Chanting, Bells and Slices of Cake

A long-time, dyed-in-the-wool early service person I suddenly find myself part of the regular service folk. One reason is probably because my stepfather, Ron, started singing with the choir the last couple of Sundays. (He and my mother have been staying with me and Wolf, taking care of us after the turmoil that was last year.) “If we’re really going to stay the summer,” he said one day about a week ago, “I might as well just join the choir.”

Ron is a “choir junkie” of sorts. He’s sung in the National Cathedral and then various and assorted Presbyterian churches, which I’ll let him tell about if you run into him. Given that we live in Avondale, about 30 minutes away, we’re carpooling, which puts me at the late service.

The difference between the early service and the late service is that the late service has music and a lot of people. Early service has few people, few noises and is very contemplative.

Late service has bells and chanting and visitors and people you don’t always see when you’re an early service person. Late service the altar fills up several times at communion while hymns play, which is a completely different experience from the early morning.

I’m not sure if the sermon changes or not. Today, Patricia talked about the Good Samaritan—love God and your neighbor. She said the lawyer’s question to Jesus was not really “Who is my neighbor, but who is not my neighbor?” That’s condensed. She’s much more eloquent. You could feel the whole congregation digesting the message. If it were our custom, we would have applauded loudly when she finished.

Anyway, afterward I walked with a visiting family --Julie and John and their kids Alex and Olivia -- to the parish hall for coffee. They just moved here from Indiana, I learned, as we were quickly swept back into the parish hall scene that is slices of cake, squealing little boys underfoot, and busy women rushing round with pitchers and trays of cookies. We are a small congregation, but in terms of closeness and friendship, we are bursting at the seams.

I spotted Ron, out of his red choir robe. “How’d you like the sermon?” I asked, smiling, about to eat a coconut macaroon the size of a golf ball.

“I recorded it for your mother,” he said, patting a pocket.

Later, as we drove away from the church toward the interstate, Ron said, “She is doing God’s work. She knows Jesus was a liberal and he cared about people in need.”

I think that’s the feeling you get at St. Dunstan’s -- early service or late -- we are small but we care -- about each other and our various and assorted neighbors, from People’s Town to Haiti. Being reminded that in Christian terms, we should work to have no boundaries is what Jesus meant when he said love your neighbor.