesty, I was dreading this. Since leaving my job at the Resource Center, and then returning in a "consulting" capacity, I really haven't felt much like "networking." Originally, I thought if I heard, "I'm just so very sorry..." without an accompanying action plan one more time I would be driven to radically unChristian acts. Eventually, it got to the point where I just wanted to disconnect and disassociate and didn't want anyone to know where I had gone or what I was doing. Healthy, huh? This was compounded by my recent ambivalence toward the subject at hand: the day focused on the Millennium Development Goals, which are noble and laudable and very important--and I just wasn't in the mood.

If you're not familiar with the MDGs, here they are for your edification:

1. Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

See? Noble. Laudable. Extremely important. And precisely the subject to which you all want to devote a Saturday in May. Right? Particularly when the day features a U2charist. That'll get you out of bed in the morning, right?

I should explain myself a little bit here: I grew up in the church. My mother is an organist. I have always sung in the church. The only reason I can tell you anything at all about my faith is because I enjoyed singing the hymns--OK, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but seriously. It is one of the few venues in which people are routinely exposed to live music. It's important on so many levels, and really not the point of my post (I'll pontificate on the importance of church music another day, never fear), so I'll just end with the fact that the idea of church accompanied by CD--any CD--makes me want to retch. Violently.

A U2charist is a mass accompanied by CD. Instead of standard hymns or psalms, the service is accompanied by selections from the U2 canon. Now, I really like U2. I respect Bono and his work on behalf of the Millennium Development Goals. The use of this type of service in this venue made perfect sense. However, the mere thought of having to attend this service kind of made my skin crawl. I was hoping, as is often the case with church-sponsored events, that Eucharist would be the capstone--right at the end, and skipped by everyone who wanted to hightail it home, possibly salvaging at least some of their weekend.

I was wrong. This was our "opening act," so to say. And, in spite of myself, I actually almost enjoyed it. In context. It is an interesting approach to "doing church," and, if you're familiar with the lyrics to many a U2 song, you will note that they make appropriate points and connections. Sometimes you need to squint a bit to make it work, but it can all come together. And, more or less, it did. I say more or less because the average age of attendant at this sort of event makes one wonder if they are at an AARP convention. That's me--bucking the demographic. While many of the participants appeared to enjoy themselves, the man in the ascot in front of me shook his head morosely for the duration.

But here's the Rev. Canon Tim clapping away and enjoying himself immensely:

We are traveling through the Holy Triduum--the three days before Easter. This is, quite possibly, my favorite time of year--as regards my religious practices, in any event.

During the Triduum, we remember the events leading up to the celebration of the resurrection on Easter. It begins on Thursday evening, or Maundy Thursday, as we remember the Last Supper and the example Jesus set for his disciples by washing their feet. We remember, as our Jewish brothers and sisters remember, the gift of salvation through the Passover. We watch as the Blessed Sacrament processes to the altar of repose and we are invited to watch and pray though the night, as the disciples were asked to watch and pray two thousand years ago.

On Good Friday, we remember the Passion--the crucifixion. We venerate the cross. It is very solemn and even sad. But it is necessary--after all, without death there can be no resurrection.

And on Saturday night we gather for the Easter Vigil. We light the first fire of Easter, and from that small fire, we light the Paschal Candle. We tell the stories of our faith--from the Creation to the Flood to the Exodus to the Prophets. We tell all the stories that lead up to the Passion and the Easter story. And then we celebrate. We baptize new members, we say "Alleluia" for the first time since Lent began and we rejoice in the promise and hope of new life.

The Triduum is a journey. It's one long liturgy spanning three days. Together we remember the last days of Jesus and his resurrection. It can be arduous and profound. It is the culmination of the preparation of our hearts and minds and selves made during the season of Lent. As I tell my kids in Sunday School, "Easter is a great mystery, and we need to get ready to enter or even come close to a mystery as great as Easter." Lent helps me get ready. The Triduum helps me make sure I am ready.

This makes me sound much more devout than I really am. While I do attend church regularly, sing in the choir, and teach Sunday School, faith does not come easy. It's something I struggle with nearly every day. Overall, this doesn't present a huge problem to me; I was raised Lutheran and my father says that I must have been imbued with a need for inner conflict during my catechism classes. Yet, there are times of the year when it is nice--and probably even important--to truly believe. Easter is one of those times.

The rest of the year, I can hold my feelings of doubt, and work with them. But on Easter morning, it's hard to walk in amongst the daffodils and lilies and the sounds of "Alleluia" and "Rejoice" if you're thinking, "Yeah, but was this really the way it happened?" The Triduum allows me to get ready--to enter this story that is still being told and still being lived and truly believe on Easter morning that "the Lord is risen indeed," whatever that may mean.

I meant to have this posted on Maundy Thursday--the first day of the Triduum. But it wasn't ready--I wasn't ready. I worked on it a little more last night, but it still wasn't there. Today, as I prepare myself for the Great Vigil of Easter, I think I'm almost ready. And so now, this post--which seems to reflect a bit of my own journey this year--is almost ready, too.

I wish all of you a blessed Easter and joyous and peaceful Passover; as you celebrate, think on these words by Primo Levi:

Each of us has been a slave in Egypt,
Soaked straw and clay with sweat,
And crossed the sea dry-footed.
You too, stranger.
This year in fear and shame,
next year in virtue and in justice

Amen.

On Thursday nights I have church choir rehearsal from 7:00-8:00, or whenever we finish up. Last night we ran late due to unbearable silliness.

The choir is small on its best days--last night there were three of us there: the director (who also happens to be my mother); one of the altos; and me. This, naturally, provided the perfect recipe for trouble.

We are singing a lot of spirituals, both as anthems and as congregational hymn, during Lent and Holy Week this year. However, we are a very white choir. Very. White. So, my poor mother tries to find ways of making us sound a little less so. Sing like an opera singer. Do this. Try that. And at times like this, I'm always reminded of my college Concert Choir Director, Dr. Howard. I did my undergraduate work at UNH, and our choir there was also very white. Dr. Howard, however, was not. And he would tell us, particularly when we were working on spirituals, that although we were all his little white children, he would make it so no one would know that by listening to us. Well, K.E., the intrepid alto who made it to rehearsal last night, also sang for Dr. Howard (her experience was during an NH All-State festival). She told a story about a group of white high school-aged kids from NH singing a jazz mass and Dr. Howard trying to coax a less-white sound from the ensemble. After trying a number of things, he tells them: "Close your eyes. Imagine you are in New York City and you're in a part of town where there are hookers walkin' the streets. And you see this woman in a red dress cut down to here (points at midsection) and up to here (points to hip). Now I want you to sound like that dress looks."

Naturally, this works. It works as well, if not better, than Mom telling us to imagine we're opera singers. However, it leads to a number of red dress comments throughout the rest of the evening. I said I'd wear mine to church on Sunday (I think it's even "cut down to there"), since we're singing I Want Jesus to Walk With Me.

Then we pull out Easter music. We'll be singing Wade in the Water during the Baptism at the Easter Vigil. Everything goes fine until we get to the second verse:


Needless to say, we could not make it through verse two of this particular spiritual. All we could picture was Moses with a band of hookers wearing red dresses cut down to there and up to here. I'm wondering how we're going to make it through the hymn at the Easter Vigil. Fortunately, we have several weeks to build up our resolve and/or pray for strength. After all, the responses during the baptismal covenant are "I will, with God's help."

In the meantime, Mom has told me to save the red dress for Pentecost.