The View from the Church Steps
Sept. 22, 2008
    
     Went to church yesterday, and it wasn’t bad.  Slightly different, seeing as it wasn’t a Sunday, and all we had was a pier for worship space, and I didn’t really know any of the congregants, and they didn’t know that’s what they were, nor that they were there in church.  But the setting sun over the bay had called us all together from our various places of work and leisure.  The dark skinned, bare chested fishermen had been gathered there for most of the day, waiting not for the choir to sing the introit, but for their reels to sing the call of a speeding mackerel with lure and line zipping out to sea.  The kids on skateboards with baggy pants belted down below their butts have come, the concrete steps calling them to sacrifice knee and elbow, dignity and decorum, as they offer up various attempts to flip and turn while flying over them.  Their offering of entertainment goes unappreciated by the suave and debonair older youth in tight jeans, and even tighter tank tops revealing acres of  picturesque skin; a living, moving, sometimes jiggling and shaking, mobile art gallery of multicolored butterflies, skull and crossbones, serpents, dragons and roses.  With smokes in hand they gather, unwittingly, for evening worship and fellowship.      
     Several athletic types in stretch pants and running shoes with i-pod armbands strapped to their biceps  and wired to their ears, have jogged out to the end of the pier and keep running in place even as the service gets started.  And there are the old guys, the bench sitters.  They never miss a service.  They don’t go far out on the pier, but park themselves on the back pews closest to shore, and  like attentive ushers they eyeball each of the congregants as they stream onto the pier.  If bulletins were provided, they’re lives would have a purpose.   As it is, they  talk and laugh and carry on with anyone who’ll even nod in their direction.   These regulars are a familar sight, but after the small talk and chatting up the tourists is through, one wonders just what they still have to say to each another after so many years of meeting here at the same time,  in the same place.  Maybe they come just to  gawk at the tourists.
     And there would be much to gawk at.  Visitors do attend worship here on a regular basis; even in winter, with its  wind whipping up whitecaps on the water and bringing goose-bumps and shivers to those who brave the walk out on the pier.  Summer crowds bring a tapestry of colors, a hearty mix of shapes and sizes, and a clamor of accents and languages.  Every day is Pentecost, each hearing, and seeing, the glorious good news in their own language. 
     And finally the service begins.  To the East the clouds have gone from fluffy white, to pink and now they’re darkening into gray.  To the south across inlet and marsh, a giant thunderhead, looking ever so much like a giant alien star cruiser hovers over the land.  And to the west the giant, now blood-red fireball begins its descent into the horizon.  The clouds slicing across the western horizon change from yellow to orange, then to  a vibrant red-orange.  Spikes of shadow and light streak upward into the turquoise sky.  A sparkling red-orange laser beam shoots across the water straight from the descending sun right at me, as if the sun were picking me to be the one to appreciate and remember what it was about to do.   Of course, every other person in church this evening is being similarly chosen.  A diagonal line of pelicans traverses the now setting sun, and the congregation falls silent. 
     As the last sliver of reddish sun disappears, the congregants prepare to leave, but not before a bit of fellowship.   One of the fisherman is showing a young Chinese family his catch and they respond with gleeful “ooos” and “ahhs.”  A fellow with no hair on his head, but instead, rather ironically, a bald eagle head on the back of his own, its neck tattooed down his, the wings spread over his shoulders, with tail and talons going down his back, has graciously offered to take a picture of an elderly couple as they pose before the still glowing horizon.  The joggers ready themselves to speed off, but not before turning to the young couple next to them to say how beautiful it was.  And worship concludes with this passing of the peace. 
     The light dims in this heavenly sanctuary, and the first stars come out.  The lighthouse has been turned on, and the congregants are scattering to nearby restaurants and bars.  The old guy ushers are still sitting on their benches, as if waiting to close up after the last worshiper has left, and when finally there’s nothing more to gawk at or squawk about.  I walk  past them slowly trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.
     “Too bad about Myrtle, ain’t it.”
     “Yeah, that was a bad fall.”  I think she got her back all twisted and cracked.” 
     “I think I’ll go by to see her tomorrow.  Wanna come?”
     “Sure.  I got some tomatoes ready to be picked, we can take her some.” 
     And as I walked off the pier, I realized that though church was over, the Deacon’s meeting was still going on.