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Few things in this world look as much like home to me as this does:
Like your family, you spend a fair amount of time making fun of it (see my Fr. Magoo post) but you don't know what you'd do if it wasn't there.
Storytime! Gather round, kids.
When I was about 13, our youth group (mostly kids that I'd known since forever) went on a camping trip to Sand Lake, on the Oregon coast. We swam, we frolicked, we ate strawberries. We played Pictionary - was that when Katy drew the flamingo? (You know, one of those Pictionary moments that goes down in history). We wore really really dorky clothing, as befits camping 13 year olds. I wish I could show you a picture. You'd laugh.
But then the story gets sad, and I don't think I can really do it justice. It sounds melodramatic, but our church caught on fire. Yup, the one in the picture. The log cabin church that we had moved across town to our gorgeous wetlands acreage. Someone set it on fire. And we got a phone call, since the priest was with us. We packed up and left early and drove back. When you're driving down the highway, you can catch a glimpse of the church before you turn, and we had no idea what we were going to see.
It turned out that only the wing, with offices and Sunday school classrooms, had been burnt and needed to be rebuilt. The body of the church was mostly untouched. Although, as the story goes, that didn't stop one man from diving in to rescue icons.
When we pulled up, it seemed like everyone was there. I don't know if it was the same day or later, but I remember helping to clean and organize in the half-burnt basement. I don't even think about this much anymore, except when I said 'you don't know what you'd do if it wasn't there' I thought of this story. Not the blog entry I had planned.
Story Number Two
We had a funeral at church a month ago. I almost didn't stay for the reception afterwards (in that same basement) because I was supposed to be at work, but I did stay. And here's why I'm glad.
There are a lot of people around my age, people I grew up with and went to gradeschool with, who've left the church. They come a few times a year, for Easter and Christmas, and I've always assumed that they just don't feel connected. But a lot of what this is about is beyond any doctrine or organization.
So, at the reception, people were telling stories about Michael, the man who'd died. Isaac, one of these twice-a-year guys, got up and told this story, nearly in tears.
Michael, he said, had always been like a big brother or uncle to him. When we moved the church, we built on the porch. We had our school next door, and one day everyone gathered to help hammer on the steps as a community. Michael was helping Isaac, and he said to him, 'One day I'm going to walk up these steps when I get married, and when your dad dies we'll carry him down these steps, and when I die you'll carry me down these steps.' Isaac finished his story, "That's what we just did. And you can still see the hammer marks in the wood."
Like your family, you spend a fair amount of time making fun of it (see my Fr. Magoo post) but you don't know what you'd do if it wasn't there.
Storytime! Gather round, kids.
When I was about 13, our youth group (mostly kids that I'd known since forever) went on a camping trip to Sand Lake, on the Oregon coast. We swam, we frolicked, we ate strawberries. We played Pictionary - was that when Katy drew the flamingo? (You know, one of those Pictionary moments that goes down in history). We wore really really dorky clothing, as befits camping 13 year olds. I wish I could show you a picture. You'd laugh.
But then the story gets sad, and I don't think I can really do it justice. It sounds melodramatic, but our church caught on fire. Yup, the one in the picture. The log cabin church that we had moved across town to our gorgeous wetlands acreage. Someone set it on fire. And we got a phone call, since the priest was with us. We packed up and left early and drove back. When you're driving down the highway, you can catch a glimpse of the church before you turn, and we had no idea what we were going to see.
It turned out that only the wing, with offices and Sunday school classrooms, had been burnt and needed to be rebuilt. The body of the church was mostly untouched. Although, as the story goes, that didn't stop one man from diving in to rescue icons.
When we pulled up, it seemed like everyone was there. I don't know if it was the same day or later, but I remember helping to clean and organize in the half-burnt basement. I don't even think about this much anymore, except when I said 'you don't know what you'd do if it wasn't there' I thought of this story. Not the blog entry I had planned.
Story Number Two
We had a funeral at church a month ago. I almost didn't stay for the reception afterwards (in that same basement) because I was supposed to be at work, but I did stay. And here's why I'm glad.
There are a lot of people around my age, people I grew up with and went to gradeschool with, who've left the church. They come a few times a year, for Easter and Christmas, and I've always assumed that they just don't feel connected. But a lot of what this is about is beyond any doctrine or organization.
So, at the reception, people were telling stories about Michael, the man who'd died. Isaac, one of these twice-a-year guys, got up and told this story, nearly in tears.
Michael, he said, had always been like a big brother or uncle to him. When we moved the church, we built on the porch. We had our school next door, and one day everyone gathered to help hammer on the steps as a community. Michael was helping Isaac, and he said to him, 'One day I'm going to walk up these steps when I get married, and when your dad dies we'll carry him down these steps, and when I die you'll carry me down these steps.' Isaac finished his story, "That's what we just did. And you can still see the hammer marks in the wood."
posted by Jess at 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
Me too. I wish they were there all the time.
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