Church

I went to my first Catholic mass yesterday morning. The Sisters of St. Francis church in Oldenburg, Indiana. I liked it. However, I suspect it was more like a Unitarian service than a traditional Catholic service, thus making it both accessible and pleasurable. I liked being surrounded by stained glass saints.

I grew up attending First Baptist Church of Maryville. I went to church nursery there (basically kindergarten at the church), which I loved. It was there that I was heading the day Mom snapped my favorite photo of me, wearing my Roy Rogers cowboy outfit and looking over my shoulder as if to say, "Yeah, I'm badass and I know it!" God bless my grandparents for getting that outfit for me from Sears! Of course, even though I tried to convince Mom that everyone was wearing their guns and holsters to church nursery, she didn't believe me so in the photo I am without them and, instead, am unfortunately carrying a flowered lunch box, tulips and a little Dutch girl. Bless her heart, Mom tried for many years to make me be a little girl. Easters were a disaster.

One of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Trentham, was killed in a car wreck when I was 3 or 4. I cried and said to Mom, "Why did she have to die? I wish it had only been a fatal accident!" She gently explained to me what fatal meant.

Mrs. Trentham was replaced by some woman who didn't get me and one rainy day, Micky and Ricky, the twins, and I were chasing each other around the room over some keys. I think one of them had brought a ring full of them from home and I wanted to see them. They were teasing me with them. I am a Taurus. They might as well have been waving a cape. So after them I went. And indignity of indignities, I got in trouble and had to have a time out. Let's just say, this did not endear that teacher to me. In fact, here I am over 45 years later, still feeling disgruntled and wronged. Did I mention that I am a Taurus?

I don't remember whether or not Mom, Daddy, Maggie, and I went to the actual church service on Sundays. I know we went to Sunday School before church and Training Union on Wednesday nights which, if you don't know, are basically bible study classes. And I know we went out to eat on Sundays after church, often to the Blue Circle or Shoney's Big Boy.

My memories of church are sketchy but here are a few: Eddie Seals stepping out from under the stairwell and punching me in the stomach for what I don't know. Flipping pencils during Training Union every time the teacher left the room. Memorizing the books of the Bible. Being Baptized in the tank behind the pulpit. (Thank goodness we didn't have to go over to Pistol Creek!) Having to wear dresses.

About wearing dresses. I put up with that as long as I could wear socks with my patent leather shoes, which was acceptable up until I was, oh, a teenager? At that point I was supposed to switch over to wearing hose. I was having none of it and it was at that point that I stopped going to church. However, lest you be worried about my soul, I soon started going to the Jesus People bonfires and coffee houses and began my short-lived life of "witnessing," which means asking strangers if they've accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior into their souls. Shocking, but true. I did that. I remember going on some sort of Christian retreat at Lake Junaluska and walking around with people, witnessing. I walked up to some poor man who was working in his yard, pamphlets in hand, and asked him that question. I think it's amazing he didn't run us off with a shotgun.

Anyway, I stopped going to church and Mom and Daddy didn't try to force me. Most likely this was more about saving their energy for dealing with Mac and less about really being OK with me not going but regardless, I didn't have to go. I do remember one time when Diane wanted me to spend the night on a Saturday, her mother bargaining with us: I could stay over if I went to church the next day. I do believe that was the last time I went to church until I went to the Unitarian church three years ago.

Long before the hose-wearing line-in-the-sand, I'd become acutely aware of the rampant hypocrisy evident in the differences in behavior in my school mates at school and in church. One boy in particular, Charles, was such a total jerk during the week, only to transform himself into Mr. Pious at church. Of course, he wasn't the only one nor was this glaring difference limited to kids. What I noticed the most was how mean many people were outside of church, only to transform themselves into "loving" Christians on Sundays. So, in truth, I think my rebellion against wearing hose was more about the underlying hypocrisy of being judged at church for what I wore.

I'll save the Jesus People story for another time because it leads into The Joyce Story, which was a long, dark period of my life, but suffice it to say, the real reasons I started going were: 1) they played guitars and sang at the coffee house, 2) they were a bunch of hippies, 3) Mickey (a young woman, not to be confused with one of the twins) went to the bonfires and coffee houses and the retreat and I was enamored, and 4) I actually felt like I belonged and could be myself. Powerful stuff at the age of 12.