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July 01, 2007
A Little Lower Than the Angels
Alex (the boyfriend) and I went on a most enjoyable jaunt to Johnson City this weekend to see some friends of ours who recently moved up there. We spent a good bit of time in nearby Jonesborough, where the annual Jonesborough Festival was going on. Arts and crafts lined the streets of the historic main drag, a vendor played Simon and Garfunkle on a Native American flute, and there was plenty of people watching to enjoy. It was a pleasant surprise to have happened in town at the same time the festival was going on, but the real hi-light of the weekend ended up being an even bigger surprise. The couple we were staying with recently began attending the Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and invited us to go with them on Sunday. Normally I just feel awkward and out of place in church, confused by the rhetoric and waiting for someone to realize I'm a curious impostor. There are a lot of things I like about church-- the emphasis and dedication to community and service, the networking and dialogue, the creation of a safe space, the celebration of what the congregation has in common, as well as the benefits of tradition and ritual. But that always seems overshadowed to me by the things that make me feel uncomfortable-- the rhetoric of violence, submission to an authority figure who, to me, seems pretty sketchy, and emphasis on the details of the story rather than the real message.
Part of the surprising aspect of the Holston Valley service is simply that I (and even more unusually, Alex) attended. I grew up going to Episcopal services for a while, but before this year, it had probably been a decade since I'd gone to a service that wasn't part of a wedding or funeral. Even longer for Alex. This year, though, I've already been to church twice as much as in the past ten years. First I went along with assorted family members to a Presbyterian service while at a family reunion last month. I was interested in going since I had enjoyed how much the congregation and town had come together to honor my grandmother at her memorial service last fall. I wanted to see what the usual vibe was, and what about the church made my grandmother so fond of it. I was confused by the amount of violent rhetoric in the service, what with hymns about going to battle against God's enemies and such, and how my intellectually curious and peaceful grandmother reconciled the Christian message of compassion and service with the tone of combat and submission I encountered that day.
It seemed significant, then, that the service at Holston Valley instead emphasized "laying down my sword and shield," the brother and sisterhood of mankind, and the seeming contradiction between what we perceive to be god's wishes for us, the laws he laid down, and the message Jesus taught according to the Bible and the endless cycles of war and violence humans wreck on one another. The reverend discussed his memories of growing up during World War II, and the difference between the country's united dedication and effort towards the war and today's military efforts that seem to affect the citizens of this country only if they are related to one of our soldiers. Credence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son" was played, along with "Let There Be Peace On Earth." The sermon itself came across as a well thought out exchange of ideas about not only faith, but how we view the world and the struggles we all have to uphold one of the principles of Unitarian Universalism, "the inherent worth and dignity of every person." The reverend himself admitted to struggling with this principle himself, and referenced many sources from Mark Twain to "One Jesus, Many Christs" by Gregory Riley. What I mean is, that rather than being reminded yet again that we should listen when God calls and be thankful for Jesus' sacrifice, the sermon extended out to examine cultural points of view both in Biblical times and today and see how they mesh with biblical teaching as well as common misperceptions of Christian thought. In short, it was thought provoking rather than confusing, as well as really challenging.
I certainly don't want to come off as devaluing a different approach, one more in line with a traditional approach such as the Presbyterian service I attended. If there weren't something valuable to be derived from such an approach, I doubt my curious grandmother would have gotten as much out of her church as she did. However, I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why drama and violence are such frequent features of religious discussion, and why we make divisions of allies and enemies instead of creating a larger congregation out of our commonalities. I regret not being able to discuss this with my grandmother herself, whatever answers she gave to my questions would surely have been very interesting. I also wish it were possible to tell her that a lingering sense that she isn't completely gone might be part of the reason I've accepted two more invitations to attend church than usual, that her death eight months ago has challenged my comfortable, atheist, perspective.
It's too bad that Holston Valley is three hours away, but I am pretty excited about checking out the Unitarian Church here in Chattanooga. I took a look at their website and read in a few of the sermons they keep archived in PDF format. They seem to have a similar feel to that I heard at Holston Valley, pulling in everything from pop-culture to literature to explore the topic of the day.
Here's a couple of photos I took in Slovenia that follows the general religious theme. Both are from churches in the beautiful little medieval town of Anghiari, where several examples of the old practice of making mannequins of the Virgin Mary and dressing them in miniature robes has remained preserved, despite the abolition of the practice centuries ago, and resulting desctruction of many of the sculptures. There are more of these mannequins in the State Museum of Palazzo Taglieschi in Anghiari, but these two are the only ones I saw "practicing" still.
For a couple other miscellaneous ideas about the Holston Valley sermon, follow the jump.
A Mark Twain quote used that I thought was neat, and captures some of the feel of the morning.
"He [Twain] said, ... 'Man is the only religious creature. He is the only one who has the true religion-- several of them! He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, but cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight. Man has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven."
The sermon also reminded me of a passage I read in Charles Dickens' Bleak House the other day. The narrator is, in this case, a young street sweep named Jo, who is poor, illiterate, and generally ignored.
"To be hustled, and jostled, and moved on; and really to feel that it would appear to be perfectly true that I have no business here, or there, or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that I am here somehow too, and everybody overlooked me until I became the creature that I am! It must be a strange state, not merely to be told that I am scarcely human (As inthe case of my offering myself for a witness), but to feel it of my own knowledge all my life! To see the horses, dogs, and cattle, go by me, and to know that in ignorance I belong to them, and not to the superior being in my shape, whose delicacy I offend!" the sermon was entitled "A Little Lower than the Angels" and talked somewhat about the inequalities we perceive between one another that give rise to injustice and violence. Our confusion about hirearchy was also a topic, from how we consider ourselves to be simultaniously greater than animals, lower than divine beings, and yet horribly flawed, sometimes unforgiveably flawed. Little Jo seems to sum alot of this confusion and bizarre philosophy quite succinctly.
| By Spike | 11:27 PM
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