I’m Not Perfect, Part II

After leaving Christian Science, I wandered around denominations a bit before settling down.

One thing I like about the denomination I’ve settled into (Episcopalian) is that it’s a big tent. There are very conservative parishes and more liberal parishes, but we are all part of a bigger union. It’s about acceptance for me, and after the years of not feeling accepted because I wasn’t “perfect,” such acceptance is important for me.

There have been times that I’ve attended church less than I do now, and times I’ve not attended for a long stretch. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to find Episcopal congregations in every place that I or we have lived in which I’ve felt (mostly) accepted. The tone of each church varies according the clergy leadership, lay leadership and members, of course. One friend commented that M’s baptism was more solemn and ritualized – more “religious,” she said - than C’s baptism when they were the same rite exactly.

I’ve had some amusing incidents, too. Once, early in our marriage, the local church had as co-rectors a married couple who happened to be the aunt and uncle of a college friend of mine. I went one Sunday just to see what the tone was like. It was fine, but I didn’t feel quite ready to introduce myself at coffee hour afterward so I tried to sneak out a side door at the conclusion of the service. I was thwarted by the female half of the clergy team and stammered that I was a friend of her niece.

The woman asked how she (my friend, her niece) was doing. I said, “I just talked to her a few days ago. They just got a dog.”

“They?” the woman priest replied. “I hope she’s not living with someone.”

We both knew who that someone was and I had just told a priest that her niece was living with her boyfriend without the benefit of marriage.

Oops.

With my foot firmly in my mouth, I excused myself, went home, called my friend immediately and apologized profusely. She was fine with it, thankfully, adding that she probably should have been upfront about it with the extended family anyway. Fourteen months later at the wedding of this friend and the same boyfriend, this woman priest and I were cordial, but did not speak of this moment. (I never did go back to that church. I was too embarrassed.)

As it happened, my husband was Episcopalian by birth and baptism, although his family attended church only rarely. It made the where to have the ceremony part of our wedding quite easy; we were married in the same tiny Episcopal chapel in which his parents were married.

In preparation for our marriage, we had to go through some pre-marriage counseling. During this pre-marriage counseling, we agreed to raise our kids with some religion, but not “shove it down their throats.” I’d gone to church every Sunday and most Wednesdays for so many years as a child (it was a chore long before I left Christian Science), and my husband had attended almost not at all. We agreed to an every other Sunday kind of a plan, provided there was a church nearby in which we both felt comfortable. And we both agreed that when the kids get toward adolescence, we would not force them to go to church. We agreed that we hoped to give them a positive experience with religion.

(In another amusing turn, the chaplain at the university – in another state - that led our pre-marriage counseling has ended up as the rector of a church just a couple towns north after a long stint in the Midwest.)

The house we lived in when C was born as down the street from a quaint small parish, and we had C baptized there. I liked the rector of that church well enough, though some of the long time congregants perplexed me. When we moved south, it took longer to find a parish we liked. The first one we tried was a little too fire and brimstone for my taste, and the second one we tried and ended up attending, where M was baptized, had its own quirks – and required a fairly long drive. I liked each, but was never fully engaged in church life.

When we moved to this town, the local church fit us well. I was impressed by a “Guide for Parents of Small Children” flyer distributed in the entry of the main church. The top line read, “God put the wiggle in children. Don’t feel the need to suppress it in God’s house.” The rector would say things like, “Don’t shush the children! We’ll keep the children and remove you! Show them, lead them, answer their questions, but don’t shush them.” As the parent of small children, I needed to be where my kids would be wholly accepted.

This rector, Father M, exuded unconditional love. While his sermons were not theologically challenging, the love and warmth was just what we hoped to give our kids. He made every rite personal – I loved his baptisms. He had built the church school to almost bursting and had begun an annual missions trip by the high school youth group to build homes in an impoverished area of South Carolina. Father M’s wife was equally wonderful and was the junior choir director (and is a much-loved 3rd grade teacher in our local school). In addition to the junior choir, the rest of the music program is wonderful. It’s always a joy to listen to the senior choir and the multi-choir anthems.

When C became sick, the church was one of the first places we called. Father M dropped everything and came to be with us on that first awful day. He came back often, called, asked the church membership to pray for C and for us. He was a rock for us. I learned later that after that first day, he attended a vestry meeting in the evening and cried the whole time. When C was released, he had members bring us meals and offer other support.

The year after C’s illness was tough on many levels (I’ll write more on that another time), but Father M made time for C when C had questions about why – why did God let me get sick and let me get well? C had been resisting going to church at all, so I took him over to the church on a Monday afternoon to talk to Father M. I have no idea what Father M said to C during that discussion, but C was calmed and more willing to go the church after that.

That experience sealed my connection to the local parish. They took care of us and accepted us and held us through a scary time.

Our church is in transition. Father M retired a couple of years ago (he baptized S before his departure on a lovely fall day). Father B was our interim for a while, but he was asked to move on to another interim position. We have our second interim until early June when our new rector arrives. I’m hopeful for this new person, but nervous, too. It was a long selection process.

This is all to say that I am much more engaged in church life that I ever thought I would be on that day I walked away from the Christian Science church. I work in the nursery once a month and the director of Christian Education is hoping I’ll agree to a bigger teaching role next year. Toddlers? Pre-school? C and M both like church, and have fun there. They have friends there. C sings in the junior choir, and has served meals at homeless shelters. There are small-group dinners at which we’ve met a wider range of local residents than we would have otherwise and we’ve had opportunities to contribute to the wider community. I have to remind myself that I don’t want to force religion and to offer the kids Sundays off. Sometimes they want to go anyway.

This engagement has me very interested in the issues in our larger denomination, which are well-known (interesting bit here - and many others out there, too). The issues in the larger church mirror some of what is happening on the local level. We have more conservative members and more liberal members at our parish, among other diversities. So far, we are living together and respecting one another, but will that change? I suspect we all need to be better at listening and hearing what the other has to say. Just as it will be a challenge for the new rector of our local parish to hold and lead us together, so is it a challenge for our new presiding bishop.

(There are news reports and blogs out there that can speak to both sides of this debate more clearly and accurately than I can, but I do find myself feeling that it's important to keep the tent together, and not divide it up into little tents. It's important for us to accept one another. I accept that there are members of my congregation and my denomination that don't interpret things as I do.)

I’m in a place I never thought I’d be 26 years ago with regard to religion. It’s a good place. Twenty-six years ago I thought I'd never go to church again, and now I am part of a mainstream (some might say boring) denomination. I may not be perfect in a Christian Science sense, but I am accepted.