My fondest memories begin on the Sunday mornings of my childhood when the rays of the sun passing through my cartoon themed bedsheets made a nickelodeon of my favorite animated television characters on my white long-john jammies. Make believe would stop for nothing other than the switching on of the harsh light from the ceiling. That, along with my mother’s stern sweet voice announced, “Time for church.” Though I enjoyed church, there were mornings when I wasn’t jazzed up about leaving the fanciful world I’d created between my mattress, Mind and blanket. However I protested, I knew no conveniently mis-matched socks, warm fore-head, or “tummy ache” would delay our arrival at the House of the Lord fifteen minutes early every time. We were the minister’s family after all. Under my mother’s supervision, my teeth and hairs had to be brushed, tie straightened, shoes shined, bed made. I could have an egg sandwich to go if I hit all my marks without “static”.
First Sundays were most special. I looked forward to the time after service when I accompanied my father and the white-clad stewards and stewardesses to the bedsides of the sick and shut-in members at various points in town. Upon arrival, I was always impressed and amazed by the eerie hushed feeling of meditation on The Word and contemplation of that one glad morning. The rooms we entered experienced dynamic changes of mood as we solemnly processed inward. We greeted each other, G-d bless you…Pray my strength…the Good Lord Willing…All thanks and praise… After that, the members’ homes, nursing facilities and hospices became sanctuaries filled with old hymns un-recorded in the pew songbooks. The hallways echoed the call and response set to the rhythmic thump and guttural hum of a vocal tradition established more than four hundred years ago. The living room sofas and easy chairs became Amen corners, pews for singing. The square foot of the floor where my father stood became a pulpit as he began to speak before sharing the Body and Blood. We were eight to ten gathered in The Name. The Holy Spirit was among us.
On those Sundays I learned praise and worship in the style and presence of my elders, the way they had learned from generations ante. In those church houses, hundreds of years of tradition were invested in me, a child, by then, aged only to a single digit. I absorbed the vibrations and reflected the sentiment. It was a unique experience. Since then, rolling with the flow of things, getting to getting and living just enough for the City have begun to obscure memory of that glad Sunday feeling I was once so accustomed to have regularly enjoyed. Like a dragon-chasing fiend, I’ve searched for that feeling-the cleanest highest high to be found, that mountaintop, the soaring effortless ecstasy attained only from within the personal sanctuary, among those who do likewise, with ordination from beyond.
For some years, nothing could match, imbue or provoke that get happy feeling of my youth. That changed when I was delightfully stunned at meeting Ms. Marjorie Elliot.
(To be continued)
