Thursday, August 6, 2009

You’ll recall how I put Martin Luther to shame when I affixed my 96 Theses to the proverbial door a few weeks back, laying out in stark detail the conditions required for me to show up at church on Sunday mornings. Since then, I’ve gone a few more times, which in itself qualifies as an antediluvian miracle in my mind, and I’ve also come to realize part of why it’s so difficult for me to attend.

It’s certainly not the prescriptive aspect that bothers me. I’m fallible, know I need some serious work, and it’s strangely comforting–renewing, even–to sit in the sanctuary on the seventh day and be reminded of the shoulds. It’s like a weekly petri dish, really, where people gather under the microscope, with the dark crevices of existence magnified for review. It’s also like a petri dish because somebody invariably coughs into the back of your head, plus there’s usually a compulsory round of handshaking at the beginning of service, but that’s a separate matter altogether.

The roadblock for me is community. I’ve mentioned this before, many times, and to give it some color I wrestle with the fellow enthusiastically describing the upcoming church picnic or women’s breakfast. I wrestle with the musical duet on stage, two faces perennially enraptured with yet another song that narrowly escaped from easy listening hell. I wrestle with the couple in the supermarket checkout line discussing Romans chapter such and such at a volume just loud enough to invite participation from nearby eavesdroppers.

Not literally wrestling, of course, because, hey, they seem content enough. It’s more of a fear, almost: if I get in too deep, take too much of this to heart, will I be like them? Am I supposed to want to be like them? Sounds terrible, I know, and imperious to boot. But this is where I am and, make no mistake, I plan on returning this weekend. Last week’s sermon was a compelling interpretation of communion, of all things, and the post-service trip to Chipotle was engineered as a kind of psychological reward. I’ve also identified two skills I’ll need to acquire to function in this environment, tools that will allow be to blend–be at the table, you might say, but not of it.