My Church of Choice

Back in the day I attended Catholic masses with regularity. It was in Louisville and my dear friend Father Vernon Robertson was the Priest of St. Martin de Tours Church. It was the noon mass and I was the minister at the Baptist Church a couple of blocks away and did the Scripture readings from the high Holy Alter. I grew to love and appreciate the liturgy and, if I don't go to Bar Church on Tybee Island, when I miss Church, I like a good Catholic Mass. It's ashamed the Catholic Priests are having such problems, have a terrible Pope, and the Church still doesn't recognize that Nuns really run things. On my refrigerator are lots of Jesus magnets, photographs and drawings by the girls. It's a shrine of sorts to the things I love and the things I believe. There is one of Vernon, visiting us here at Tybee when he could no longer bear the winters of Louisville, wearing a tanned coat, khaki shorts, black socks and brown loafers, flashing a peace sign while I laugh beside him. And there's another of St. Martin's ... "full of plaster statues with the swords in the bleeding heart: the whisper behind the confessional curtains: the holy coats and the liquefaction of blood: the dark side Chapels and the intricate movements, and somewhere behind it all is the love of God" (Graham Greene). I've long since traded in that kind of religion. I believe its the other way around. The love of God comes first. Church may, or may not, have anything to do with it. Lenny Bruce said, "Every day people are straying away from the Church and going back to God." I agree with Lenny. Sure, there are some really good congregations out there, doing really good things, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Sunday morning at 11:00 remains the most segregated hour in the world, which is the best visualization of sin that I know. People choose churches based on what color everybody is, how much money the general congregation makes, the music, the parking and if the minister can hold their attention or not. Parents want to introduce their children to God while they have a couple of hours to themselves sitting in a pew relaxing. The ambiance is important too ... so church must meet the threshold of whatever is holy enough for you. I, on the other hand, occasionally attend Bar Church these days because I'm on the Beloved Back Deck, naked in the sunshine, listening to "Organic X", waiting on Sarah to wake up so that we can celebrate the "Sun". I sing in the grand Cathedral that God built with a choir of birds, the smell of the marsh, and the salt of the sea. I pray, write and sometimes dance. I call the kids. Later, there is always a party on Tybee that we mostly make for the community of believers who toast the Holy Ghost with wine. I still have traditionalist tendencies though and check out Michael Ruffin's prayers and whatever Guy Sayles has posted that day. It's good stuff. When people ask me about me about Church, I suggest Bar Church with Sam Adams, Asbury Methodist with Billy Hester or First African Baptist with Thurmond Tillmond; Jim Lowder if you're in North Carolina or Cindy Weber if you're in Louisville. If you happen to be in Calcutta find Jack Preager. Sometimes I still go but don't feel guilty about not going. The love of God rains down regardless. Pieces of the Garden of Eden remain and ... that's my church of choice.