Exploring, pt 2: flowers

Yeah, I know this reads like a (pretty boring) story. Trust me, it's just a setup for later installments where I actually discuss this stuff.

When we got to the UU church, the first thing we both noticed was the abundance of brochures, pamphlets and posters, all about things like gay marriage, global warming, religious tolerance, feeding the homeless, protesting the war, etc. He was immediately wowed. “This is nothing like my church. It’s not political at all.” I wasn’t as shocked as he was since my church encourages social action and calls us to live and work in love, but I immediately noticed a difference. It wasn’t that they were asking their members to do these things, but that it was presented as the purpose and calling of the church. It’s missing a part, I thought – we do live and work in love and tolerance because we follow the example of Christ and because we’re driven by His love to emulate him. At the UU, it felt instead like there was an attitude of “this is simply what we do, what we’re here for.” They’d sort of skipped a step, I felt. This would become the theme of the day – him seeing it as radically different from his church, me seeing it as very similar to mine, but missing something pretty important.

We looked around at the pamphlets and bulletin boards, where a flyer for a gay men’s beach day prompted another “wow, this is NOT what I’m used to” from him. We found a big poster explaining the tenets of the UU church and I thought, again, “hey, this is exactly what I believe…except plus God.” We left the edges of the lobby for the center, where there was a used cookbook sale and a table of cookies and coffee. There was a sign by the coffee telling you that if you didn’t bring your own mug, you were to use one of the communal mugs available on the table to be eco-friendly and not use a disposable cup. It reminded me of Valley View. We stood around the cookies talking to each other and feeling a little awkward until they rang a big bell, signaling the beginning of the service. We filed in, picking up songbooks and service programs.

The church service started, like most, with announcements. The first one was a call for volunteers to teach the children’s youth group and it was sung (awkwardly and adorably) by a volunteer committee, to the tune of Dancing Queen with the words replaced. Again, he leaned over and said “our announcements are NOT like this.” The rest of the announcements were more ordinary – people at the mike talking about a game night, a feed-the-homeless campaign, etc. Then the service started with a choir song about spring followed by a song from the songbook. It’s a traditional hymn, though there was no mention of God, Jesus, Heaven, salvation, sin, etc. and it was about spring and flowers. Instead of being accompanied by an organist and a choir, though, music was provided by a bluegrass quartet. I was totally into it – it was fun and personable and entertaining, though I thought the faith aspect was kind of missing. It was mostly about being together as a congregation, not “under God” but just with each other, all singing with our fellow humans. He seemed less into it, and I remembered him talking about how much he liked the traditional hymns. I noted how interesting it was, that the person who throws herself into the Christian faith is thrilled to see it re-invented to be more approachable, while the person who doesn’t believe in it seemed disappointed to see it moving away from tradition.

The service was all over the place from there, much like the one other UU service I’ve been to with a friend from home. It was mother’s day, so three adults performed “I Love You The Purplest,” a children’s book about motherhood and siblings. The Reverend, a woman named Claire, read a poem. The bluegrass band led us through a few more songs, all worded and looking like hymns, but with the only religious reference being the phrase “God’s vision growing” as a reference to people and elements of nature. There was a responsively read prayer addressed to the “Infinite Spirit of Life.” A few people spoke (including the Reverend again) about love, motherhood, and spring. Instead of taking communion, there was something called a flower communion (which they apparently don’t do every week) where everyone had been asked to bring a flower to the service and during communion everyone went up and took one that they liked. We hadn’t brought flowers, so we weren’t going to go up, but we were encouraged to, and so we did. Mine were purple, his smelled really bizarre.

After the service we went back out into the lobby and stood by the cookies talking to an older couple (side note: they asked us how we met and so now two elderly Unitarian Universalists from Towson know about HvZ). We hung around for a few more minutes, then left. As soon as we were out the door we were racing to ask each other: “well, thoughts?”

Exploring, pt. 1: frogs

This isn't fiction, it's straight-up journalism, memoir, whatever you want to call it. This part reads like a narrative, but it's a setup for the later parts where I'll get into more CI-esque stuff, like an analysis of what I thought and all that.

“I swear there’s a frog in there,” I said, leaning over the back of the bench we were sitting on and pointing to the ground, covered in leafy vines and grasses.

“There are no frogs. Trust me, I know this place. Not enough water. If you want to see frogs, sometime I’ll show you where there are frogs at Goucher.”

It didn’t seem at the time like there wasn’t enough water to support amphibian life. We had taken shelter under a gazebo on the Hopkins campus because it was raining, and it was the jerky motions of the leaves under the falling drops that kept catching my eye and convincing me there were frogs. He’d driven us to Hopkins after we had dessert and we’d spent the rest of the evening sitting under the gazebo talking. By midnight we’d been talking for over an hour about faith, with me interrupting multiple times to insist that I’d seen a frog. We swapped stories - mine first, then his, which turned out to be almost the exact opposite of mine, in a mirror-image sort of way rather than an antagonistic one. I was fascinated. It wasn’t a perspective I’d ever encountered before.

