Focused but not Present

At church this morning I had another one of my lovely experiences of being focused but not present. I was fully participating and paying attention to many details of the service, just none of the ones I was supposed to. This happens to me from time to time- too often in my parents' church, but whatever. So today as I waxed feminist and critical, I came up with all sorts of details to focus on. And I thought about them. Meanwhile, everyone else enjoyed a nice service.

I forgot how historically male and bloody Baptists are. All of the hymns we sang had only and very male images for God, and most of the references to Jesus involved something with blood or refering to the cross. I think that long ago I thought this was just something a lot of churches did, now I'm thinking it might be more a Baptist flavor. There is nothing wrong with male imagery for God or bloody images from the scene of Jesus on the cross- all these things are apprropriate. But now I know a little better about why I am so done with it. Because my whole life in the church has been nothing but this. Many other churches include other imagery, you might go a whole Sunday without blood, and the word "he" may not necessarily be capitalized (which the language nut in me is so annoyed by - he is a pronoun, no matter who it describes and grammatically shouldn't be capitalized- although I get the respect thing, it doesn't make it less annoying). Anyway. Our church in Virginia, for example- is not the golden goose for inclusivity, but I'm realizing that the language is already more diverse just by having Methodist Hymns. It's too bad they aren't as lively or catchy as the Baptist ones.

OK- so I noticed the whole HE HIM BLOOD JESUS CROSS thing. Then the ushers come up- almost military style, I swear one guy turned on his heel to go in front- all men. All men. To collect the offering, which is a weird signal to send anyway having military style men gather the offering. Give me a vagina up there, come on.

Then there was the children's sermon- not bad actually- but the question was posed to the kids "how many of you love coming to the church" - ha- some kids didn't raise their hands and I'm sure most people blew it off as shyness- but come on- not all kids are there by choice. Then she asked why they loved going to church. One kid said "to learn more about God." The woman was good- and even though she picked up on that answer as the "good" answer- she did mention seeing friends, etc and opened it up a little bit. But it made me think- it is possible that this child truly has nothing more fun than learning about God- and her Sunday school teachers might be kick-ass, but maybe just maybe she gave that answer because she thought it was the right one.

It made me think about how I sometimes judge people in church. Oh yes- I judge. SO bad, I am. But I see people- and you know them- that almost have this look of pride just being in the church. And not the good pride- but the preaching to the choir kind of pride. The kind where the minister says one thing and the proud shake their heads in obvious agreement. "Oh yes, we know what's right and wrong." That kind. They make my skin crawl. I try to let it go- but it's true. I'm putting it out there. They are also everywhere- in every church- in all variations of beliefs. They drive me crazy and I judge them. I'm sorry. I wish I didn't. My church experience would be less jaded if I would stop this. But I can't seem to help myself. Well- I don't try too hard. Anyway, so this pride thing. I thought about the kids and the right answer, the military men and their proud march, the whole thing. And I had a mini-epiphany. There are many churches whose congregations come to hear that they are right. They are right about who God is, they are right about what sin is, they are right about where they should go from here. Even when we talk about how we're wrong, it's about how we know we're wrong and need to do what we know is right. This is how many churches and preachers function. Shoot- it's how we all function before we get the rug swept out from our feet by life and realize we have no idea what the hell we're doing. The false illusion that we are right leads us to fall even harder when we are horrifyingly confronted with the fact that we were wrong, at least about a couple things. The strongest people go one of two ways: adapt and grow, or stay so stubbornly in belief of their rightness that nothing changes. What do the rest of us do? Fall apart at the seams until someone picks us up and whispers "I was wrong once too, my life fell apart and I made it, and God actually did help."

So when the little girl answered the children's sermon question- was she trying to be right? Or be real? When the men march down the aisle, are they proud of their role in the right place, or are they proud to give money to God, because they have nothing better to do with it? When we nod in agreement with the pastor- are we nodding because we know we're all right, or is it because we know we have something to learn here?

In my judging and bitterness, I know I don't have much more to hang on than these pride packs. I do have hope that I can be a part of a congregation that doesn't mind learning together. That will be wrong together. That will shout from the beginning of the hymns to the end: I HAVE NO IDEA! I'M LEARNING! SHOCK ME AGAIN!

The guest preacher for the next 6 weeks is good. And I don't mean necessarily amazing as a preacher- although he wasn't bad- but if I'm not mistaken- I think he's goood at what his role is: helping a church change and adjust to a new pastor. His sermon was talking of the inevitability of change. But better than that were the little details of his sermon. He mentioned each staff member by name. He mentioned the last pastor affectionately. He quoted several lines of scripture. He spoke of change in not so scary ways, but clearly change. He talked about our creation in Genesis- which if he ever heard the last preacher preach- was a part of nearly every one of his sermons. I don't think this was a coincidence. He quoted a female priest to appeal to the folks like me, scripture to appeal to the militia men, Genesis for the Pastor mourners and Staff names for the uneasy. This man was goood.

I've written a lot today. Hope I haven't annoyed too many people. Oh, real quick- a revelation from today: Grandmother will occassionally get into what I not-so-sensitively call suicidal moods. She'll say how she should jump in a lake, we'll be glad when she's gone, she's glad she had a shower because the mortician will appreciate it- not kidding - all quotes from my cutsy little grandmother. These comments are frequent enough that they just generally annoy me now. She does it when she's feeling like a burden or frustrated to not be able to do something for herself. All it really does is make the rest of us feel like shit for making her want to die. And you almost always have to respond- how can you leave a suicidal remark hanging? You can't. Well today Dad mentioned that the people at her new place were looking forward to her "checking in." This struck a memory for Grandmother and she proceeded to tell us about how her Dad used to say in times of annoyance or frustration: "I think I'll just check out." Verbatim, I've heard my Grandmother say this phrase. Now I know who to blame. Watch what you say folks, your great great grandchildren may be paying the price.