Community of Faith

When you attend a funeral for an elderly person, you don't expect the funeral home to be standing-room-only full. But that was exactly the case for the service I attended last Friday.  The deceased, an 87 year old lady, had three children and six grandchildren.  Although the throngs of people who gathered in remembrance clearly considered themselves "family", they were not family members in the biological sense - instead, they were all members of her church family, or what I like to call her community of faith. Seeing the outpouring of love and affection this woman's congregational family demonstrated for her was like an electric jolt to my spirit.  Over the past couple of years, I've found myself pulling away from my own church, for reasons I can't quite explain.  Whatever the reason, I've become lackadaisical about church attendance and participation. I was extremely impressed by the overwhelming show of support for this lady and her family, and the experience incited some deep thinking about what church membership means for life in general and my own in particular.

I believe being a church member should give you the opportunity to be part of something larger than yourself, and should offer you the ability to give of yourself to others. My church offers many ways to fulfill this mandate, from mission trips to Bible studies to collecting food for the needy.  In my personal church experience, participating in the various music programs within the church has been a way to offer up my talent, be an integral participant in the worship experience, and feel as if I'm making a contribution to the rest of the congregation.  As I've reflected on the reasons why I've been withdrawing from church, I wonder if being a church musician is no longer enough to help me fulfill my personal mission, if there might be another place I'm being called toward service within the church community, or in the wider world.

Another  major part of the worship experience is what we take from the sermon each week. For me, a sermon needs to ground my faith in the real world, needs to explain to me what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century and how faith can guide me through life.  Call me demanding, but I expect sermons to be concise, well structured, to the point, and delivered with confidence and style.  Our senior pastor, who retired two years ago, was a master at all of the above, and I don't think I've ever reconciled myself to his absence.

And then there's that all  important community of faith.  The lady whose funeral I attended had been a member of the same church for over 50 years, nearly the entirety of her adult life. The connections  she made were strong and everlasting, bound by births and marriages and deaths, cemented with Christmas pageants, Easter vigils, and Vacation Bible School. I've seen it time and again in church circles, the strong friendships that develop among entire families where the children grow up together and then have children of their own who grow up together in turn. It's a bond that lasts over time and distance, because it's rooted in more than the tangential acquaintance of work colleagues or club members - it's rooted in a 2000 year old tradition of faith and fellowship.

I want that community of faith for myself. Growing up, my family's involvement with church was sporadic at best. My aunt often took me to church with her, but I was such a shy little girl that I sometimes felt pressured and overwhelmed by everything I didn't know. Neither of my parents were fond of church going, although for a period of time we all attended a local Baptist church where my mother and father sang in the choir. But it always seemed strange and foreign to me, and I felt like an outsider, although I remember wanting desperately to fit in. In some ways, I've always felt that way about church - always feel as if I'm standing on the fringe and never quite belonging. It's that feeling which eventually wins out and keeps me in bed on Sunday mornings instead of in the pews.

Still, I know that my church family is right where I left it, and like most loving families will undoubtedly welcome me home with open arms.  After all, that's what a community and faith are all about. Although my relationship with church may not be everything I hoped for, the reward for being part of a community of faith is worth the effort.

 

 

The Annual

Nobody likes annual checkups, but everybody knows they're important.  Especially when you get to be my age - the dire effects of aging are blasted in your face every time you open a magazine, pull up a web site, or watch a TV program.  Happily, my check up today was pretty painless in every way.  My efforts to eat better and exercise more have paid off - although we'll have to wait a few days to see how effective the oat bran muffin/ grapefruit juice regimen has been on the ever-elevated cholesterol levels. I've always been pretty healthy, but now that I've got a grandchild on the way, I'm got a really good reason to stay in the best shape possible for as long as I can. While I was in the doctor's office, I happened to mention to my doctor that four of my friends were currently in various stages of treatment for breast cancer.

"It's like an epidemic," she said, nodding her head sympathetically.  "Three of the women in my circle - including my sister-in-law- are also in treatment. Plus" - and here she stopped for a moment - "I have two women coming in later today and I have to tell them their biopsies were positive."

We went on to discuss some of the reasons why there seems to be so much breast cancer among women in my age group.  My doctor believes that food additives - such as the hormones in dairy and meat - are playing a big role. "Statistics tell us that breast cancer among older women is declining, probably because we're not prescribing estrogen replacement therapy so much anymore. But younger women, in their 40's and 50's, have grown up eating all the processed meats and dairy, as well as all the pesticide ridden produce. I think we're seeing the effects of that on this part of the population."

