A couple of weeks ago Nathan and I took Autumn to a nearby town in search of a holiday lights display called Gingerbread Lane. We had been there once before about ten years ago. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just rows of houses that indulged in a little Clark Griswold enthusiasm for the season, but it was something we thought Autumn might enjoy.
As we pulled into the main drag of this small town, we found ourselves unable to locate the displays we remembered from our previous visit. The sky was sprinkling huge wet flakes onto our car, visibility was getting more difficult and we just weren’t having any luck. Just as we were about to give up, I spotted a sign advertising what I thought we might be looking for.
I saw the sign too late for us to make the turn so Nathan turned into in the next available driveway, which happened to be a church. “I hope we don’t burst into flames,” he said. This is a running gag with us because we haven’t been to church in a long, long time. We jokingly refer to ourselves as heathens.
We’re not bad people, but we live in a predominantly Christian community. I pass no fewer than five churches on my way to work each day. One of those is the Reformed church where Nathan and I were married and the one across the street from it is the Methodist church we attended on a semi-regular basis about three years ago. It also happens to be the church where I was taking Autumn to Kindermusik class until my accident last year.
My accident is, in fact, the reason I will not be returning to that Methodist church. My fall in the driveway happened on a night I was supposed to take Autumn to Kindermusik. I was actually stepping out into the driveway to get into the car for the drive to the church when I fell. The Kindermusik instructor, who happens to be the choir director of the church, never once inquired about my whereabouts. I missed the last several classes and the final party (which happened to take place the night I had my MRI) and she never called. She didn’t ask my friend Marla, who had been in the class with me, what had happened to me and I had been attending her classes for over a year.
That incident pretty much sums up my church-going experiences. Finding my community in the church has always been difficult for me. My parents switched churches when I was nine and the experience was very much like starting at a new school. I found the children at the new church not at all receptive to the new kid, a fat new kid at that, and I never really became comfortable there. I would sometimes skip Sunday school in favor of spending an hour in the grocery store across the street. On the rare occasion I did participate in youth activities, I always brought a close friend with me to act as a buffer so I wouldn’t feel so alone.
I don’t mean these stories to be a critique of the church, just an explanation as to why I no longer go. I’ve never found a church I can call home, a place where I felt accepted flaws and all. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you probably know I’m a self-described social dork. I was born with ten fingers and ten toes and a full head of hair, but social grace was left out of the equation and I’ve never been able to fabricate it. You know those folks who can walk into a room and strike up a conversation with the nearest stranger? I’m not one of them. I’m the person hovering by the buffet table hoping to scarf down as many ham and cream cheese wrapped green onions as possible. Those things serve a dual purpose; they’re filling and make you an undesirable target for conversation.
However, and here’s where I get to the real point of this post, I’ve lately felt as though I should give church another try. I don’t like the thought of putting myself out there again. It’s oddly akin to dating after a breakup, but I’m beginning to feel a little untethered. I don’t feel like part of a larger community. I don’t have a circle of friends and I’ve forced myself to become somewhat disconnected from those I work with in an effort to maintain boundaries between work and home. If I didn’t have my family, I’d routinely have Bridget Jones-like fantasies about dying alone and being eaten by my dog. And if you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you know my dog is exactly that kind of dog.
Aside from the community aspect, I’m beginning to think there is a real value in having faith in something, in believing in a higher power guiding one’s life. As I approach 40, I’m also starting to realize I’m about to enter a phase of my life in which loss is more real, more immediate and, sadly, more frequent. Both of my grandfathers have passed on. Nathan’s mom and all but one of his grandparents are gone. And what if I lost my child? That’s the worst loss of all. It’s the kind of loss that can break someone or make them stronger and I can tell you if it happened to me right now I’d be broken. Forever broken. I’d be Humpty Dumpty and no one would be able to put me back together again.
Faith is what keeps people from breaking during times of intense grief. If you look around the blogsphere, there are several writers of faith out there who have lost a child but who, remarkably, are not broken. They have survived because they not only have a community to support them but they take comfort in being able to make sense of the senseless. A couple of years ago, after reading a post I wrote about the thought of losing Autumn, a woman I work with e-mailed me and told me she had often shared my fears but had to remind herself that her children were hers only for as long as God allowed them to be. At the time I didn’t like hearing that. I didn’t like it at all.
Whatever your religious affiliations or non-affiliations, I hope everyone who reads this has faith in something, be it God, family or a spiritual belief in power of goodness. I hope you each belong to a community who you know will be there when life gets rough. And life can get pretty rough for us all.
If you’re still with me, and bless you if you are, have a wonderful holiday full of love and warmth. I plan on taking a little break to enjoy my time with the family and ponder the meaning of life.
I’ll let you know what I find out.
Autumn At Oak Hollow 