My father once said that my mother went to church every time they opened the doors. This was kind of true. She was in the choir, which meant rehearsals one night a week. She was the substitute organist and, as the lead soprano, often sang solos.
My dad, on the other hand, blatantly and irreverently claimed salvation through association (typically hilarious). Because he didn’t attend, my sister and I sat by ourselves on the front pew under our mother’s stern eye. At ages five and six we were expected to sit still and be quiet, which we did.
Mom also taught Sunday school and, while dealing with troublesome children wasn’t her forte, she did it because no one else stepped up and she thought it was important.
And she had a job outside the home, which in those days was considered forward by some of the more narrow-minded parishioners.
In short, she was a hard worker, a busy woman.
I considered church, like school, as simply another boring thing I was required to do. I had no idea why I was there, and nobody ever told me. Furthermore, the service never altered in any way. Someone read from the Bible, we sang and recited the same responses every week, and a man stood above us and gave a mind-numbing talk while I distracted myself by scribbling observations on the program and showing them to my sister. In Sunday school my attention went to the rude boys who, my mother explained, were rude because they wanted attention. Apparently their ploy worked.
When I was thirteen or fourteen, the youth group gave a fund-raising spaghetti supper. The older teens were to put on an entertaining play and the younger ones would pour tea and deliver dinner to the tables. The mothers would supervise, and a time for preparation was scheduled for the afternoon on the day of. My mother was busy with our younger sister and couldn’t participate. I was washing cups for the after-meal coffee when a few women began a conversation in the adjacent pantry.
“Where’s Bea?” one asked.
“She never comes to these things. She’s too busy to help.” Snide tone.
“Some women take no responsibility, even when their own kids are involved.”
“The children suffer when a mother works outside the home.”
I’d thought these women were kind. They buzzed around the fellowship hall with smiles. They gave sincere compliments. They arranged outings and lessons for us.
Soon after, I let church go. It was fifteen years before I realized that every person who called themselves Christian wasn’t a hypocrite.
David, also, was raised in the church. When young, he was an acolyte. Unlike me, he appreciated the unchanging order of worship. He knew the seasons of the church and the purpose of the various parts of the service. I guess he paid more attention during confirmation classes than I did. When our kids came along, he thought it was a good idea to do the church thing, and I went along with it because it seemed to matter to him.
Finding a church home was the next step. The American Protestant church in The Hague was cliquey and crowded and, while I think children are important, so child-centric that there was no room for anything else. So we switched to a small Anglican church which focused on harmony, and we were happy there.
In the UK we tried a Baptist church that was near our home. Having been raised in the Bible-thumping south, I’d been subjected to some choose Jesus or go to hell sermons, but I never expected to hear one in a quaint little English village. So we tried the nearby Anglican church where, more often than not, the homily focused on how materialistic and misguided Americans were. This was the best we could in that location and I never felt comfortable there.
In thirty-odd years we’ve attended ten churches in six different countries, and we’ve compared the similarities and differences of five denominations. We’ve become adept at recognizing a good fit. If a church is frantic, if appearance is its focus, if the congregants aren’t warm toward one another, we walk away. When I enter the right church for the first time, I feel tranquility and open-mindedness, not as nebulous concepts, but as palpable entities.
My intention isn’t to push church at people, though I find guidance and comfort there. Lately Christianity has been commandeered by the right and, in reaction, vilified by the left. Because Christianity is misrepresented by one faction and maligned by the other, it seems unclear what Christians stand for. Believe me, the majority of Christians have no political agenda and are heartsick over the current divisions in our communities and in our country. The aim of any God-seeking church, and any Christian within the church, is to be a positive force; to encourage, help, and tolerate; and to choose peace. We praise, we petition, we wait. And then we do it again.
The cross at the church we go to now.
On a lighter note, I went shopping the other day. Peasant dresses are back in style. That’s a lot of flowery fabric!
You wear this one when you want people to confuse you with a Delft vase.
