i suck at church

i have always wanted church to be something specific for me and it has never been. i don’t mean to say that it has let me down. i just have come to realize that i have little control over the way it affects me.

we pulled into our church parking lot to buy a tree and we see ted. thirty three years ago he started selling christmas trees and still he is moved by the difference the money they raise can make. thirty three years he has stood out in the cold selling trees to picky people, pulling them out, twirling them around for show, strapping them to the tops of cars. this week he helped us pick a tree. he thanked us, then he walked over to a bed of roses next to the tree stand. he took out his clippers, clipped off a stem with one flower and three buds attached then handed it to harper. her glowing wide eyes looked up at him and her tiny white mitten opened up to grasp the flower. he is not the smiley friendly gregarious type. he is silent and so full of love.

i struggle with my church. i probably have not given it as much as it has given me. i am there often enough to know it makes a difference in my life, but far enough away not to be caught up in the politics of it. sometimes i wish i were in a different church, so i could be anonymous, so that when i walked down the aisle for communion, people who saw me wouldn’t see my parents and their lives and their positions in the church. i struggle with the ridiculous things that come out of the pastors’ mouths when they stand at the pulpit. i am a weak member, i need for sunday to fill me up and sustain me. and scathing political statements and elementary school rhyming poems about the christmas season don’t do that. i need to relate, to be stripped bare, to question, to be challenged, to be let in.

that doesn’t happen anymore.

so when i am the most frustrated it seems that that is the moment that my church surprises me. randy catches amelie’s eye in church, and i imagine that he will be like her adopted church grandfather, that he also will out for her. i pick amelie up from sunday school and kathy says,

-amelie, we miss you. tell your mommy to bring you more often.

we go to a christmas pageant and our children are captivated. we hear pieces from the messiah and amelie sings

-hallelujah! hallelujah!

for days afterward. ashley asks amelie what she thinks is coming at christmas and she answers

-baby jesus.

a three year old, who even though she has been shielded from tv commercials telling her to eat rainbow cereal and play with barbies has still managed to get toys-r-us flyers shoved in her face so that society can decide what she wants for christmas-she thought of baby jesus.

right now, that’s reason enough to stay.