What a busy three days this past weekend was!
First of all, I never thought I’d ever join another church (my last experience so many years ago as a very young mother with three small children wasn’t a very pleasant one, shall we say?) I had joined a small country Presbyterian Church in Illinois expressly for the purpose of having our children baptized. In those days, I put tremendous pressure on myself to be the proper wife, proper mother, and proper citizen, and of course, that included going to church. My then husband had the good sense to only attend once in a while, not being nearly as guilt-driven. I had always felt different as a child because I didn’t attend church or Sunday School like my friends did (my mother had been a practicing Catholic, and my father’s mother was a Congregationalist, but his family didn’t go to church, and neither did he). Soon, after my parents were married, my mother stopped attending church. I was convinced that there was something wrong with us for going so against the norm. So, after I grew up and had children, I determined they were not going to go through what I went through. I wanted them to fit in and to feel accepted (since I still worried about what others felt). It turns out that my children didn’t enjoy their church experience and later would turn out to be non-church goers and perfectly happy with it, so who knows? They are good, kind, and decent people, and that's what's important.
Well, the members of that small congregation, all older than I, immediately signed me up to represent them at some large region-wide meeting. I had never done anything like that in my life, and I was really put off, to put it mildly, also too inexperienced to handle something like that. Also, I had misunderstood what they had actually done and didn’t, therefore, show up for some meeting. That didn’t go over too well, to say the least. Later, there was a misunderstanding with the minister when it came time to baptize our baby. They had grossly misspelled our name in the church bulletin the week before, and I didn’t realize that we were the ones scheduled for the visiting minister to come the following week and do the job. (Our regular minister was still in training.) Well, you get the picture. We didn’t attend that Sunday that was scheduled for us, and the regular minister wasn’t very happy about that. I guess you could say that communication channels between me and the church weren't operating very effectively. All the way around, it was a minor disaster.
Ray, the lovely man to whom I’ve been married for seven years, had resolved not to join another church, as well. When he was married to his ex-wife, he served as elder and member of the Presbyterian Church Session (the church board), he taught a liberal adult Sunday School class for twenty years, and he was active in the Meals on Wheels program. He served several terms as Chairman of the Christian Education Department, which meant overseeing the Sunday School, teachers, and the curriculum, and he planned several church weekend retreats, as well as discharging other responsibilities. Growing up in a strict church-going family, he carried around his share of guilt, as well as worry about what other people thought, just like I did. Like many good-hearted people, he also wanted to help, and sometimes had a problem saying "No."
After five years of marriage, we were still planning to keep our lives simple and uncluttered with as few extracurricular activities as we could manage, just so we could concentrate on each other, our family, and our friends. Also, we wanted to be of service to the community and figured that would all work itself out. But, we hadn’t counted on the Unity Church of the Hills in Austin.
I had first attended the Unity church several years ago and had wanted to attend again. So, living fifty plus miles from Austin, we were making a hundred mile round trip to the church almost every Sunday for a couple of years until we moved down here two years ago. Since Ray had grown up attending church, he welcomed the familiar Sunday pattern, and we began to attend fairly regularly. Ray soon joined in my amazement that there could be such a warm and welcoming attitude from a congregation. We felt energized and happy after service each Sunday. The sermons were about NOT being burdened by guilt or by what other people thought, but about forgiveness of oneself and others, nonjudgment, and loving oneself and others. The messages of total love, total acceptance, total joy, total nonjudgment, and total forgiveness were very freeing for us.
Even though we were ready to volunteer, our resolution not to join the church changed when Steve, the new minister, came about five months ago to replace the lovely couple (husband and wife ministers) who moved out of state. They moved back to their hometown for a well deserved partime retirement. Steve had such a refreshing attitude about him that we could hardly believe he was real, at first. He is of retirement age, but how premature it would be for him to retire with what he has to offer. He’s open and energetic to the world; spontaneous, he makes people laugh and cry. He is so human as to make other people seem like robots, in contrast. Warm and compassionate, he is not afraid to laugh at himself or to crack jokes and sound irreverent every now and then. His weekly messages are so inspiring, so full of hope, so full of total acceptance toward everyone that people, overcome with emotion, regularly and surreptitiously reach for the little packets of tissue that adorn the backs of the pews.
The congregation goes out of its way to welcome every single soul, some (gay people) whom I’ve personally heard discuss their lack of acceptance at certain other churches. The incredibly talented singers and musicians pretty much “raise the roof” every Sunday. In fact, before the service starts with the religious music (which can get pretty exciting, as well), the musicians play pop and jazz tunes. They may be trying to “disguise” the pop songs with their improvisations (I wouldn’t swear to it), but it’s fun to correctly guess the titles of the songs. With all its out-of-this-world energy, it’s just a delightful place to be.
So, we joined. This past Friday night we attended the dinner for new members, and it began as most social functions do, with lots of small talk and people introducing themselves to us. Board members and other members of the church welcomed the new members and took every opportunity to make us all feel at home. Making small talk was never my forte, so I hadn’t looked forward to all the chit-chatting. My favorite part was later that evening when the new members were asked to stand and tell a little about themselves and their reasons for choosing Unity Church of the Hills.
There were many interesting stories, and as each person related his or her reason for joining the church, they included one woman who started to cry when she talked about feeling such acceptance. And a young husband shed some tears when he talked about his feelings when at church. So, it was amazing and heartwarming to us when we found out that all these other people felt the same way we felt--that this was the warmest and most welcoming experience we’d ever had at a church.
Then, yesterday (Sunday), all of us went up on stage during the service for a brief welcoming ceremony for new members. Steve made it a very meaningful experience, as usual. The glow from the entire experience was powerful, and remained with me for a long time after.
Sunday afternoon our family came for dinner. I had carefully prepared lasagna the day before, and we added a green salad, toasted garlic bread, fruit salad, apple pie and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. So, everybody feasted! Now, we have our little four-year-old ggrandson with us this week since his Montessori school is closed for the week. We haven’t had him visit for quite a while and are really enjoying the experience. What a joy he is! I’ve been throwing him a Nerf baseball, over and over, so he can practice with his little bat. Also, the Thomas the Train site has greatly expanded their online games for children, so we enjoyed that also. And, he conned me into reading him four books tonight at bedtime! He didn't really have to persuade me that much!
The weekend was a busy one, as this week promises to be, as well. Thank you, God!
