blessing boy in the quiet service

"How often we are embarrassed to do and say the things that really affect us. Perhaps this is because we cannot defend ourselves while they are happening. Or perhaps we have a corporate agreement that we will not embarrass each other, even if that means never going very deeply into the things that matter most to us." —Barbara Brown Taylor

I struggle with church. For years I didn't go at all. And for years I felt guilty about it. I grew up in a family for which churchgoing was paramount. But I felt closer to God talking a walk in the park, teaching English to Polish immigrants, lying prone on my mat in shavasana. I felt that anything anyone said about God was inadequate and that too many spoke for God when it was clear they had their own agenda. I got the message that God is chiefly interested in religion and good behavior and that he could only be found within the four walls of a particular church. This bothered me. It still does.

But I still go. Because even though I know now that the whole world is God's house, I still often find him in church.

In the summer, though, we spend more time in the church outside. On the riverbank and under the stars. One reason is that the whole world feels so much more open to us in the summer. There is hardly time to drink it all in. Another reason is that there is no Sunday school in the summer and Elliott has no interest in sitting in the house we built for God when God's whole wide world is waiting. 

After missing for two weeks, however, I felt compelled to return for a Sunday. I decided that rather than go through the exercise of filing everyone into a pew only to have Elliott start talking loudly and crawling into the aisle so Andrew could take him on a walk around Geneva just minutes into the service, I'd go alone. 

I hadn't been to the early, quiet, contemplative service in a long time and felt that would be the right kind of worship for me. But when I got dressed Elliott became clingy. I knew when I told him I was going to church he'd be happy to stay behind. But he insisted on going. 

"But honey," I said with a concerned face. "I'm going to church."

He brought me his shoes. I sighed, knowing that I'd surely have to take him out and miss the sermon. What was the point of even going?

"Okay," I said. "If you really want to go. But you will have to be very quiet and sit until it's over. Okay?"

"Okay," he grinned.

I wasn't convinced. But I took some gum and his blankie and buckled him into the car.

Incredibly, he sat through the service, and other than a small string of self-induced burps, biting off the pew pencil eraser and several "I done soon?" rounds of questioning, he remained quiet and semi-angelic. He even put his head in my lap and cuddled his blankie for most of the sermon. It was the music, however, that won his attention. 

Our friend Jen sang a solo mid-way through the service and Elliott sat still beside me. When she was done a few people quietly said "Amen." Elliott, however, spontaneously applauded her. He repeated his glad, clapping approval after the piano solo during the offertory as well. No one joined him. It's not appropriate to clap in the quiet service. He couldn't have cared less. 

My son is never embarrassed to do the things that affect him and he certainly doesn't mind a bit about embarrassing others by doing them either. Whether it's walking repeatedly past a row of baseball spectators with his hand out for a high five (when most just look at him cock-eyed), yelling "hi geese" at the top of his lungs to every waterfowl he passes in his bike trailer or applauding in a silent room after a beautiful piece of music, Elliott bestows his blessings without a second thought. He doesn't take advice on what to care about, he just seems to know. He makes some people uncomfortable, but most catch a glimpse, I hope, of God's own audacity. Something that is rarely found within the four walls of the houses we build for God. Something that, sadly, we all knew when we were young, and then forgot.

Thankfully I have a blessing boy—who I took to the quiet service against my better, grown-up judgement—to help me remember.