Come All Ye Faithful

Here we are living life on the edge this Christmas of 2013.  That’s just the way Marty and I roll, taking chances, risking the comfort of hearth and home to find the ever elusive peace and good will.

Yea, that’s right, we did it, we did it in the face of everything, we went to church in cold and flu season.  We hugged people, we touched people, we exposed ourselves to germs, and then we sterilized.  It was good.

A Christmas Eve service at First Presbyterian in Waco has always been one of Marty’s favorite places to be during the holiday season.  She loved the sights, the sounds, the smells, the people, the familiarity, the carols, the music, the whole magilla.  The strokes have not robbed her of this.

It’s a crowded service, if you want a primo spot you have to be there early, and when I say primo spot I’m saying one of the pews that will accommodate a wheelchair.  We got there about an hour before the concert which precedes the actual service.  There we sat, Marty in her black and red Christmas vest, me and our trusty caregiver, Nykkie, guarding our rear position in the sanctuary, watching familiar faces file in and find seats.

Before the strokes, my job on this night of all nights was to take number one and only son, Matt, to the church early and save seats for the consistently late Marty. 

I must say for posterity’s sake, I hate saving seats.  It involves telling people “no you can’t sit here” and disappointing perfect strangers and friends.  I did it anyway, it got me there early and Marty could come when ready and we could avoid the inevitable conflict of punctuality.  

I don’t do that anymore.  For one, Marty brings her seat in the form of her wheelchair, for two, I’m now in charge of getting her ready and out the door so we are painfully early and there is not conflict.  The one perk of being a caregiver is you get to set the schedule.  Now we just have to kill an hour watching and greeting old friends and their families and playing games on our smart phones.

The service is full of music and a lot of singing familiar Christmas carols.  All of the standards, most of which we can sing without the help of a hymnal, most of which evoke feelings of Christmas’ today and past, a good nostalgia a good centering of the present.

As is my habit, much to Marty’s chagrin (she told me once during the service, “Just leave me alone”.  Oddly it warmed my heart) I keep a close eye on Marty.  She is feeling good in spite of a treated UTI.  She is sitting, head up attentive, engaged, watching people, listening and looking and really basking in the warmth of this familiar setting.

The trumpet starts, “Oh come all ye faithful”, the congregation stands and begins to sing and fills the sanctuary with music, singing in unison, singing louder than a normal hymn.  There is a palpable sense of community and commonality as the voices build, as the carol progresses, “Joyful and Triumphant, O Come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.”  

I look to my left at Marty at sitting in her wheelchair.  She is looking at me, watching me, but singing, every word, “come and behold Him, born the King of angels, oh come let us adore him.”

And there it was, that was why we were living life on the edge, why we risked the germ factory that is any large group of people, to be with our larger group of people, to feel part of something, to feel the familiar, to feel a sense of continuity, to feel what we as humans crave, life as part of something bigger.

To the well, to the able bodied, to the sick, to the infirmed, to the challenged, being a part of a community, whatever that community might be is the great the common denominator that connects us all in spite of our very real differences.  We want to be a part of life and that church on that night with those people with those songs, that is our community, our faith, our belonging.

We sang in spite of the faux danger, we went to church, we hugged and touched others because living without that community, living without the song is not really living, at least for us. 

And God Smiled

I play at golf.  I have no faith in my game.  I hit the ball all over the place and when I address the ball I never know if the good Larry or the evil Larry is going to hit the ball.  Lately, my golf game is kind of a metaphor for my religious views.

I continue to play golf in spite of the evil Larry because when the good Larry stands at the ball, takes a back swing and hits the golf ball on the sweet spot of the club and the ball rises and goes straight and true and long, it is a wonderful feeling.  It is why I play golf, eternal hope that the good Larry will prevail more than the evil, chili-dipping, shanking, slicing Larry.  It’s the same with my faith, I try to be eternally optimistic that I’m going to believe as I should believe.

I identify as a Christian because that’s how I was raised and that’s what I want to believe.  I struggle with my belief or more accurately my unbelief.  Not every day, because I don’t think about it every day, I struggle on the days I think about what I just cannot believe.  I have often wondered if I am Christian enough because I have doubts about the Bible, Immaculate Conception, the Holy Ghost and a litany of other beliefs.  But, sometimes, events occur that shine a light on the importance of my doubts. 