We also talked about the way young girls seem to be physically maturing so much faster.  I know this to be true - I work in a middle school sometimes, and I'm amazed at the well developed figures on many of the 12 year old girls.   It's thought that the hormone heavy milks and meats are partly responsible.

So lots of good reason to invest in organic products, especially dairy, meats, and produce.

Despite the good results and the good advice, I've still been troubled all afternoon.  I keep thinking about one of my friends, who had a mastectomy this morning. And also about those two patients who had appointments with my doctor today.  For me it was just an ordinary Monday.  For all these women, it was the beginning of a pretty horrifying new chapter in their lives.

So I'm holding them in my thoughts for the days ahead, and I know I'll be doing everything I can so that this time next year I get another clean bill of health.

Writing Around

You haven't seem too much of me in this space, but I have been writing.  You may recall I've been participating in an on-line creative nonfiction writing class, led by Andi, (of Andilit) blogging fame. I've been posting the essays which result from that class here. Today, I am honored to be a guest blogger at Andilit.  My post is all about "The Great Commandment" -  and it's not the one you're thinking of. So check it out.

Taking this online course has reminded me how much I love the educational experience.  I've never done online courses before, but this has got me thinking about online degree courses in psychology, a subject that has always interested me. Psychology was my first major in college, and though I eventually changed to English, I've always been intriqued by the workings of the human psyche!  I'm just more apt to explore it in characters on the page than in real life.  There might even be federal student aid available.

http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/

Something else to think about during these lazy, hazy days of summer!

Independence Day(s)

This was my Facebook status on Saturday morning:

Declaring my independence from the internet this weekend, and planning to be largely "off line" for the duration. See you on Tuesday!

Well, it's Tuesday, and I'm back.

I periodically get overloaded on the internet - tired of being on it, tired of letting it suck away my time, tired of the technology buzz that makes my brain feel frazzled, tired of the mild ache I'm starting to get in my right wrist from "mousing."  I've written about it before, but my efforts to make  long-term changes in my habit have not been very successful.

I also get tired of watching other people on the internet, particularly someone who lives with me (and I don't mean Magic or Molly). My husband has become an internet addict, and now that he has an iPad and a spiffy new Android phone, his face is constantly buried in some electronic gadget or the other.

Constantly.

So occasionally I get fed up and throw my hands (and my mouse) into the air and scream "Enough!" It's like when we were kids and our mothers would turn off the television, stand in front of it with their hands on their hips and say, "No more of this! You go outside in the fresh air and play and don't come back until dinner!"

I went out and played over the weekend.  The air was indeed fresh, the grass was green, the birds were happy. We attended an outdoor concert at Greenfield Village, where we were treated to some great music by The Detroit Symphony (or what's left of it since the strike has sent half the players off hither and yon) plus a gorgeous fireworks display.  I bought some more flowers for my yard, and finally found a little stone garden bench for the back garden. I walked the dogs.

I made some phone calls I'd been putting off - arranged to have the trees trimmed, researched some places for Carpet Cleaning Marble Falls,  Carpet Cleaning Westlake, and

Everyday I hauled a lawn chair into the middle of the backyard, poured myself a tall glass of iced tea, plopped in a fresh lemon slice, and read/napped for about two hours.

Most of all, I felt less harried, less agitated, although my fingers did itch to check my Facebook, email, Twitter, blogs....I just shoved my hands in my pockets when I walked by the computer room, and I hid the iPad under my (very heavy) mattress. Really, I did. Oh, okay, I cheated a time or two, but only for a minute!

But I also realized that I'm  tied to the internet in an enormous and irrevocable amount of ways.  There's work, of course. There's business - banking and bill paying. There's communication (being off the internet meant I wasn't around for impromptu Skype chats with my friend in China). There's information -about family (seems I "communicate" more with my son and daughter in law via Facebook or Twitter than any other way), about the world, the weather, the TV and movie schedule, the restaurant menu....I use the internet pretty exclusively for ALL of those things.

Though I sometimes think about chucking it completely, I really don't think it's possible anymore - at least not for me.

So today, I'm back to the usual internet frenzy.  But I'm hoping that a little bit of the fortitude I demonstrated over the weekend will stick, at least through the summer, and I can tear myself away for significant periods of the day.

Because my lawn chair is still waiting patiently in the cool shade of the maple tree.

How about you? Is there anything in your life you'd like to declare your independence from?