The view from the church steps...

Went to church yesterday and it wasn’t that bad.  It wasn’t home, that’s for sure.  After eight hours in the car my sore and tender hinder parts found themselves seated on a slab of  board about sixteen inches wide varnished slick and shiny, thus slippery as all get out so one had to keep the legs flexed in order to prevent the rump from sliding right off and onto the floor.  Bet people didn’t sleep through many sermons here.  You start slipping off into dreamland, and slip right off the pew.  But hard, slippery pews were the least of what would keep me awake, as I was soon to find out.
     The Baccalaureate service was scheduled to start at 10:30 and of course that meant that we had to be there at 9:00 to get a seat.  Well, that is the way the argument always starts.  If it were up to me, we’d walk in when the service was half over, skip all the fluff and get there for the meat and potatoes, and then get out for some real meat and potatoes.  But my better half would have us there the night before so the pew of choice could be staked out and defended against all the stealthy seat stealers whose arrival time left them wholly undeserving of a decent seat.  And so, we found ourselves yet again engaged in the fine art of compromise, that wonderful WD-40 of marriage that keeps those relational hinges from squeaking too loudly or rusting shut.  
     Surely thirty minutes early should be enough, I argued.  I’ve never gotten to any worship service that early, well, except once on the day we moved our clocks back for daylight savings time.  
     No, the graduates had to be there two hours ahead of time, and remember, the lady told us it would get full.      
     But, I wondered, how could thirty-seven graduates have so much family and that many friends to fill up such a huge place, a place that looked from the outside like a massive, upside-down ark.    “How about ya’ll go forty-five minutes early, and I’ll be fifteen minutes late as usual.”   I knew that wouldn’t work.  So, we’d be there whenever the boss said we’ be there. 
     The next morning, the upside-down ark was already quite full, and with only a couple of animals.  One, a seeing eye dog; the other, a sacrificial husband who’d been led to the temple, tied to the pew and muzzled for a full hour prior to stated time for service to begin.  The muzzle really wasn’t necessary because casual conversation in pews is next to impossible.  To talk to anyone other than whoever’s next to you, you’ve got to lean forward and turn and speak around another human being.  And if you want to talk to someone in front of you or behind you, well someone’s going to have to turn in a way that pinches nerves and causes neck pain, and leads to spinal deterioration.  Are pews required in church?  Would it be worship if there wasn’t a pew?  And what about pulpits?  Especially those high and lofty ones that require the preacher to climb up those narrow spiral stairs.  What if the preacher were really fat, and part way up the stairs he dropped his sermon notes, and when he bent down to get them, he got stuck in the stairs. “Sorry folks,”one of the Deacons might say, “this week’s sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” got stuck in transit.  Anyone got any WD-40 handy? Or a winch?  No, the mechanical kind, Bob.”  Well, one can only dream, and with an hour to waste, I mean, wait... dreaming was certainly in order.  Fortunately, the stained glass windows were most intriguing, and provided much material for further flights of fancy.      
     The bulletin was a book, so I quickly checked to make sure there wasn’t a “Vol. 1” printed on it, implying that there might be other volumes to follow.  This was going to be a long service.  A long Baccalaureate service.  And why?  Nobody listens to Baccalaureate speeches.  Graduates are nursing hangovers from the parties the night before, parents want to see their son or daughter walk across the stage and get a diploma and then a job.  And siblings, dragged to the weekend event, are betting on the likelihood of this graduating sibling coming to their baccalaureate services; and wondering what excuse will be made for them.  “Oh, you know they’d love to be here, but you know with the pressure of work and her new boyfriend, and we can’t afford to fly him too, well, she just couldn’t make it.”  Right.  Like the slumped over, don’t-speak-to-me-or-I’ll-bite-your-head-off,  involuntarily present siblings didn’t have anything else to be doing that weekend.  This is a tough audience.  I guessed that’s why they decided to use the tag-team approach.  The bulletin listed not one baccalaureate sermon, but two.  Ah, Jeez, what’s the deal?  Couldn’t they decide on one person?  Or did they not want to offend anyone so they felt compelled to include both the professors who’d raised their hands to go to the bathroom when the faculty was asked who might like to speak at Baccalaureate?   Lunch is a lost cause, but the good news is that we’ll probably miss at least half the 3:30 pm graduation ceremony.  Deep breath.  This is going to be a long one.  And it’s late getting started. 
