Hunger

I was a religious studies major in college. Then I went to divinity school--a really good one. It was never about faith, exactly: more about How Things Are. I wanted to know. I've always wanted to know. I studied comparative religion with Mircea Eliade, and ethics with David Greene, and American religious history with Martin Marty. Big deals, incredible men--how lucky was I? And I minored in and audited enough philosophy and social thought courses to diffuse, for me, the whole Christianity thing, though I admit time with my div school peers just about did me in. And that's why I stopped at the MA; at that level, nobody was looking for How Things Are; at that level, they were all pretty sure they knew already. Imagine what they'd be like at the PhD level. I'd want to teach beside these people?? Go to dinner parties with them?? That was the conversation I had with myself when I left.

I've never attended church, except for a few occasions, and deaths and weddings. The kids and I have cobbled together a cosmology that works for us but would fit in no house of worship I'd care to attend. But my mother was raised Catholic, and my grandmother went to church every weekend, and it seeps into you: the scents, the sounds, the weightiness of it all.

About ten years ago the Pope came to Baltimore. I walked downtown a few blocks from my apartment and stood on the steps of a Greek Orthodox church and waited to catch a glimpse. A historic moment--nothing more, really. Soon that hermetically sealed thing he was driven around in inched up Charles Street, and there was a dull roar around me--people going mad. I felt so still--curious, mostly, craning my neck for a look. Suddenly he was right in front of me, and the car stopped, and he looked at me for a moment and smiled. My knees went weak--I started to cry. I don't know why.

I remembered that the first day I went to a therapist. I walked into the building, sat on the couch in her waiting room, and started to cry--before I'd even met her.

Mary Grace said to me, "People are so hungry for connection. I hug everyone when they arrive at church and when they leave, and you can feel their hunger."

Is it hunger?

Today I took the kids to Mary Grace's church--Episcopalians. It's a pretty modern structure--not at all the kind of place I go for--and there were more old people than kids. But I'm sold on Mary Grace and I was determined to give it a good shake. The kids went to Sunday school--I hissed at them for an hour beforehand, threatening them will all kinds of disasters if they so much as batted an eye at the whole Son of God thing. (We don't buy it.) Respect, I told them. You don't have to believe it, but other people do, so show respect.

While they were off being indoctrinated--er, instructed--I sat in the chapel and listened, and stood with the rest of them and recited the Nicene Creed, which, of course, in hardly any way represents what I believe. Sang a few hymns, listened to the sermon. The kids came back in time for communion, and in this church everybody takes it--no questions asked about your credentials. We walked to the front, knelt with the rest of them. Liam was dying for a bite--"Is it chocolate chip?" he whispered excitedly, eying the brown cookie in Mary Grace's palm. I wouldn't let them take communion; they haven't been baptized.

I blinked back tears several times in that hour, moved by something. It wasn't the music, though that was nice enough, if a tad formal. Certainly wasn't the setting; not a stained glass window to be seen. It wasn't the message; I couldn't connect to the message. So what?

I think I'm a little envious of people who believe easily--whose faith was handed to them, and they just took it on like a family tradition, and it fit. Nothing fits me. And now I've got kids. Now what?