Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Another year, another dollar.  Or as a large black lady I used to work with at Yuma Proving Grounds, Dorothy, might have said, another year, another half a dollar.  That is because I have had a major problem in this area.  But that is not what I am going to start out writing about in this new year.  The most excellent blogger Sticky Green Leaves and her fellow bloggers “All Things…”, and Robotic Tree, have given me excellent examples to follow, all in their different ways.  “Last Train” would do well also, I believe, but it is up to him to confront the white page.  I have plenty of confidence in him but that is so easy to say– although it is also true.

Today I am going to follow up on some generally religious writings these three have written about with some meandering of my own.  “All Things Considered” has given us a portrait of someone who finds true worship in the liturgy, most especially in hearing the liturgy rather than reading it.  He would rather not hear extemporaneous prayers as he hears those as manipulative.  I take it he doesn’t consider sermons especially important, at least not at all to him.  He gives us a picture of himself as someone whose ears are  pricked and erect so as to hear the things that annoy him.  He finds release when the whole affair is over.  This is not ideal worship, so to speak, as his attention is upon himself and his interlocutors, innocent though the latter are in this relationship.  We have one man’s sensitivities becoming a hypercritical listening organ.

As I write this I realize I am writing about myself when I go to church, not “All Things Considered”.  Then how have I worshipped?  What do I consider worship?  I have a picture of myself when I was about 25, before I was a Christian.  I was a visitor at an Episcopalian church in Williams, Arizona.  Perhaps it was the very first church service I had ever attended.  Men and woman bowed and kneeled in obeisance.  The priest sang the service, the people responded, the choir sang and the people sang.  It was utterly charming and delightful, symbolic and real.  One of the friends I was wish mistook my delight for levity; I was neither laughing at nor with the order and elements of the service, rather it was a delight in the beloved, the ceremony itself. 

If I was pre-Christian then, what am I now?  That is a personal matter.  If someone asks me how I am doing I may say just fine, or I am looking for a better job.  What sort of answer do they want?  I may be somewhat vulnerable, just enough to let someone in on one of the secrets of my life which are completely unknown to the rest of the 300 people congregation.  I am not really that shy but would rather bug out than chat to people I don’t know and don’t have much of an occasion to get to know better.  A lot of them would rather bug out too.  How do the accidents happen where shy people can get into each other’s orbits rather than clang off into space?

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