It is easy for the mind to wander in church. Here we finally bring ourselves to a point in the week at which we are at rest and without distraction. During hymns and sometimes even during the sermon, our minds may drift away to grocery lists, the lawn that needs cutting, the things awaiting us at work on Monday morning. It shouldn’t be this way, of course. Our full attention should be given to offering thanks for our blessings and learning the great truths of God. But, human nature lurks. As I sit in church, my own mind now often drifts back involuntarily to a time in my childhood when everyone I knew and loved was still alive. This day-dreaming is not so much active thought as it is a feeling of contentment. Children are rarely content in church and as a child I was no different. Back then I suffered through the church service drawing super heroes on the church bulletin, or thinking about dogs, the afternoon’s upcoming Braves baseball game, or where my grandfather and I would fish that evening. But something must have taken place in those services to indwell me with a sense of all being right with the world just for that one short hour inside Moreland Methodist Church, no matter how long the hour seemed at the time. My grandfather was singing too loudly in the pew next to me. My mother was at the piano, my grandmother and aunts singing in the choir.
I am Methodist by birthright I suppose, passed down from my Mother’s grandmother. It is a denomination that suits my nature, relatively calm and somewhat traditional. The church to which I belong today in another town is not the same church, but another small-town Methodist church. The sanctuary, though a bit larger than that of my childhood church, has the same design and thus, a similar look and feel. The pews are of cushioned seat with backs of smooth, polished hardwood like those long ago. The room has the same odor of cleanliness that you can smell after a rain on a summer afternoon. A sweet, ozone-like blend of the makeup of kind old ladies, clean clothes, women’s perfume, and furniture polish.
Perhaps it seems to border on irreverence or just the wandering of a simple mind, but the feelings that come over me in this place are both welcome and welcoming. It is a comfortable place. One of familiarity, security, peace. Though the people and place that visit my memory are not here physically, they reside with me. It is here, in church, where they return often to make themselves known. They come on the rays of sunlight shining through the windows and on the notes of the old hymns sung; Leaning on The Everlasting Arms, Blessed Assurance, In The Garden, Beulah Land, Standing on the Promises, and the ever-popular Amazing Grace, a song much maligned by my grandmother for its use of the word “wretch” in one line.
As Methodists do, we rise up and down as the service alternates between the singing of hymns, the reading of announcements, more hymns, the children’s lesson, and finally the sermon. Through all the rising and sitting, I hear the voice of my great-great Aunt Mary, a lifelong Baptist, who while living with my grandparents at the end of her life, attended the Methodist church and complained incessantly about “all the standing up and sitting down”.
The rituals of the church offer continuity in the course of life’s dynamic changes. For some, rituals are just words recited, songs sung, an order to the service itself. But, some of us seek that continuity in our lives and the stability it creates. In a way, it feels to me, a reflection of the unchanging nature of God. We recite the same Apostle’s Creed my great grandmother recited 100 years ago, the same omnipresent Lord’s prayer, familiar words, soothing and instructive. So much, unchanged.
There is the same white altar railing, the brass candlestick holders, and the cross hanging by thin wires above the pulpit. The familiar liturgical cloth with its rotating colors covering the altar table, bookmarking the Bible, draped over the pulpit, and trimming the choir robes. The choir loft behind the pulpit lit by recessed lighting in the arch of the ceiling. The long double row of pews split by a single center aisle. The organ to the left of the altar, the piano to the right is opposite that of my childhood church but the tunes of the hymns emanating from them are the same.
A church consists not of wood, mortar, brick, nor of ornamentation, but of people. I know this to be true. The Moreland Methodist church I knew is not physically the same one my grandfather grew up in. The old original wood, frame church burned in the late 1950’s and was replaced by the brick building that I came to know, and which my current church now so resembles. The wood, mortar, brick and ornamentation consistent among these churches are not the church itself, but they do hold something. This is the form of church I imprinted on as a child.
A building’s character bears the reflection of its people somehow. As such, churches are subject to fallibility. It’s no fault of God. There are those who disdain church because “the church is full of hypocrites”. Well, of course it is. It’s full of people. But, a church can also be a place where good can be found; a warm smile, a handshake, a kind word, community, the opportunity to be the one extending those gestures of kindness, lessons that ease burdens and help us get through this life. These are the things I learned at Moreland Methodist Church and through many of the people I have lost that I now carry with me.
Its been famously said that a person remains alive as long as their name is spoken, or as author, Terry Pratchett wrote, “until the ripples they cause in the world die away”. As we grow older, we lose people. That is the course of things. Following those losses, we reach for threads with which to tether ourselves to them. As I sit in my normal pew on the left-hand side of the aisle, about ¾ of the way toward the back of the church, I feel the ripples of those I have lost. Maybe I’m one of those ripples myself, as is the decision to spend my Sunday morning here in this pew.
I won’t say that I attend church every Sunday, nor does one have to do so in order to find the presence of God. Sometimes I have to get my ox out of the ditch, or I’m out of town, or I’m just plain tired. Some people find God’s presence in the woods, in the fields, on a river, in their own living rooms. I find God in all these places too and more, just as I find the memories of loved ones in other places. But then, attending church services creates a way to put myself aside and offer one hour of attention to God. It’s not a lot to give. Sure, my mind wanders and there are often other things I’d rather be doing, but I think its about the act of humility, of sacrifice. More often than not, it gets me out of my own head, at least for a little while, and for that I am thankful.
As for that feeling from childhood that comes over me and the thoughts of my family there in church with me, sure, maybe I should be more focused on God’s verse and presence, or the message conveyed from the pulpit, but I kind of feel as though maybe that feeling is a part of it. Heritage and faith all wrapped up together. Stories are told of our loved ones greeting us again in heaven. Maybe this is part of that whole thing, God giving us a glimpse. Maybe its all part of the love He has for us. So, as I sit on the cushioned pew with my daughters beside me, our backs against the polished hardwood, I find myself thinking that maybe one day, as they sit on these or some other set of pews, reciting the Apostle’s creed or singing along with the congregation to Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, they’ll smile and feel my presence there too in all that love God’s showering down on them.
Thoughts From The Orchard 