she keeps her love away

I never realized what I had to
fight for
And protect
The only way to live beyond
our lives
Is to connect
And carve ourselves into the souls
Of those we love...
(from "Revelations" from Little Fish by Michael John LaChiusa)

It's funny how things connect and weave together sometimes. I guess sometimes god does move in mysterious ways. Or maybe all the time... I don't know.

I got up this morning and headed to my Episcopal church in Manhattan. I sort of inadvertently gave up church for Lent. One thing led to another and then I had stuff going on until the last couple of Sundays in Lent, and so it just seemed easier to wait until Easter. In some weird way in my head it made sense.

And it really did make the Easter Vigil special for me. I can't really explain it, but it did. I wasn't there last week as my family was in town and getting ready to leave, but I definitely wanted to be there today. Which is new for me lately. And...

Well, I guess I should explain this whole me and church and god thing. I really haven't ever known a time when church and god weren't a part of my life. See, my dad's a retired permanent deacon in the United Methodist Church. For most of my life he was a Diaconal Minister, which was a lay (read: non-ordained) position. But that got turned into the ordained position of permanent deacon. At any rate, I was pretty much always expected to be in church and to participate ~ Sunday school, youth choir, youth group, confirmation in 6th grade, etc. College... It got complicated. I didn't have a car. My friends with cars either went to the Baptist Church (ew!) or some charismatic place where they spoke in tongues (EW EW!!), so I was left to what was within walking distance. And that little United Methodist church...let's just say they were NOT taking advantage of their proximity to a college campus. I think at 18 I brought the average age down to maybe 75. So I did the campus SCA thing for a while, until I had a falling out with the chaplain and some of the student leaders. Then it was nothing for me except when I was home. After college, I went to the church where my dad was working mainly because I was singing in the choir because I liked singing and the director I've known since I was three. There was a young adult Sunday school class, but I started hating it as it turned into a couples-type class and everyone was making more money and could do more stuff than I could. I didn't want to join a country club; I wanted a place where I could belong and feel welcome though.

So eventually, Mom and Daddy and I talked about stuff and they said that short of me joining a cult (my sister narrowly escaped getting sucked into one), they were fine with me looking at other churches. I did remember getting up on Ash Wednesday and going to the Episcopal priest led service on my college campus early in the morning, and liking the rhythm, the pattern of the service. So I started looking there. Ended up at what was to become the cathedral of the diocese in which I was living and was confirmed in 1995. After that I started feeling like I was called to serve the church in some way, possible as a Christian Educator. That meant grad school, and likely seminary. I looked at a couple of schools and ended up in the one where I would be able to focus on Christian Ed as well as get a good grounding in the Episcopal Church. i got a job in a church where my first focus was with the youth. I loved that, and I hated it when I was forced to start working with other groups as well. So I looked for a position that was just youth. I found one and went there for a couple of years until they had budget issues, so I had to find something else. That led to a United Methodist church where things sort of fell apart.

I thought they were more liberal than they were, and it came to a head over sexual orientation. Basically my refusal to let the kids use "gay" as an insult. For numerous reasons. One of which at the time was not my own orientation, though in the time after I turned in my resignation and tried to discern what I was truly meant to do with my life, it became clear that that WAS in fact part of the issue for me. (Another story for another time.) But at the time I felt so hurt and betrayed by the church and by god that I didn't bother with church for a while.

I gradually found my way back, ending up in a church where the rector was a dormmate from my first year at seminary. My first day there, the sermon was exactly what I needed to hear at that time, and I fell in love with the place. And in a way with god all over again.

And then I moved.

And had to start the process of finding a home all over again. I tried out a few different churches before settling on one that had an evening service that was exactly what I was looking for ~ modern and ancient combined. But then the priest in charge of that service left and it went on hiatus. Then that hiatus became permanent. And the main service wasn't doing it for me. So I went looking again and ended up back at actually the first Episcopal Church I had visited in Manhattan so many years ago when I was looking at seminaries.

It's home...but getting it to that point hasn't been and still isn't easy. Just like I was writing about yesterday with friends, as you can see, I've been hurt by the institutional church. And in a way, that's felt like I've been hurt by god. I don't like using the term "dark night of the soul", but I've had my issues with god over some things. I still don't capitalize god ~ my own personal choice... And the god I'm getting to know doesn't seem to care about that. Still... I know when I haven't been for a while. Not just because I usually get an email or call from one of the clergy, but because I feel out of balance, out of whack... I can feel myself slipping into a funk.

And yeah, that scares me. But I think it scares me because it's so much a part of me. And that's scary too. To admit that I'm in a relationship. A relationship with god yes, but more directly with a church. A church that's made up of people, that's fallible, that can hurt me, can disappoint me. It's too easy to just leave before I'm left.

And that's why I made a plan to get up this morning. A commitment to myself to go as much as I can. To not fall into the "Christmas and Easter" thing. It's a conscious decision I'm making to be in this relationship. To take this chance.

But today was one of those days where it felt like I was getting signals, communication, signs from god. Every once in a while it happens. Not like a slap in the face, but not really a still, small voice either.

Today was the last day of our interim period. Next Sunday we will have a new rector. Today was the assistant to our interim rector's last day with us in this position. I haven't gotten to know him VERY well as I've been sporadic at best in my attendance, but the times we've had together have been good. I wish his sermon was already online, because I would love to put some of it in here to show you what I mean about this...

When he started, he was talking about friendship and relationship... And I swear it was like he'd found this blog and read it last night and knew it was me and was giving me an answer to that post. The quote from that song in Little Fish I have at the beginning of this one, he did not use, but it sums up what he was saying. I told him that after the service and the luncheon (yum!), and he laughed and said "The Spirit does sometimes do that doesn't she?" (I LOVE that my church unabashedly uses "she" for the pronoun for the holy spirit, and uses god as much as possible rather than he.) I'm really going to miss him a lot!! (And yes, he knows about me "giving up church for Lent" ~ it came up again when I was waiting to say godspeed and he was talking to someone else who asked if I was new. He joked that I'd confessed to him about it. I think it was a joke.)

But my day of WOW stuff didn't stop there. Oh no. I decided to go to the beach (one advantage of NYC is the beach is a subway ride away), so I had a nice subway ride in which to read. Well, I guess technically this started when I was leaving for church as I grabbed a book off my shelf that I've had for years and keep meaning to read. It's called Girl Meets God, and it's by Lauren F. Winner.

Not exactly identical to my story ~ I have never been Jewish ~ but there are some parallels there. Especially the on again, off again thing. And then I get to the part entitled "Lent". In that section, she talks about having coffee with her rector close to the beginning of Lent, and he told her he was challenging her to give up reading because reading was so important to her.

The only way to explain this is to quote the book...

"Reading, it seems to me, is something you really love. It may be the thing you love most. I would like you to give up reading for Lent.: ... "I think books would be a gift you could give Christ that would be really meaningful." ... I've begun to suspect that Miland didn't want me to give up reading just because it was the equivalent of some dearly loved green sundress, but because it might move me closer to Jesus. It might move me to my knees. (p. 124 and p. 129)

So now... I'm wondering if my "giving up church for Lent" wasn't really such a joke after all. Maybe it was what I needed to get me refocused and see what this parish, what this community means to me. And to help me reaffirm my wanting to be a real part of that family.

It just feels right to end this post the way I started it...

I never realized what I had to
fight for
And protect
The only way to live beyond
our lives
Is to connect
And carve ourselves into the souls
Of those we love...
(from "Revelations" from Little Fish by Michael John LaChiusa)