diary of a church hopper, pt. 7

A. There is an Episcopal church closer to my apartment than I realized. Of course, I forgot which street it was on and it took longer than necessary to get there.

It was raining as I tried to decide if my parking spot was valid. When I opened the car door, I heard organ music -- and I was glad. It's been probably months since I've heard organ music.

Went in, was handed a bulletin, and sat down. The first thing I noticed was the smell -- a good smell, mind you. The smell of musty books and really old wood mixed with carpet deodorizer and Sunday perfume and cologne.

And the sanctuary was something else, too -- something else as in it looked like a sanctuary, an old and used sanctuary. The ceiling was wooden and almost made you feel like you were inside a ship. The chandeliers helped that effect -- they looked like they may have been gas or candle-lit at one point and converted to electric. There was a gorgeous old pipe organ in the....front part, and though the congregation couldn't have been more than 50 in a room set up for 200-300, the group seemed a friendly-ish lot. It probably helped that the stain-glass windows were open to the showers outside, making you feel snug and safe. The service was strikingly like a Catholic Mass, but seemed more complex and friendlier.

Bottom line -- I didn't really know quite what I was doing. There were a few different books and inserts and some stood and some knelt and it was hard to tell when you were supposed to sing and when the....choir was. And then, in the tradition of some church music, the hymn melodies were unpredictable and the vaulted ceilings meant you couldn't match the tempo of what you were hearing.

Two of the...clergy-ish people approached me at various times in the service to greet me and ask my name. One even took the time to listen to it and comment what a beautiful name it was. It's been a long time since I've heard that. The other person was someone I recognized but did not know -- Dr. Linell Gray Moss. She invited me to their potluck afterwards, and I said another time I'd be happy to.

Overall -- it was something I'm willing to try again. Next week I shall visit another Episcopal church among friends who can hopefully explain what's going on and why, and perhaps that will aid further visits to this first church.

Line that struck me: Christ our Passover
(Sermon, delivered by I think a brand-new interim rector, had promise but I think he lost his train of thought. It started out on one topic I was excited about and ended up somewhere totally different.)

B. Got the welcome packet from Sunnybrook (RCA megachurch) Thursday. It included a postcard with a handwritten note from the pastor ("It's been good having you in our service" -- and I never met him), a couple packets on "life groups" and a self-addressed postcard asking my first impressions of them, what I liked and didn't. I should fill it out.

C. After whatever crap news show on ABC this morning came the Coral Ridge Hour with James Kennedy. I heard the phrase "activist judge" and was hooked. The hour long program was making arguments for how the ACLU has an agenda to take Christianity out of America and how the Constitution says nothing about the separation of church and state and how activist judges (particularly Ruth Bader Ginsburg) are sending our country to heck in a handbasket. No, the Constitution says nothing about the separation of church and state. And the Bible says nothing about the Trinity.

Whenever I think of James Kennedy, I think of one of the older ladies in my church. She was the head of Christian Education for decades and is a good friend of our family. I think she would watch him Sunday mornings. It occured to me -- how much of James Kennedy is built in to my personal beliefs without me knowing it?

At the end, after balanced arguments from Pat Buchanan, the Alabama Supreme Court Justice who was fired over the 10 Commandments, and directors of the Culture and Family Institute, Kennedy urged viewers to stop activist judges and ACLU profiteering (the ACLU wins court costs, payed by federal taxpayers, when they win a case) by sending gifts to James Kennedy (not a organization, just James Kennedy). If they sent more than $25, they got a free book. If they sent more than $35, they got two books.

I don't want to argue whether Kennedy is right or wrong, but simply point out that his arguments and sources tend to defy logic.