On Christmas day Marty and I sat in our van in the parking lot of 1^st Presbyterian Church in Waco, our church of 20 years.  It was misting, it was cool, it was overcast and there were only about three other cars in the parking lot.  I looked across the street at the building that is our church and remembered the past, flashed on the events of our lives that revolved around the church and wondered how we fit into this place that has always been such a prominent part of our personal history.

Marty and I were sans caregiver today so I moved her wheelchair to the lift and down she went into the damp parking lot.  We scurried across a sleepy street, up the ramp to the church and the heavy wooden doors came open, opened by a familiar face welcoming us to our church.  

Church services on Christmas day are sparsely attended because of all of the family functions and the fat man with the beard.  It’s a toned down affair where everyone sits at the front for the abbreviated service.  Our minister, Jimmie, was dressed, not in his normal robes but jeans and a plaid pull-over hoody. 

He greeted Marty and I warmly and helped me situate Marty in our pew, the pew we sat in for Erin’s wedding, the pew that had been moved over to accommodate a wheelchair, the pew our children sat in Sunday after Sunday while Marty and I sat behind them.  

The small crowd settled into their spots around us as Jimmie dipped his hands into the waters of the baptismal font and said, “Welcome home children of God.”  There we were, Marty in her wheelchair, me dressed in doubt.

I knew this was going to be a little different service as Becky, the organist, sat at the grand piano right in front of us and began playing “Go Tell it on the Mountain.”  Marty and her women’s chorus rocked this gospel tune many times; it’s a toe-tapper.  Becky was bobbing her head and weaving as she played.  Presbyterians, being the frozen chosen, don’t often bob and weave in a church service.

As the service progressed we said prayers and began singing a Christmas carol.  Marty loved to sing but doesn’t sing very much anymore.  The strokes affected her vocal control and she can’t maintain her pitch very well and she doesn’t like that.  But, there she sat, in our pew, singing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” just as surely and loudly as the rest of us.  I looked up at Jimmie standing behind the pulpit singing, watching Marty singing, and I remembered why I loved being there, it wasn’t about my belief or unbelief, it was about our belonging to a community of doubters and believers.

We moved through the rest of the service praying, singing and listening, then as the service came to an end Jimmie and his sidekick DeDe came down from the chancel area to stand between the pews and deliver the charge and the benediction.  The charge is the same every week, I have heard it, Marty has heard it hundreds of times, it is part of the service Marty knows and loves.  It is part of the service that carries great meaning for me.

As Jimmie walked past the baptismal font he once again dipped his hands in the water, shook them off, walked up to Marty and put his hands on her face, connecting Marty to him, connecting Marty to our past, cementing Marty to our faith in a loving God.

Jimmie stood and started the charge, “Go out into the world in peace.”  

Marty, surprisingly, without hesitation, without embarrassment or self-consciousness said, in full voice for all to hear “Have courage.”  

Jimmie looked at Marty and continued with the litany, “hold on to what is good,” and Marty replied “return no evil for evil.”

Jimmie then walked up to Marty, bent over and wrapped his arms around her shoulders and together, with her broken memory responding and his gentle reminders, they continued and completed the charge to all Christians, to all people of faith, even those like me who doubt their own belief, “Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak and help the suffering, honor all people, love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.”

DeDe, the young woman minister assisting Jimmie that Christmas day struggled with her tears, and closed the service with the Benediction.  I sat there and struggled to tamp down my own tears as I felt Marty’s action bring a sense of peace on this day for all who were there.  It was no longer about my doubts or my faith.

Marty and I went back out the doors of the church, through the heavy mist and across the still deserted road.  I put Marty on the lift and in the van and got her locked down in the van, forgetting about my doubts, not worrying at all about what I didn’t believe.  Through Marty’s unrelenting courage to recover and Jimmie’s recognition of God’s grace through Marty,  I remembered, it’s not about what I don’t understand or struggle over, it’s about what God does and I believe God smiled at us that day through my wife.