Churches

Churches

The best way parents can put their children off religion is to make them go to church regularly. Nothing cuts into a Sunday like a service that seems interminable, dreary and against the nature of most young people to sit still for more than twenty minutes.

In my case, I was forced to daily worship within the confines of a British Public School and Sunday being the only time when you are truly free (albeit for half a day), the one and a half hour Chapel service was particularly galling. I think God would have understood how we felt.

And then there’s the bible itself. The crucifixion of Christ is disconcerting to a young person for whom death is far away. There are a few nuts like Mel Gibson who seem to think it’s good for us to watch the grizzly and tortuous last hours of Christ’s life, but seeing that scene from Ben Hur when I was seven kind of traumatized me.

That’s why Christmas is so much better than Easter. The egg hunts and that bunny are alright but don’t compare to mounds of presents obviously and the fact you are not celebrating death. Of course there’s the resurrection but I have not ever seen someone become undead.

All those sermons were always inevitably leading back to Christ, there was never any plot change; it was just too damn predictable. As I became older and imbued with a sense of socialist righteousness, my aversion to religion was reinforced by world events. Northern Island, India-Pakistan, The Middle East, everywhere you looked there was violence being unleashed in the name of somebody’s God. Clearly the whole business must be rotten to the core.

Predictably, as death becomes startlingly tangible, the reason about 90% of the world believes in God becomes more comprehensible. I thought nothing of having my son baptized, and it was in this same church that I recently attended a service, mostly, it must be admitted, because my father was playing piano in it.

The South Cushing Baptist Church was built in 1854 and is a marvelous barn-like old building, austere yet lovely inside with no electricity. This was an annual service and I think once a year is a about right in terms of frequency of worship, at church anyway.

As you walked in, a Baroque concert was in session with musicians whose average age was about 80. Their concentration was magical, still at that age thrilled by notes and instruments and the divine wonder that is music.

A Conch was blown and the welcome given by an older man started out fine. He outlined the accomplishments of the local historical society that takes care of the church. If you’re not from the area you kind of switch off. Unfortunately his legs started to shake and shook more and more as he read on. He is known to be long-winded and by the end we all thanked God that he didn’t keel over there and then.

A list of the recently deceased in the community was read out and my five-year-old son wondered why Michael Jackson, who had died less than a month earlier, had not been mentioned. I told him it was unlikely he’d resurrect but you never know; Elvis seems to have, for a while anyway, at least for those who think he is equivalent to Jesus. And Michael Jackson, while alive, lived in Neverland, not in southern Maine.

This was followed by an extremely belabored reading of the first 31 verses of Genesis; you wished you could fast forward the reader like you do a CD. Then came a five verse Gospel reading highlighting man’s excessive concern with clothes and food when God provides everything. Now that’s more like it, short and sweet.

There were lots of prayers and getting up and sitting down and kneeling (though the program did specify that only those able should stand, giving away the rather advanced age of the congregation). No rest for the weary apparently is taken literally in most religious services. I feel like a spoilsport to point this out, nor do I intend to demean God’s greatness, but the gushing praise, for instance ‘oh Lord, how majestic is your name,’ and you are ‘deep, perceptive, bold, powerful, glorious, masterful, center of unbroken praise’, kind of reeks of sycophantic trembling, which I suppose is the point.

The problem is with perfection to serve, man pretty much fails miserably to adopt even mild versions of God’s virtues. It’s just not a fair competition between us and God and quite frankly makes us look bad and pathetic. Maybe we should try and emulate something more realistic, some deity that messes up occasionally, shows vulnerability or pettiness. It’s just a thought anyway.

There’s all that language specific to hymns and church services, like ‘o’er, thine, O (without the H), Ye, Alleluia, Thou, doxology, offertory,’ etc.. that are not used anywhere else in normal language. And then of course there is the sermon.

In this case, it was ably delivered by a woman, comparing nature to the divine, which is more the way I see things and so, of course, the correct version! Destroying nature is destroying God, etc; things we can relate to in a time where global warming is the talk of the cocktail party circuits of the world.

Listening to this woman; articulate, passionate, spiritual and connected to God, you want to strangle those retrogrades who insist women shouldn’t preach. It’s absurd. Why don’t you guys just get over it? It’s destroying the Anglican Church. That Catholic priests can’t marry, nothing to do with liturgy but an edict based on economic greed, may have a correlation with all the weird sexual stuff we hear about.

We sung one more hymn praising God. I was proud watching my father play the piano and happy to have shared this experience in a spiritual haven. Despite my cynicism, the faith of believers (not religious extremists who should all be banished to one island and made to fight it out amongst themselves with live ammunition in a reality-type show situation) is a gift for them, a provider of comfort, a welcome support. I wish I had it.

Pedro fell asleep right after the Michael Jackson observation and woke up as we exited the church. We all felt abuzz and the sermon had infused us with a feeling of warmth for humanity. At least until we got home, watched the news, and were reminded of how wretched humans can be to one another, often in the name of religion. But it was nice and I’ll try and go next year. I’ve always wanted to see someone turn water into wine, but I know that’s the wrong attitude to start out on.