He didn’t consider himself a believer, though he didn’t have the angrily exasperated edge that most atheists I know have. He willingly conceded that religion and religious communities have a place in our world and do a lot of people good. The admission that certain people use faith to hurt themselves or others wasn’t followed by the conclusion that faith was therefore wrong all the time or for everyone. There was no adamant rejection of the principles of faith and no refusal to have anything to do with religion. When discussing his transition into a nonbeliever, he said it was the realization that “sitting on a bench is really no different from praying on a bench, except maybe that your eyes are closed,” but there was no value judgment that said praying on a bench was stupid, damaging or inferior to sitting on a bench, just that he didn’t see or feel a difference. It’s hard to summarize here for two reasons – one, it would require me to recall almost completely a conversation that lasted over an hour and two, I don’t know how much was shared in confidence – so I’m presenting the impression that I got, not retelling what he said to me.

A few days later he said he wanted to get brunch on Sunday morning but thought we should “bump into each other” sometime before that. I figured some great plan was being set in motion but I really had no idea what his scheme was. We met up Saturday evening and he asked what I wanted to do. I demanded that he show me where the frogs were, so we walked through the woods to a small pond I didn’t know existed. When we walked up, talking loudly, at least six frogs jumped from the bank into the water. I was thrilled. I spent some time stalking around the bank trying to catch one but gave up because I wasn’t wearing the right shoes and was recovering from pinkeye so I couldn’t see anything in the fading light.

We sat down on two rusted folding chairs overlooking the pond and I asked what, exactly, we were doing out there.

“I thought we ought to talk about what to do tomorrow morning,” he said. “What do you think?”

I was about to say I thought we were just going to brunch, when he pulled some papers from his pocket and said, “because I thought,” he flicked open the folded papers with a flourish, “we could go to church.” I took a few seconds to admire his delivery before what he had said actually registered.

“What?”

He held out the printed papers towards me. He’d researched some churches in the area and had printouts from their websites. “We were talking about it the other night, and we’re both interested, and I figured we’d, you know, just go check one out together.” He suggested one in particular because we’d passed it on our way to the movies the previous week and I’d admired the building. I vetoed it, though, because it was Baptist and in my experience Baptist churches are associated with everything I dislike about interpreted Christianity. That left us with a Unitarian Universalist church and a Methodist one, which he said was just like the church he was raised in and used to.

We talked for a while about our options. He went through the Methodist program and talked about the doxology and hymns and other elements. I’ve been to a few services like that, but at my church at home things are radically different. Instead of hymns we sing contemporary worship and there’s an emphasis on a personal relationship with God, so there’s no recited prayer and things are very casual. He told me that he likes the routine and the tradition because things get comfortable and familiar, and that’s what he enjoyed at church. I said I didn’t understand the appeal.

“There’s no relationship in that,” I told him. “You’re not connecting. I’m sitting here, with you, and I’m saying whatever comes to my mind, whatever I feel like saying right now. I’m not reading from a book of Things To Say To Boys You’re Sitting By Ponds With.”

He laughed at that. “That’s a great title for a story.” After some deliberation, we picked the UU one, since it would be different for both of us. "Alright, I'll pick you up tomorrow at 10:30."

Going To College Makes Your Siblings Less Tolerable!

When I got to Mink Hollow, my brother greeted me with a “hey” and then almost immediately launched into complaints. He’s failing Spanish because he hates his teacher, and so Mom and Dad won’t let him get his license. “It’s her fault,” he says, that he can’t get his license. “It’s not even a big deal to get it – you turn 16, you get to drive. That’s just how it is. It’s not even a big deal to just get a car – it’s only a big deal to get a new fancy car. If you get an old car, everyone’s like “oh, that sucks.” Mom and Dad just don’t get it.”

The degree of bratty entitlement in those few statements floors me. I’ve been reflecting these last few weeks on whether or not I’ll come home “different,” and I didn’t really feel like college changed me until I had this conversation.

Alex blames his teacher for his failure in the class, insisting that if she wasn’t so nasty, he would have passed. I’ve met people here who really struggle with the traditional educational model, but when they have difficulty, they take responsibility for it. They then take action – giving up a night of sleep, going to tutoring, asking for help. I don’t hear my friends blame the world or other people for giving them something they don’t want to handle.

Alex thinks he’s privileged just by virtue of existing. The world owes him things, he thinks, that he shouldn’t have to earn. Here, a lot of my friends worry about tuition costs and have to really watch the way they spend their money. They work jobs with terrible hours that they hate, but they never say things like “you graduate high school, you get to go to college. That’s just how it is.”

And when it comes to cars, Alex takes for granted that he should be able to drive himself anywhere he wants. Other people don’t. Here, we schedule trips around when other people can take us, we learn to navigate the city buses, and we deal with it when we have to walk somewhere. On the other hand, people with cars recognize that they’re privileged and are humble and generous about it, doing things like driving me to the train station so I can go see my dying grandpa and jumpstarting their car in the rain because I need a doctor.

I should note that, especially when it comes to driving and cars, Phoenix culture is a bit different. It’s tougher on your social life to not have a car or a license than it is in an eastern city – but I didn’t get my license until after graduation and I managed, even though my boyfriend lived 45 minutes away and my best friend more than 15. This ought to be a lesson to Alex in how to choose your friends. If people are giving you a hard time for not having a new, fancy car, you have bigger problems than not being able to drive: you’re spending your time with losers. My friends here recognize elitism, judgment and materialism when they see it, and take action to avoid it.