I think I said earlier that I would talk about what I experienced when I first went (back) to Anglican church. Hopefully, recalling that now will inject some much-needed perspective and joy into this bleak, blogerific account of mine.
One day in our Christian Spirituality class (where we learn standard levitation and prayer techniques) my new friend told me that I should come to chapel with her for Wednesday Eucharist. Her enthusiasm was so infectious that I went the very next day.
It was a little strange to be back in Anglican church after so many years of careful avoidance, but at the same time it felt strangely as if I’d come…home. Something familiar and comforting and innocent: it felt like stepping out of a storm I’d been caught up in into a sweet space of beauty and calm. In these services where I didn’t know the words and couldn't receive Communion, I found a place where all my politics and struggle dropped aside, and I could just enjoy being with God again for the first time in a long time. It was a little pillow where I could worship the way I felt called to – in joy and a childlike exuberance and excitement. Sometimes, it even made me cry, the overwhelming feeling that God was there, that I was at peace with Him in His most remarkable Presence.
To say I was profoundly grateful does not do it justice.
What I was looking for wasn’t answers. All my life, the church had been content to give me answers to everything. But answers weren’t the key to my faith anymore. What I had hoped for was to find that God is enough to cling to so that, if the ground I was walking on became a little less than solid, I wouldn’t fall. I wanted to be able to watch everything I thought I knew be pulled out from underneath me like a rug and still have somewhere to stand. I didn’t want reasons to keep the answers I had, or even to find new ones. I wanted to get to know God better with my heart, with a feeling that falls outside of words, a faith that cannot ever be expressed.
I am still very emotional about Anglican churches, and about finding myself in them. Everything I feel is always connected to that first impression of comfort, solidity, home. But at the same time, I feel like an outsider, an interloper, and I worry that I will never really belong there, that I will never really be wanted or welcome. I have a lot of experience of not being welcome in churches.
The overwhelming part of it all is that the intensity of relief is always shaded with the feeling of somehow stealing something that belongs to other people who have worked for it. It is difficult for me to embrace a new way of worshipping and experiencing God.
Secretly, I also find it daunting to redefine my relationship to that first chapel when it has given me so much as an outsider. It is difficult for people to understand, I think, that it feels almost like I’ll be losing an important space if I embrace it as my own instead of as a refuge, a haven, sanctuary.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Known By Its Fruit
Sin is a real problem. I struggle in difficulty with it. Sometimes I don’t know what’s sinful and what isn’t, and I am not adept at separating mortal from venial transgressions. I can’t adequately discern these things, and I do not err on the side of self-compassion. I often feel as though I am being crushed by my own guilt, and my sin is always before me.
A friendly warning: if you engage in examination of conscience as a formal exercise frequently, I don’t recommend going long periods of time without having recourse to sacramental absolution – if the sacrament is important to you, which it doesn’t have to be. Otherwise, the weight and breadth of what you have done can lead absolutely to despair.
A friendly warning: if you engage in examination of conscience as a formal exercise frequently, I don’t recommend going long periods of time without having recourse to sacramental absolution – if the sacrament is important to you, which it doesn’t have to be. Otherwise, the weight and breadth of what you have done can lead absolutely to despair.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
In Communion With All The Saints
So I went to the local Anglican church today (on a Sunday!!) for the first time ever. It was a little…surprising to be sure, but also nice. Since I’m quite the liturgy freak (high liturgy! Higher!! HIGHER!!!!), I was a little confused and slightly dismayed by the free-for-all that went with certain parts of the service: some people standing, some sitting, etc. It makes it, for one thing, difficult to copy what people are doing. I’ll have to get used to this difference – I’ll try to see it as a break from regimentalism or something.
It’s such a pretty church…I had forgotten. I wonder how to tell if it’s reserving the Sacrament? Would they have a sanctuary light if they weren’t? There were a lot fewer people than I expected, which I think says a lot about my expectations.
It was so very different from my old, Roman Catholic parish. For one thing, congregants came and introduced themselves to me before the service started. Wow: so cool! Someone I know asked if I wanted to sit with her, but I said maybe next week; getting up and moving just draws more attention to yourself. Of course, as the only new person in a small church, drawing attention to myself is kind of unavoidable. Of course, I know how that can sometimes end: when I was going to my downtown Anglican church, every week this man asked me to stay for coffee but, when I finally did, only one person talked to me.
It’s difficult to come into a new congregation, because everyone already has their own little group, and you don’t: the dynamics of interaction have already been set. Since I come in as a single person with no children, it’s even more difficult because I don’t come with my own home-made posse. Plus, I can’t make friends with the parents of the kids who make friends with my kids. Oh, the troubles of adulthood!
;)
The priest also greeted me as I attempted to make my quick get-away. It was kind of surreal, and I felt disoriented, since he was genuinely nice and hugged me and everything (I was a little uncomfortable – read: a lot – being hugged by a strange man, but of course there’s no way he could have known that). And I stayed for coffee.
Clearly I had entered a parallel universe.
Firstly, I haven’t really stayed at a coffee hour after church since I got out of the hospital seven years ago and people started to avoid me, and of course I also began having difficulty eating in front of many people – but I digress. Well, I stayed once at the downtown church, but that was an aberration. I didn’t actually have coffee, so I guess that proves the parallel universes are connected to each other.