     Finally, organ music.  The prelude starts, but the organist can’t seem to find a place to end it.  On and on and I’m sure we should be impressed with his or her musical skills, but is this an organ recital?  Finally, silence.  Silence?  That was the prelude, next comes the processional.  There’s suppose to be music for a processional.  Did the organist lose the music?  People are more than glancing backwards, they’ve turned round in their seats and are straining to see what is going on.  Finally, something happens. 
     Down the isle comes a pair of folks, one an African American woman with a beautiful smile, the other a professor, one can tell by the academic robe and all the colorful paraphernalia hanging around his neck.  He announces, “We need to teach you a song that we’ll be using several times during the worship service today.” 
     Great.  Next thing will be screens dropping from the ceiling and we’ll get video display of the lyrics and a power point presentation with all the sermon notes so we can read along with what the preachers’ saying.  I wonder, do people who foist technology upon us think we’re all idiots?  Fortunately though, this wasn’t the case.  The words were in the bulletin.  So, we learned the song.  Sort of.  It was a song from Africa and in a language I couldn’t read, but strangely enough, after going over it several times, I could sing it.  Sort of.  Still, I must admit, it was moving, rhythmic, and when translated, would uplift just about any worship service anywhere.  
     So now were we finally ready for the organist to start the processional? 
     Yes and no.  Yes, we were ready for the processional, but no, it wasn’t the organist who started it.  Drums did.  And I mean, lots of drums, snare drums, bongos and more.  Percussive rhythms rocked the upside down ark.   A pianist down front joined in with the drums, and a couple of measures later the blind man playing trumpet kicked in with his improvisations.  God’s frozen chosen sat stiff as boards.  The Baptists in the crowd were already whispering their “Well I never’s.....” to their neighbors.   The Methodists muttered to themselves,  while the Pentecostals and AME Zion folks were already swaying and waving their hands to the music.    This place was coming to life. 
     And in they came.  Graduates dancing to the beat, professors swaying and smiling, and looking decidedly unprofessor like.   By now even the Presbyterians were on their feet as a joy that couldn’t be squelched rose up with the music.  There’d be no slipping out of pews and onto the floor today. 
     And the music went on, and we sang our African hymn as best we could, and clapped and swayed, and some folks danced in their pews, though pews do inhibit dancing quite a bit.  Do we really have to have pews?   
     I’d been right in my prediction.  The service was long.  Hour and forty five minutes long.  But it was so good.  I’d a stayed another hour if they’d  kept it going. We sang, and we listened to some of the purest and most lovely voices lift praise to God.  The pianist and trumpeter wove their melodies through prayers and into hymns and created a musical tapestry for our worship.    The prayers themselves conveyed heartfelt thoughts touched with the emotions of the day.  “Amens,” “Halleluias,” and drums added punctuation where needed.   Two different preachers, two different texts, but one theme:  “What’s in a Name?”  Who are you, and who are you now, and who is God calling you to be; do you hear God calling your name? 
     At the end of the service the drums led the recessional, and graduates, professors, even many of the congregants danced out.  And outside, in the courtyard, the drums played on as people mingled and met, hugged and wept. 
     But just before the glorious release, just before the drums started up for the final march out, there was a time in the service for the “Naming of the Graduates.”  The same professor who’d taught us the African hymn at the beginning jumped up and got us singing again.  This song was a little more familiar, and all we sang was the refrain:  “Hush. Hush.  I thought I heard her calling my name, now... Hush, Hush....”  Except he’d changed “her” to “God,” and “my” to “your,” and it went.... “Hush. Hush.  I though I heard God calling your name now... Hush.  Hush.....”  Over and over we sang it.
     And as we did, one by one, he’d call - no, he’d shout - the name of a graduate, and we’d follow with our: “Hush.  Hush.  I thought I heard God calling your name now.  Hush.  Hush.”  Each graduate named.  Each uniquely identified.  Each affirmed.  Each called by God through the voice of the congregation, called by name, because God has to do with specifics, and particularities, and with persons who have names.  “Hush.  Hush.  I thought I heard God calling your name now.  Hush.  Hush....” 
     And later it hit me, where’s the other place you go where people know your name?  Besides “Cheers.”  Home.  Maybe I wasn’t so far from home after all.