1969 - I am the cutest little girl in the Presbyterian Sunday school kindergarten class and the smartest one too - this according to the teacher who also happens to be my mommy. We are getting ready to close the class in our prayer circle and I am horrified and furious to see that some other cute and smart little girl has stepped in front of me and is holding my mommy's hand and sticking out her tongue at me. I have a very un-Christian conniption fit.
After church we go to the country club for Sunday buffet, where an odd musical ensemble including an accordion plays such hits as "Our Lady of Spain". It is here that I learn I love black olives and smoked oysters, plus the black olives fit on my fingertips. I am bored out of my mind so I run around the River Room with all the other hooligans until we exasperate our parents into finally leaving.
1975 - my parents have divorced and my mother decides we will now be Episcopalian. This is OK with me because there are some cute boys at the Episcopal church, plus I like all the hoopla and pageantry. I go through confirmation and am officially a Christian - I have a piece of paper that says so. My mom smacks me hard on the leg in church one day for brushing my long blond hair during the service because I am getting ready to go up and make communion and I want my hair to look good in the back. I had that one coming.
1981 - Mom doesn't feel like going to church anymore, so we don't. I am more than just a little pissed off at God because if he loved me so much, how exactly did my mom get so sick and my family so torn up? Since He hasn't kept up His end of the bargain, I'm done with Him and His bogus weekly rituals.
1987 - I am on my own and can't be bothered with church. Oh sure, I believe He exists and I will tell you I'm a Christian on account of me being confirmed back in the 70s and baptized when I was a baby. But I spend most Sundays hungover and just waiting for noon so I can meet my friends for Sunday football and all-you-can-eat pizza and beer at Mr. Gatti's. It is becoming harder to look in the mirror - I am getting more and more lost by the minute.
1993 - Things in my heart are grim and sad, and I find myself back in my childhood church, weeping in the third row. I am surrounded by people who have been "good" and have earned their right to sit in church on Sundays, but I lost that right a long time ago. I haven't been good for well over a decade. There is a cavern in my ribcage, full of rage and shame.
1995 - I am beginning to come back to church with no particular routine or expectation. Some Sundays I'm there, and some Sundays I'm not. I don't want anybody to expect me or count on me - that way, I won't let them down. But something at church fills up the cavern with good things like cautious hope. Plus I can hear the lessons now - I am actually learning from each sermon and thinking about them during the week.
April 19, 1998 - I am not in church on this particular Sunday as I am on my way to Jamaica to honeymoon with the Christian husband I found on the Internet. Laugh if you want, but through the opportunities provided in the Information Age, I got to know his heart long before I saw his face or felt his touch.
1999 - It is Mothers' Day Sunday, and we are standing up front in church, offering our son to the reverend for baptism. The baby has just spit up all over my pink suit but at least he appears to be puke-free when I hand him over. It is surreal that I am standing here with this man and this baby. I am not good enough.
2001 - Again we present a child, this time a daughter, to a man of the cloth for baptism. We have become Methodists; my childhood church was just that...MY church...and we thought it important to find a place that would be ours. It is at this church where I begin to grasp the notion that NOBODY is good enough and there is no such thing as "degrees" of sin. We have a fantastic Sunday school teacher named Tom, who can "dumb down" the complexities of Christian beliefs so that I can understand and even accept them.
2006 - We have moved from my hometown to the Atlanta area, and we have found a Presbyterian church that fits us well. Not too big, not too small - just right. The pastor is lively and enthusiastic, and we have begun to make some friends. I still don't really want to be accountable for weekly attendance, but now I've got people who notice when we aren't there.
2010 - Our former pastor has moved on to another church, and after a long year of searching for a new pastor, we find ourselves listening to a lanky country boy with an irrepressible cowlick. He is brilliant - combining genuine salt-of-the-earth humility with theological depth that leaves me wanting to learn more and more. From him, certainly, but mostly from his Savior Jesus Christ, who also just happens to be my Savior too.
Today, 3/4/12. I am not in church today due to recovery from surgery and am heartbroken about it. I love my church more than I can say, and I crave the company of my church family. I used to make fun of my Southern Baptist great grandmother who regularly referred to people as "Brother Smith" or "Sister Sue" - that brother-and-sister crap was a hoot. But I think I get it now - my life is full of wonderful new sisters and brothers who are walking this daily walk of faith alongside me. We share in each others' celebrations and heartaches, in our trials and our successes. And it's all so genuine and sincere - no Kool-Aid.
These days, I am a women's Bible study leader. Talk about irony. Each week, I find myself poring over Scripture and study guides to prepare a lesson that brings the women of our class closer to Jesus.
*******
I used to mitigate my quiet internal guilt about not going to church with the fact that you don't have to go to a church to be a Christian. This is completely 100% true.
And there are plenty of churches and pastors and priests out there who give church a bad name. There is no excuse for those people. Plus it gets confusing.. Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, dunk or no-dunk...there are too many choices and so it becomes easier just not to choose. As a Pres-Episco-Method-byterian, I'm here to tell you that, as long as the denomination of your choosing recognizes the Bible as the inspired and authoritative Word of God, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the rest is paperwork.
I want everyone to have what I have - a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, nurtured through friendships, shared study and opportunities to serve the world in His name. It just doesn't get any better than that.
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