Secondly, it is still always very disconcerting when priests are nice to me in a purposeful, non-generic way. Recall that I had been going to the same Roman Catholic parish for, oh, say, twenty-five years. This is not the relationship I ever, ever had with the parish priest. Sometimes he would look through me as if I wasn’t there, which had become frequent toward the end. Sometimes he would put his arm around me and be proud of me. Sometimes he would run away when he saw me coming, which also had become frequent. Sometimes he would pray with me. Sometimes he would yell at me. The point is, our interaction was very unstable and, at my end anyway, passionately involved. I have never had neutral feelings about this man. Though, despite the rollercoaster ride which ultimately fell off the tracks, I still love him and always will. But, again, I digress.
The point is that he has never, ever made any effort to introduce himself to newcomers, to make them feel welcome, or attempt to lure them back. He did, of course, begin a series of sermons on sin, purgatory and damnation that coincided with the influx of new congregants whose children are preparing for first Communion. He has told people they can’t receive Eucharist. He has actually physically taken the Sacrament out of people’s hands because he’s decided they don’t look sufficiently sure of what they’re doing. He did refuse to baptize a baby because the parents don’t come to his church (duh: they live in Central America and are visiting) which the Roman Catholic priest across the street remedied. He did refuse to give ashes to the Confirmation class because he decided they wouldn’t understand it anyway, which is why he refused to give them the sacrament of Reconciliation last year. Welcoming and embracing of newcomers: no.
I do, in fact, deeply love and care for this man, whose seeming unraveling of health and sound thinking of late worries me.
So, it was truly, truly a parallel universe, leaving me feeling somewhat discombobulated, but also excited to see what happens next!
Oh, and it was a morning prayer service instead of a Mass: dodged a bullet there! *phew*
It’s such a pretty church…I had forgotten. I wonder how to tell if it’s reserving the Sacrament? Would they have a sanctuary light if they weren’t? There were a lot fewer people than I expected, which I think says a lot about my expectations.
It was so very different from my old, Roman Catholic parish. For one thing, congregants came and introduced themselves to me before the service started. Wow: so cool! Someone I know asked if I wanted to sit with her, but I said maybe next week; getting up and moving just draws more attention to yourself. Of course, as the only new person in a small church, drawing attention to myself is kind of unavoidable. Of course, I know how that can sometimes end: when I was going to my downtown Anglican church, every week this man asked me to stay for coffee but, when I finally did, only one person talked to me.
It’s difficult to come into a new congregation, because everyone already has their own little group, and you don’t: the dynamics of interaction have already been set. Since I come in as a single person with no children, it’s even more difficult because I don’t come with my own home-made posse. Plus, I can’t make friends with the parents of the kids who make friends with my kids. Oh, the troubles of adulthood!
;)
The priest also greeted me as I attempted to make my quick get-away. It was kind of surreal, and I felt disoriented, since he was genuinely nice and hugged me and everything (I was a little uncomfortable – read: a lot – being hugged by a strange man, but of course there’s no way he could have known that). And I stayed for coffee.
Clearly I had entered a parallel universe.
Firstly, I haven’t really stayed at a coffee hour after church since I got out of the hospital seven years ago and people started to avoid me, and of course I also began having difficulty eating in front of many people – but I digress. Well, I stayed once at the downtown church, but that was an aberration. I didn’t actually have coffee, so I guess that proves the parallel universes are connected to each other.
Secondly, it is still always very disconcerting when priests are nice to me in a purposeful, non-generic way. Recall that I had been going to the same Roman Catholic parish for, oh, say, twenty-five years. This is not the relationship I ever, ever had with the parish priest. Sometimes he would look through me as if I wasn’t there, which had become frequent toward the end. Sometimes he would put his arm around me and be proud of me. Sometimes he would run away when he saw me coming, which also had become frequent. Sometimes he would pray with me. Sometimes he would yell at me. The point is, our interaction was very unstable and, at my end anyway, passionately involved. I have never had neutral feelings about this man. Though, despite the rollercoaster ride which ultimately fell off the tracks, I still love him and always will. But, again, I digress.
The point is that he has never, ever made any effort to introduce himself to newcomers, to make them feel welcome, or attempt to lure them back. He did, of course, begin a series of sermons on sin, purgatory and damnation that coincided with the influx of new congregants whose children are preparing for first Communion. He has told people they can’t receive Eucharist. He has actually physically taken the Sacrament out of people’s hands because he’s decided they don’t look sufficiently sure of what they’re doing. He did refuse to baptize a baby because the parents don’t come to his church (duh: they live in Central America and are visiting) which the Roman Catholic priest across the street remedied. He did refuse to give ashes to the Confirmation class because he decided they wouldn’t understand it anyway, which is why he refused to give them the sacrament of Reconciliation last year. Welcoming and embracing of newcomers: no.
I do, in fact, deeply love and care for this man, whose seeming unraveling of health and sound thinking of late worries me.
So, it was truly, truly a parallel universe, leaving me feeling somewhat discombobulated, but also excited to see what happens next!
Oh, and it was a morning prayer service instead of a Mass: dodged a bullet there! *phew*
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