"I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
I know Mr. Elliott. I met him three weeks ago at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland after a service entitled "The Gifts of Melancholy" - the sermon was not particularly memorable save the title, and the title only memorable for the word "melancholy," which I consider an exceptionally beautiful word. Mr. Elliott, a slightly balding man who made up for his thinning with a handlebar moustache, sat two seats to my left that Sunday morning and shook my hand after the service. I can't remember exactly what he said - something like he had been coming to this church every week for x years after y months of mourning for his tragically deceased wife, who had died unexpectedly of illness z - but I remember his name and his face. We're both early today and he hasn't noticed me because I'm sitting behind him. He refolds the parchment paper Order of Service in his lap and sighs softly. I wonder what's on his mind.
I don't like for people to introduce themselves to me after church. Unfortunately, at Unitarian Universalist churches the typical custom is to "greet your neighbor" after the service; I usually try to avoid this ordeal by leaving right before the musical postlude ends. Sometimes, though, the last song is so beautiful and the audience so transfixed, to even stir would be a sin. On "The Gifts of Melancholy" Sunday the postlude was performed by a wan fourteen-year-old boy who played Tchaikovsky's Chanson Triste on the cello. He closed his eyes and bent his neck a little so the immense chapel light brought out the rigid lines between his brows; during the entirety of the eight-minute arrangement he never once looked at the music in front of him, as though he played the piece not just from memory but from sheer instinct. The lady next to me wearing a pearl necklace and orangey foundation wept like she was watching a movie about her own life, considering the things she had lost. I felt the song resonating in strange places on my body - my elbows, my calves, the soles of my feet. The moment was rare and angelic and the congregation gave the performance a standing ovation.
So I had to meet Mr. Elliott that Sunday because I couldn't leave in time to avoid our encounter. I don't like meeting people after church because I would prefer for them to remain mysteries: unopened boxes arranged in the seats adorned with the same calm expressions. I like to watch people like Mr. Elliott and channel their tranquility before and during church services; I inhale their calculated composure.
Now the choir is beginning to sing. There's a new woman in the soprano section who has dyed-blue hair. She's singing louder than the other sopranos, and her voice has a certain pinch that stands out. But she'll learn better. Church is the only place I know of where human beings allow their dissonant voices to unfold into a network of unlikely unison: God is good; or Love is good; or Goodness lies within us all. We sing together, pray together, stand together in the eyes of Something Bigger.
I went to the Bayview Baptist Church in San Diego, California last fall. The Bayview Baptist Church rarely fell silent - the preacher SHOUTED to his congregation: "You CAAAAN and WIIIIIIIIL find JE-HE-HE-HE-HE-HE-SUS IN YO LIFE!" And the congregants SHOUTED back: "HALLELUJIA!" Still the focus was there, knotted up in the shouting and the crying and the standing and the singing: an ideal unity; a belief in Something so solid and powerful that human beings fall to their knees in front of It; bow before It and become a single immovable stone in an irrational river. I experienced the Bayview Baptist Church's passion; rocked back and forth on my heels and felt The Thing in me wake up - The Thing that moves us to unabashed emotion and a perfect (albeit momentary) understanding of The Meaning Of Life. I got inside those high cedar ceilings and the red curtains falling like holy blood and the smell of sweat and parched clothing and believed something in everything Dr. Timothy J. Winters said - though I don't remember a word of his sermon.
I would be deceiving you if I told you I believed in God. I don't believe in God. I don't really believe in Anything - except maybe People. I lost God in Daniel Smith's bed when he told me to shut up because no one could hear me and wrapped his vast hands across my eyes so he wouldn't have to see me cry. The alcohol on his fingers stung and his hip bones like scalpels under his skin stung and God escaping through my mouth stung. In Daniel Smith's bed I let God drift through the high glass windows that opened to the roof; I let God evaporate. I didn't try to catch God. The effort would have been futile.
We are standing and singing "Amazing Grace." I start to feel The Thing in my bones. "Amazing Grace" is one of my favorite hymns, partially for the brilliant shift between major and minor chords and the unexpected jumps in melody. Sometimes I think I believe in Music. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm found; was blind but now I see. Lyrically, the song is dull. The metaphors are old and the rhymes obvious. But set against slow, churning chords that break into quivering sevenths and ninths, the words are heartbreaking. Yes, I'm feeling The Thing move into my skin. I'm feeling The Thing in my eyes.
But I know "Amazing Grace" itself did not provoke me; the sound of heavy voices filling the chapel did that; the sound of people coming together.
People are peculiar. We long so much for connection but keep ourselves separated. I said I believed in People, but only when they are what I call "raw": when they commit acts of unseen compassion or unprovoked love. An example: In New York City during a summer dry spell, a woman notices a haggard, distraught-looking man lying by the side of the road, and she asks if he is all right. The man says he is, but the woman is unconvinced. She has a meeting to get to and ten dollars on her. She has a few choices: give the man some money, call for help, or trust the man and let him be. The woman chooses none of these. She sits down next to the man and asks him how his day has been. They sit and talk as SUVs and sports cars whir by; as the heat gets hotter and the day stretches out. And that is the end of the unlikely, simple story. I am trying to say that there are pockets of time in which I believe in People; believe they are bigger and higher than any quantum dimension or sacred heaven. People are unopened boxes.
The boxes are opening up. Everyone is standing, singing in the eyes of their various Gods, finding filament in their lungs to add to the web, becoming Something Bigger. Mr. Elliott is gazing at the ceiling as if God Himself is reclining in an easy chair up there, snapping His fingers and humming along, basking in the glow of a simple song made marvelously complicated by such varied voices. The organ player is swaying; the notes spilling from the pipes fill up the place; there isn't a recess in the entire building not filled with sound.
Today's sermon will be on "Dwelling in Possibility." I will listen but I won't hear what the minister is saying. I will see the sweat gathering on his forehead and I will notice when he shuffles his manuscript; I will watch the faces of the white-haired women in the front row and I will note the degree to which they nod; I will fold my hands when the time comes to pray and close my eyes and repeat over and over again in my head, "Love. Love. Love. Love. Love."