Confession time. I’m having that seductive, guilty fantasy again- the one where I let my body go where my mind’s been for months. Sure, I’ve always been the committed type. But some days, if I’m brutally honest, I even wonder whether I’m only staying for the children. The whole thing sometimes just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Passion? What’s that?
Somewhere along the line, church stopped being sexy. (What? You thought…? Right. No. I think that’s the other fantasising blog. This is the church one. But stay anyway.)
I grew up in the church. I’ve always been just about certifiably committed. I’m 41 now. Sometimes I fantasize about being unfaithful: about giving church the flick in favour of other, more useful and dare I say… exciting past-times. I stick with it. I often wonder why. There are probably better ideas, but here’s a few reasons I stay:
I need and want to belong with people who believe in something bigger than themselves. I want my children to belong there too. By ‘believe in something’ I don’t mean “God the old guy in the sky who hands out good stuff and bad stuff and takes you to heaven when you die”. To be absolutely honest I’m not at all certain about what happens to me when I die and I’m not that bothered about it one way or another. For me the church is a place where people talk about and live out love, grace, hope, forgiveness, purpose and justice: for people in this life. All people. Not just themselves. That’s what I mean when I say ‘believe in things’.
Where else can you hear about that stuff? Not from our political leaders! Maybe Girl Guides, but I don’t look that great in the uniform anymore. Book Club, but they don’t tend to cater for families – kids knock over the wine glasses, you know how it is. So… church! Forgive me, but don’t you worry every now and then that Australia is a little in danger of disappearing up its own backside, mostly because everybody only seems to believe in themselves? Where do we go for the bigger stuff?
2. I am particularly stupid and need to be reminded again and again and again about stuff I already know. I also need to be surrounded by humble people trying to do their best to walk a path toward sunsets and simplicity, generosity and compassion. This is why I need a community of people who, weekly, gather together to go over what’s really a pretty simple message: Love one another. Love God. It’s not rocket science. But the community of the church seems to exist to keep one another accountable; to find creative ways to encourage each other; to inspire not because we’re astonishing but because we’re not. We’re just holding up little nightlights and sometimes, we don’t even see them because like everyone else we want fireworks and flares. But we’re trying.
3. Yes, I’m in it for my children. I love the fact that in our little Uniting Church our girls are known and loved by people in their eighties and people in their fifties and twenties and teens and they’re as likely to bail up any of them for a chat as any other. It’s not like that in all churches but it is in ours and I love that completely. Where else in our society do people from such a broad cross section talk regularly with each other? Only when middle aged people remember what it’s like to be young and when children are friends with older people can we respond genuinely and imaginatively to everything that makes people in our society feel angry and misunderstood.
Not only that, but our children have become articulate about asylum seekers and the environment, they’ve visited elderly people, they know about indigenous rights, people living in developing countries, they’ve experienced grace and mystery and learned they’re not the centre of the universe but they ARE loved. I hope that will hold them steady as they become adults. They already sense, I hope, that the world owes them nothing but gifts them much. They may not attend church when they grow up – it’s probably highly unlikely statistically speaking that they will- but this experience has shaped them. I am grateful.
4. Music. Choirs are experiencing a beautiful comeback and so they should because there’s something spine-tingling about corporate singing. The other night I had a dream that I was playing ‘Abide With Me’ on a grand piano in a cathedral; packed; voices soaring; utterly, utterly exhilarating – never happens in our tiny church where I play regularly (dream ruined by realising I had no clothes on… TMI?) Even so, even the most fragile assortment of people bending their hearts and voices to ancient hymns, beautiful music… where else can you find it? Sold.
5. What else, when you get right down to it, do we have that’s better? Australian society is fracturing along all sorts of lines and institutions are dying. Lions Clubs, Rotaries, volunteers for Meals on Wheels, even memberships in Political Parties – who’s doing better at the healing work, the caring work, the inspiring, the hunkering down and being the place where people get together when they’re lonely, even just once a week for a cuppa?
Churches aren’t perfect. It can be a pain being on the cleaning roster and providing morning tea. Committees are revolting. Some churches, not to put too fine a point on it, are completely freaky. But as disillusion grows among much of the ‘grassroots’ transformative edge of the Australian community, with our progressive politics struggling and our Voluntary Secular organisations dying out- what else have we got? Where are people going to find likeminded souls who want to live out a message of hope and justice, inclusion and grace? Churches don’t have to be traditional places of worship. They’re just people gathered in faith, in love, in hope.
Yes, I fantasise about being unfaithful. At the end of the day I stay because of Love. It’s not always a steamy romance and like marriage, I’m not saying it’s for everyone. But for a quietly changed life, over the long haul? I’ll try and keep the faith.
Right. Now. My infidelity fantasies? Head on over to my other site at http://www.okaysureI’vebeenknowntooversharebutseriously?
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