Church has changed...

but then again, so have I.

We went to all kinds of churches when I was growning up. We were Presbyterian in California, Methodist in Virginia and Baptist in Missouri. Our move to Tennessee coincided with my apparent graduation from Sunday school and church in general, although I attended some youth things from time to time (especially if they involved travel) and the occasional foray into the unknown realms of Catholicism and Unitarian Universalism. Except for a short time in the middle 90's when I felt enough shame to take the kids to church on a semi-regular basis, we have largely remained unchurched. I am very selfish with my free time.

Except for Easter Sunday.

I guess it's a guilt thing. Maybe you've heard of Catholic guilt? I guess it's impossible to compare, but Protestant guilt is pretty intense. Particularly in the Bible Belt. I always feel compelled to go to on Easter. Usually we are on vacation and visit a church, which is the way to go to church. Completely attachment free! This year, no vacation due to scheduling conflicts. I hadn't given much thought to Easter at all - I even forgot the Easter Bunny. But my kids haven't forgotten. Austin and Josie want to know if we're going to church. If you want to, I say, thinking of course they won't want to go. They'd rather be stuffing themselves with chocolate and hunting Easter eggs. However, they want to go. Kids! Go figure. So, the Easter Bunny comes Sunday morning and after that excitement we get ourselves ready and go to church. I am not doing Sunday school. I have principles, and they are mostly about maximizing the number of hours of sleep I can get in a given situation.

The first change I notice: I'm wearing pants. For years, I could not step in to a church in pants. It just felt wrong to me. Up until I became too fat to wear either of the two dresses I own, I stuck to my guns. Then I had to sit through a funeral in a too-tight dress, in hose with a waistband of sandpaper and with a zipper poking me in the neck at every prayer. And we said a lot of prayers that day. I am now a confirmed pants-wearer, and I was recently vindicated in this decision when I attended a funeral where not only I, but the majority of the women present (including the bereaved widow), wore pants.

The second change wasn't obvious at first glance. They looked normal enough. But, as God is my witness, I have never heard anybody shout 'Wooooo hooooo!!' during a church service before. I have never heard that stalwart Baptist favorite "Power in the Blood" infused with electric guitars (karaoke style) and hand claps. To be fair, the congregation were ending a six week series on "Discovering Joy" that particular Sunday. And, also to be fair, it seems a perfectly logical conclusion to the Christian ethos. Christians should be joyful - I get that. They just didn't seem very practiced at it, so it seemed forced and strange. Well, it was going to seem strange to me anyway. All those churches I went to as a child were somber and reverent in their worship, full of gentle altar calls and contemplation of sin. You said 'amen' after the preacher did and you sang when he said so, but otherwise your job was to sit still and be quiet. Once a month or so, he'd tell a joke and you were allowed a polite chuckle. Woo-hooing is not something I'd anticipate. Not even at Easter.

But you know what? Everybody's got their own way. They weren't sacrificing animals or handling snakes. At least, not that I saw.

Happy Easter, peeps. Just a few days late. Remember: the message is tolerance.