. . . Thoughts on Religion, Reading, Writing

I took the Hobbit to church with me last Sunday.  We call it going to say Hi to God, as in: I say, “Time to go say Hi to God.”  “Hi to God, Momma?” says the Hobbit.  “That’s right,” I say, and off we go.

This time, we were running a little late – the second reading was just beginning as we hurried up the side aisle.  We picked a pew – any pew – near to the front, where both of us were less likely to get distracted, and near the music, where the Hobbit is happiest (n.b. singing is the Hobbit’s favorite part of saying Hi to God.  He loves to sing ‘ZWA! ZWA! ZWA! ZWA!’ loudly right along with the singers).  We were as quiet as we could be, but he is two and a half, so as we slid in, I threw an apologetic smile in the direction of the sole lady sitting at the other end.  She didn’t smile back.  Oh, well.

So there we were.  The second reading was followed by the Gospel Acclamation which was followed by the Gospel, and this is probably a good time for me to admit that even on a good day, (i.e., even when I’m attending by myself, without an exuberantly singing Hobbit), I often have trouble paying sustained attention to the proceedings.  Like it or not, I get distracted by the people in church; and by the light coming through the stained-glass windows; by the iconography; and most of all, by the bickering inside my head between thoughts that think that my going to Mass is a good thing, a beautiful thing, a necessary act for me that, like a breathing meditation, simultaneously grounds me and frees me to dwell on the metaphysical; and those thoughts that have nothing nice to say about religion, Mass, priests, stained-glass windows, the smell of pews, the rites, the rituals, the history, the politics, the people who go to Mass, you get the picture.  So it was that by the time we got to the Sermon (which, I should add, was delivered by a very small priest who, I can honestly say, bore a striking resemblance to the actor who played Bilbo Baggins, the original Hobbit, in the movie version of Lord of the Rings, and which I found odd), I was a little lost.

Then there was the fact that the priest was talking all about sickness – severe sickness, and  science, and the church’s position on science – and I couldn’t figure out why.  I looked back at the readings, certain that I had missed something, but there was nothing about sickness or science there.  So why was he going on about this? I wondered, and slowly I started to get itchy – emotionally itchy that is – as the cynical-secular train of thoughts picked up steam and spewed all sorts of nastiness about the Catholic Church and its inane positions, mass-market opium, etcetera, etcetera.  I heard the What am I doing here? thought, and soon enough I was thinking about that Jewish congregation that the husband (who is Jewish) and I have been talking about visiting.  I was feeling the attraction of difference, of newness and the relatively unencumbered experience of the Divine that I tend to have when I attend Jewish services.  And then the priest explained: that day at church, he and the other priest would be administering a special Anointing of the Sick for anyone who was severely ill of body, mind or spirit.  Ahhhhhhhh, I thought.   Of course!  The Anointing of the Sick.! And then, What exactly is the Anointing of the Sick?  “It is a sacrament,” the priest explained, “which most people associate with priestly visits to dying people.”  But people don’t have to be dying to receive it, he went on, just severely ill, as defined by themselves.  And this is why he was going on about illness and science – his point was to say that the Church was all for science.  That of course severely ill people should make use of all that science has to offer.  But that there is a place in healing for God, too.

The priest then invited people to come forward for the Anointing, and then there was a pause.  Then, slowly, people started coming forward.  I couldn’t quite believe it.  There were so many people.  People who I never would have guessed were sick.  “They’re coming up for a special blessing,” I whispered to the Hobbit, who had slid in close to me, a question on his face.   “Saying Hi to God, Momma?” he replied.  I nodded, and together we watched.  There were old people – I had expected that – but there were young people, too.  Men and women.  A mom with a daughter.  And then two parents with a child about the Hobbit’s age.  It was clear from the way they had their hands on him that it was he who was sick.  I was moved.  Out of nowhere my eyes welled up with tears and I felt an abundance of love and goodwill rising inside of me.  I kissed the top of the Hobbit’s head.  The unsmiling lady who’d been sitting in our pew was  now up near the altar too, waiting with the others for her blessing.  It was a quiet, beautiful ritual.  There were no promises or proclamations of miracles performed.  There was just hope, and faith, and the coming together of strangers – those currently humbled, haunted, worn down by severe illness and those of us who were at that moment well.

The feeling I had then reminded me of  a summer job I had a couple of decades ago, at the Gap.  It was a job I didn’t like very much, since mostly, I stood around feeling unfashionable as I pointed people in the direction of the t-shirts they were looking for or redirected European tourists to a store that actually sold Levis (Gap and Levis had just had their falling out and technically we weren’t supposed to do this, but who was I to disappoint the travelers?).  Once, though, I had the good fortune of helping a customer find a pair of jeans that fit her.  Back and forth I went, from the floor to the fitting rooms, with different sizes and styles for her to try on.  We became friendly quickly, bonding over insecurities and the difficulties of finding  jeans that fit well, and finally she found a pair that looked good.   When she left, she was happy, and knowing I had played a role in making her so left me feeling deeply gratified.  It was in that moment I realized that the thing – the only thing really – that I liked about working in retail was the opportunity to be friendly to strangers in a relatively anonymous way.  I didn’t want to be that lady’s friend.  But I loved helping her.  Strange as it might sound, it fed me, just like helping people who are lost in cities find their way feeds me and working on a crisis line fed me.  I like my friends.  I love them.  But there is something about kindness between strangers – engaging in it, observing it – that moves me and makes me feel glad to be alive.

Interestingly, I had an experience of being similarly moved just this week while reading a novel written by a good friend (In Dependence, by Sarah Ladipo Manyika).  I’d read early drafts, and truth be told, I was nervous to read the final product.  What if I didn’t like it?  What if I thought it was only okay?  What if I thought what she had to say was dull? cliched? inarticulate?  It took me a few months just to buy it, and when we met, when we talked about sales, how she was feeling about it, the readings she was giving, etc, I avoided getting personal.  Then I went to see her give a reading and all my fears fell by the wayside.  She was great and poised and smart and of course I wanted to read her book.  I ordered it as soon as I got home and dipped into it the day it arrived.

Wow.  What an experience.  It was the first finished/published novel by a friend I’d read and really, what an experience.  It was like being allowed to gaze inside her mind and her heart, and to see the world through her eyes for a while.  This is true of any piece of writing I suppose, and especially of fiction, but to know the person made a difference.  To know the shape of the head in which the mind resides and the body that holds the heart – to read the words that she’d worked so hard to assemble in such a way as to have the effect they were having – to exist for a time inside a world she’d created – to get to know the characters that she’d invented and fallen in love with – I felt I was getting to know her hidden self.  Her self within the self I have coffee with all the time, the one I can hardly get to know because of how limited our time together is.  Too, because hers was a successful novel, drawing me in and causing me to feel for the characters, it helped me recognize anew why I love fiction as much as I do.

So, I guess all that goes to say that I like quiet connections, which is probably not a surprise to anyone visiting my blog called Noise Reduction.   Yet, it is not to say that I don’t love the occasional noisy one.  Take last Sunday for example, and that unsmiling lady with whom the Hobbit and I shared a pew.  After she went for her blessing, she came back to the pew and again sat at her end.  Then some singing began and the Hobbit jumped up and started in on his “ZWA ZWA ZWA!s” just as loudly as ever.  The lady looked stunned and I almost started to apologize.  But then she laughed.  And when the Hobbit noticed her laughing, he stopped singing, smiled, walked over and sat down right next to her.  “How are you?” he asked her, his big eyes filled with interest.  “Happy?”

She smiled and nodded.  “Happy,” she said.