January 8

We had a very tumultuous night in the house last night.  It was bad.  And I didn’t want to write anything.

However, I had today (Sunday) off and it was the first time in five or six weeks that I’ve been able to go to church.  I’ve been excited for the opportunity to go and after last night (which spilled into this morning--it was one of those situations whose residual effects will be felt for days), I was all the more relieved for the opportunity. 

Church has gotten a bad rap, and we young people (yes I’m 30, but I still consider myself young) are rather impressively cynical about church, a cynicism that is equal opportunity between church goers and non church goers.  But I would like to put in a good word for it.

We need church.  We don’t need every church, and we don’t need everything that’s in church.  But we need church.  We need it because we need each other and we need to know that we all know we need Jesus.  I walked into church today feeling distant and sad and beat down.  It took a couple minutes, but soon enough someone who recognized me from the month before came over and smiled and started to chat and then another and then the pastor briefly introduced himself and found out he knew me from a few years ago (seminary connections).  Within moments of the first smile of recognition, my whole body relaxed and then I felt my spirit begin to ease.  Pretty soon I felt, for the first time in a long time, like I was coming back to myself.  

At the church I’ve been attending, they do dinner before the service.  It has convinced me that this is the only way church should be done--immediately preceded or succeeded by a meal. There is little more disarming than eating food together.  It’s hardly glamorous.  True, you can all sit at a table and never talk, but unless you’re in prison, that’s unlikely to be the case.  There are no pretenses in meal conversation.  And in my church, if nothing else, you can always talk about something curious that happened in Portland recently, like the large group of people I saw today in Pioneer Square gathered together in coats and sweatshirts and...their underwear.  Don’t worry; they had shoes and knee socks on, and it was a balmy 45 degrees outside.  The longer you sit at the table the more at ease everyone becomes, and by the end of the meal, it seems only fitting to do some worship.  The transition is strangely almost seamless and the ability to worship along side each other feels natural and unassuming.

Today I needed church.  I needed the people.  I needed the conversation.  I needed the sermon.  I was so glad I went to church today.  Tomorrow I get to have lunch with a great friend.  This week may have started out with a bomb, but I think it’s turning around pretty quickly.