I am always going to church.

 I am always going to church. 

I’m always going to church, it must seem like. At least, I am often writing about it – maybe these days because it’s about all I do that’s of any interest. It’s one of the three times a week I may get out of the house.

I used to go to the big Presbyterian church downtown, and Roz went with me. It’s walking distance from the house, and we went almost every Sunday. I’d go to Sunday school, and she’d meet me at eleven o’clock worship. There was nothing wrong with it. The Sunday school class did Bible study with a pretty open mind. The music was good. And the preaching was okay, even if it was very Presbyterian. I’m not entirely sure why we stopped going there: it was probably a combination of the Sunday school class – more and more they were asking me to teach, and I was never comfortable either doing it or saying “no.” And the preaching got what I’ve heard called “musty.” It didn’t forget to say that we are sinners but Jesus loves us; but it focused more and more on what we had to do, needed to do, must do, because Jesus loved us. We weren’t very lovable either, so there was a lot we had to do. It got mustier and mustier.

In Paradise, the weeks I was up there, I went with Uncle Albert to his Methodist church, and then we’d spend part of the afternoon going over everything. I didn’t have answers to any of his sixteen weekly questions; but he didn’t care, he only wanted to say them out loud: what the woman preacher might be wearing under her alb? was there a significance to the way she tied the knot in her rope? did she know any science at all? The questions were mostly about the preacher – but not all. Every time we sang “In the garden,” he wanted to know how it was that the hymn writer’s joy being with Jesus’ was not like anyone else’s. Every time we sang “My hope is built on nothing less,” he wanted to know why (period).

When he came down here, we started going mostly to the Episcopal church, where we heard Clara Bow preach, or the young woman that looked like her; and Uncle Albert liked the regular priest fine, too, another woman, and one that knew something about science. She also had a sister that lived in France. And we go to the early service, where there’s no singing to worry about.

We also went to hear my Lutheran friend Axel Sundstrøm preach a few times, Uncle Albert and I. Roz has pretty much stopped going to church. Sometimes, when she hears that “the thin man” is preaching somewhere, she’ll say, “Let’s go.” She likes “the thin man” for some reason; I’m not entirely sure what that reason is, but I think it’s his voice. He sounds like a radio announcer that doesn’t sound like a radio announcer. And he likes to tell stories about Jesus, and he tries really hard not to explain them to death, just let the stories stand on their own.

Axel's Wunderkind - Lee Davidson

A couple of weeks ago, Sundstrøm, who had a Sunday off because he was just back from vacation – Sundstrøm and I went to a little Methodist church back in the country somewhere south of here. Axel drove; and I couldn’t find the church again, if I had to.  It must be on Google Maps – of course! - but it’s one of those places you can imagine isn’t or is somehow in the wrong place on the map, even on Google Earth in the wrong place.

     We went to hear this Wunderkind preach – that was Sundstrøm’s term – “not that he’s going to be the next big thing,” he added. “He’s definitely not. He’s never going to find his way into the prosperity gospel. But he’s young and completely uneducated, except that he taught himself Hebrew and Greek, and people claim he’s memorized the whole Bible.”

     “Have you heard him before?”

     “Not in person. But I’ve heard tapes. They’re pretty amazing.”

     I prepared myself to be pretty amazed.

And I guess I was. Here’s what happened:

     He read from 1 John 4, the “God is love” and “Perfect love casts out fear” passage. He said, “I know you’re expectin’ a sermon on love, but that’s not what you’re gettin’. Sorry. This is more about fear.” And he talked a minute or two about fear, fear of heights, fear of snakes, fear of growing up and going away; but he wasn’t interested in any of this – at least, I didn’t sense he was. He also talked about how some people had overcome their fears, but he wasn’t interested in that either.

     Then he started in on the fear that people can’t seem to overcome themselves, fear of their neighbor. It didn’t matter that Jesus said, “Love your neighbor.” And it didn’t matter that:

     “‘Perfect love casts out fear,’ as John says.” It didn’t matter, “because we got nothin’ like perfect love here. And I don’t mean here” – and he threw his arms out as if to embrace everything. “I don’t mean here in these not so United States or in the world beyond it that’s got almost half as many wars as it has tribes. I mean here” – and he put his hands out to the side about the level of his hips. He wasn’t standing behind the pulpit. He had stepped to his right side of it, and he’d stepped forward, and his toes were hanging over the edge of the chancel. “Here,” he said again, jiggling his hands. “Here. Where we got brothers like Cain and Abel or Esau and Jacob, we got sisters like Esaundra and Jacobina, Cainie Ann and Abelise. We got scheming mothers like Rebekah, and we got sometimes partial and mostly disengaged fathers like Isaac. This is our story: we can’t wait for each other to screw up; and I’d use the stronger word – not just ‘screw’ – if I weren’t here in church.

     “Now, I’m not about to go meddlin’,” he said, “stop preachin’ and go meddlin’, as they say. For two reasons: I don’t have to – you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about, you know who I’m talkin’ about. That’s one. And two: You’re not about to do . . . ,” he hesitated: “You’re not about to do . . . a darn thing about it.”

     He stopped, walked back behind the pulpit, looked down at the big Bible there, walked back to the edge of the chancel, hung his toes over it. “A damned thing,” he said. “You're not about to do a damned thing about it, because you not only can’t wait, you’re desperate, for each other to screw up; you want each other to fuck up royally.”

     And he hopped down from the chancel, he walked around to in front of the communion table, he looked all around, “because you can’t wait to see what will happen next.” He looked all around, but he hadn’t really stopped walking; he kept walking, not fast or slow, right down the aisle and out of the front door of the church.

     No one moved until we heard the engine of his truck start up. Still no one moved much, but Axel turned to me and said half-aloud. “Well, I didn’t see that coming.”

     I shook my head. “Jesus,” Axel said, standing up so I stood up, too. We were sitting in the last pew. He put his hand on my shoulder, gave it a nudge, and we went out, the first of the congregation to go.

Yesterday Uncle Albert and I went to the Episcopal church again, where the rector is doing a series on “joy.”

 05.08.17