Several of us were sitting in the Baptismal Pool talking.
The water was warm and we had votive candles lit. Jimmy Buffett music played from the stereo I'd rigged up. Nobody had clothes on. We could look out into the sanctuary as the late afternoon sun beamed through the stained glass windows bathing the room in yellows, greens, reds and blues. It was a beautiful site in a warm and inviting adoption of faith. Nobody was being dunked though surely this was baptism.
Outside of those windows was a grimy inner city comprised of dirty streets, housing projects, homeless people, drug addicts and hookers. At this time of the day, before night fell ... drug deals were being made, the whores were looking for prime time street lights to stand under, and the noise from the housing projects reached a crescendo of babies crying and drunken laughter.
The ways of the world were out there.
We were engaged in Christian community.
We didn't have much so we made the most of what we had.
There was a large kitchen and social hall on the bottom floor so we cooked a lot. Every holiday we'd do these elaborate meals with live music for everybody who had nobody to celebrate with. Sunday mornings consisted of the feeding of the five thousand though we couldn't afford fish so we had biscuits instead of bread smothered in sausage gravy. Wednesday night covered dishes was always the most interesting of all ... homeless guys would panhandle until they could buy chicken or Happy Meals, little old ladies on fixed incomes would make modern day versions of "Stone Soup", and the radical Seminary students who came brought Ramon Noodles.
Above the third floor where I lived was a hatch to the roof and we would regularly have gatherings there. We'd form a line up the ladder and pass folding metal church chairs up to one another until we had enough. Then we'd make our way to the front of the building so we could overlook the ... squalor. There were always guitars and inevitably the choir would break into the James Taylor Hymn "Up On the Roof."
Of all of the religious things that I participated in the church, I still think that this was the most Godly. Whenever I hear that song I see us all on warm summer nights ... the smell of Louisville's Stockyards behind us with the chorus of Pigs screaming in agony at their Holocaust ... the cacophony of baby screams and adult screams from across the street in the housing project ... and the beauty of the moon and the stars when the sky was clear ... which was rare.
And we had a Baptismal Pool which was rarely used because nobody ever got saved.
So we got creative.
Actually my son Jeremy started it all. One Sunday I was a doing a baptismal re-dedication of all of these addicts and hookers who were getting saved for the sixth time that week (you know ... the Salvation Army version of salvation) so I was filling the baptismal pool. Jeremy was maybe five and he loved it. So he took off his clothes and dove in. The homeless guys who were with me looked at him having a grand time diving and coming up spitting water ... so we all looked at each other and followed suit. We took off our clothes and joined him.
Over time we refined this regular worship activity with the stereo, candles and ... timing. When the sun set the stained glass windows put on a show for free ... and the harshness and meanness of the world ... went away for a little while.
These are wonderful memories.
When I go to Church these days ... it's kind of like going to McDonald's ... it's all the same.
God however ... delights in the differences of creation.
This morning ... decades later ... I remember ... or to use the goal of Jesus at the Last Supper, I re-membered ... bringing it all together again ... creating something out of nothing ... making joy out of sadness ... turning chaos into community ... making idealism idolatry ... touching the finger of God with my finger.
It's funny ... the things I did when I was young ... keep me young.
"I believe if I refuse to get old, I can stay young till I die," sings Granny in in my favorite musical Pippin.
Me too!
Fortunately, and few friends and I built a good foundation to draw upon
