We’ve started going to the pretty church in JCrewville and oy, what a scene. I had been resisting going there because it seems claustrophobic to spend time on Sunday with the very same people I’ve spent Monday though Friday with. Come the Sabbath, I’m kind of looking for a break. It’s work to navigate the social corridors of this town all week, and sometimes I just want to exhale and clean my heart in peace.
But here I sit, surrounded by all the locals. Totally bugged. I’ve come to open my soul, and now I’m pissed at that PTA mother who didn’t say hi to me outside even though, hello – I KNOW she saw me. And what am I wearing anyway? Some old black suit from my working days — “Vintage Ann Taylor” as my friend Trish would say. I thought I looked pretty good when I left the house, but apparently others have bought new clothes in the last decade. Who knew?
My skin feels tight (as do my circa 1995 pants) making it harder for me to smile. I look down and read the bulletin, but my sacred aura gets interrupted again. I see two people in front of me huddling and whispering about someone a few pews ahead of them. I was hoping for a repreive from social manuevers. Apparently, not. Please people, I plead to myself, how about a little peace here in the house of God?
I do like the minister though. Surprise – he lives in JCrewville. I’ve always found him strangely warm and distant at the same time (very skilled at boundaries, I suspect). He has a boyish face and curly, reddish hair that makes you want to trust him. When he stands tall at the pulpit in his black robe, I do manage to forget he’s my neighbor.
His sermons are open, soulful and spiritually restorative, but I have to concentrate to keep the local happenings from seeping in. Be still my neighbors, I can’t hear the peace.
One Sunday, I sat next to this woman I sort of know who brought a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the sanctuary with her. She was just casually sitting there legs crossed, foot bouncing, and sipping away next to me and I was totally distracted by her every movement. I was trying to pay attention, but the corner of my eye kept wandering over to her. Where did she get that coffee? Why was she drinking it in here? What was up with those rubber-soled shoes she was wearing? Meanwhile, while I was checking her out, I totally missed some important lesson about God that could have made me a kinder person.
When we bowed our heads to pray the Lord’s Prayer, she poked me in the arm sometime after “Thy will be done” and stage whispered “I’m heading out. I’ll see you later.”
“Sounds good, on earth as it is in heaven” I whispered back.
Was she not listening? HELLOOOO!! It was the Lord’s Prayer for Christ’s sake. But honestly, where was she going? What was so important? Couldn’t she have at least stayed for the whole prayer? Was she going somewhere that might explain those shoes?
And in the meantime — God’s Lesson #2 on Kindness: um…yeah, missed that one, too.
I’m thinking I should just sit in the front row where there’s no one to distract me.
Or maybe I should just be honest: peace doesn’t come when everyone else quiets down. It only happens when I do.
And I guess that means I need to get in the front row of my own life, where there’s no where to look but straight ahead.
Peace be with you. Amen.
