One morning at church. We went to a Lutheran one. My parents started it with some other families they knew from another church where they'd probably grown discontent with the pastor or the policies or the organist or the sanctuary flower placement. So, in the living rooms of their houses they started a new Lutheran church and eventually they found a new pastor and we all ended up in the auditorium of an elementary school on the Sabbath. Separation of church and state? Never on a Sunday.
So one morning at church. It was a church where I was raised and I knew the people, the hymns, the liturgy all by heart. Sometimes the melody of the invocation, the kyrie or the ones they would play in the middle of communion, or the middle of the service for no particular reason I could understand where we would all stand up and start singing some song, these will come back to me at the strangest times.
(In the line at the bank)Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest...
(In the shower)Blessed is he, Blessed is he....
(On my bike on a deserted country road) Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord...
Well, it's not all the time, the church-y songs. But they are deeply embedded in the tight crevices in the spongy grey stuff under my skull ~ Memory clips of this and that of the goings-on in the church in the little school are squeezed in there too. Maybe even fossilized. I don't think I could get it out even with a pick and ballpean hammer. I'm telling you, these things, this childhood church stuff, it's there forever and always, amen.
Once my brother was beside me and yawning and stretching his arms way up over his head when we were doing one of the middle of the service standing up things we did for no particular reason, and at that moment, his elongated belly enticed the back of my hand to reach over and clock him there really hard, which doubled him over, and out of his mouth came a really loud, "OOF." Like a Charlie Brown cartoon, it sounded just like that. It was so funny. Ofcourse, he got in trouble for making the loud noise and I got a pat on the head.
Then there are tender things. I still have them. These things I would write to my mom from ripped off pieces of the service handout, telling her she was pretty or that I loved her. Or drawings of us holding hands. She kept so many weird things that we found after she died, and the biggest surprise was the little teensy notes and sketches no bigger than a pebble that she'd kept that I'd written to her as a little girl during the pastor's rattling on about our inability to understand the infinite depth of God's love for us. As if God's love could hold a candle to that.
But so, anyhow, this one morning at church. I was there with my parents and my family, and our friend Cheryl had come with us that day. We, my sisters, brother and me, we always brought friends along. They more often than I did, because I was still kind of a baby. Not much older than 5 or 6.
I was leaning forward with my forehead on my arms on the chair in front of me and everyone was standing in the middle of the service like they liked to do, and the pastor said he had a special announcement. My mom shook me gently to pay attention and so I took a peek at him as he stood there. I could only kind of see him inbetween people's backs and rearends. I can still remember what he looked like though in his long robe and black shiny hair, and he appeared to be looking down through folks bodies trying to see me too:
He went, "I'd like to take this time to present this hymnal to the congregant who has brought the most visitors this year as a gift of appreciation from the church," and he held up a new hymnal. All the others we had laying around were old, blue and raggedy. But this one was bright red and the goldleaf on the cross on the front shined like new money. And then that's when he said my name.
Now let me tell you, we never veered from the routine at chuch, we never had special announcements in the middle of the service. I can remember looking up at my mom and her nodding at me to go up and get it. Our friend Cheryl, who was really my sister's friend, smiled at me and let me go by her to get down to the aisleway.
I wandered up and got the gift of the red hymnal and I flicked it with my finger to see if it made the same hollow sound as the blue ones. It did. Pastor looked very pleased.
So one morning at church. It was a church where I was raised and I knew the people, the hymns, the liturgy all by heart. Sometimes the melody of the invocation, the kyrie or the ones they would play in the middle of communion, or the middle of the service for no particular reason I could understand where we would all stand up and start singing some song, these will come back to me at the strangest times.
(In the line at the bank)Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest...
(In the shower)Blessed is he, Blessed is he....
(On my bike on a deserted country road) Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord...
Well, it's not all the time, the church-y songs. But they are deeply embedded in the tight crevices in the spongy grey stuff under my skull ~ Memory clips of this and that of the goings-on in the church in the little school are squeezed in there too. Maybe even fossilized. I don't think I could get it out even with a pick and ballpean hammer. I'm telling you, these things, this childhood church stuff, it's there forever and always, amen.
Once my brother was beside me and yawning and stretching his arms way up over his head when we were doing one of the middle of the service standing up things we did for no particular reason, and at that moment, his elongated belly enticed the back of my hand to reach over and clock him there really hard, which doubled him over, and out of his mouth came a really loud, "OOF." Like a Charlie Brown cartoon, it sounded just like that. It was so funny. Ofcourse, he got in trouble for making the loud noise and I got a pat on the head.
Then there are tender things. I still have them. These things I would write to my mom from ripped off pieces of the service handout, telling her she was pretty or that I loved her. Or drawings of us holding hands. She kept so many weird things that we found after she died, and the biggest surprise was the little teensy notes and sketches no bigger than a pebble that she'd kept that I'd written to her as a little girl during the pastor's rattling on about our inability to understand the infinite depth of God's love for us. As if God's love could hold a candle to that.
But so, anyhow, this one morning at church. I was there with my parents and my family, and our friend Cheryl had come with us that day. We, my sisters, brother and me, we always brought friends along. They more often than I did, because I was still kind of a baby. Not much older than 5 or 6.
I was leaning forward with my forehead on my arms on the chair in front of me and everyone was standing in the middle of the service like they liked to do, and the pastor said he had a special announcement. My mom shook me gently to pay attention and so I took a peek at him as he stood there. I could only kind of see him inbetween people's backs and rearends. I can still remember what he looked like though in his long robe and black shiny hair, and he appeared to be looking down through folks bodies trying to see me too:
He went, "I'd like to take this time to present this hymnal to the congregant who has brought the most visitors this year as a gift of appreciation from the church," and he held up a new hymnal. All the others we had laying around were old, blue and raggedy. But this one was bright red and the goldleaf on the cross on the front shined like new money. And then that's when he said my name.
Now let me tell you, we never veered from the routine at chuch, we never had special announcements in the middle of the service. I can remember looking up at my mom and her nodding at me to go up and get it. Our friend Cheryl, who was really my sister's friend, smiled at me and let me go by her to get down to the aisleway.
I wandered up and got the gift of the red hymnal and I flicked it with my finger to see if it made the same hollow sound as the blue ones. It did. Pastor looked very pleased.
posted by SPOA | 7:33 AM
2 Comments:
So glad you came to visit. You and your blog are charming :).
It's absolutely fantastic - as an example of a universal childhood memory and an image of the organized religious experience. It's lovely, and, like laure said, incredibly well written. We want more!
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