twosday

studies in devotion, time warp style

a way to synthesize clouds of thought that apparently have been incubating for four years, and to partially explain what seems [and only seems] to be my newfound piety. i offer an old journal entry, from aug 2004.

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at times, when i’m sitting in church during another mindless homily or sermon, i’ll think to myself, ‘what is the point of all this? do people really believe this crap?’

the bigotry and hypocrisy of the church, with all its backwardness, was i thought the unchanging rock that would remind me of home, even when i was home. because i’ve been coming home for four or five years and each time my house feels less familiar. my house and the company in it.

so church. it’s supposed to be the final anchor. a church — any church, or maybe i should say the catholic faith — brings back that loving feeling.

on monday we went to st. phillip’s. or rather i was dragged there.

now i’ve come to expect certain things from my time in church, conditioned probably by hundreds of visits over the years. it’s necessary to maintain a certain level of silence, a distance even. no touching — though my family is steadily breaking that rule. reverence is demanded, even if it’s feigned. these rules, created in my head, seemed to go double for the men (mostly) at the altar. above all, ceremony is supreme. a lot of seeing and doing. the only hearing was of the word or song of god.

sitting in st. phillip’s on monday, i added to my mental notes about church: its immunity to advancement of any kind — morally, intellectually, but especially, i thought at the time, technologically. it felt good to be in a building that didn’t look like a tract home with standard ceiling heights and wall coloring. and this building wasn’t fake, this building and the religion it housed.

it felt really good not having a computer in front of me, or a tv, or a cup of overpriced coffee. church is a vacuum, where life and things can be suspended, but god [or something Big] exists in faith and form.

and then i noticed the tinny and piercing volume of the priest’s voice. they had installed a set of speakers halfway through the church to go with the set perched near the altar. the mic transmitted not only the word of father joe via low-quality sound, but also every clank and swoosh the mic could pick up.

the formerly distant clergy, whom i could only see and barely hear as a child, became uncomfortably familiar down to the bothersome details. the sound of cloth against metal when the priest wiped the rim of the chalice. the rustling of paper as he flipped to a reading in his bible. and even more disturbing, i suddenly knew him intimately as i sat 25 pews away. i heard his heavy breathing during a quiet moment. the whispered words that were between him and god as he blessed the bread and wine were broadcast throughout the cavernous church.

my faint prayer during mass for a swift passing of the hour in church is now a prayer that the priest not say — or i not hear — anything inappropriate. or anything that might shed light on the ceremonies of mass. because i don’t want to know. i want what i know about church to stay the same. or if i must learn something new, i want it to add to my view of the church as massive, unforgiving, ceremonial and stern.

studies in devotion, part i

an obvious observation, perhaps: you can tell a lot about a neighborhood by the state of its 10a mass.

i.

when i saw the ushers pull shut the church doors, i started jogging toward them, not wanting to be the asshole who comes in after the procession. there was no need for it, since a good half of the total mass-goers arrived during the readings, crowding the last six pews or so. the priest went on with it, against the din of the late shufflers-in. i imagine the folks at st. peter’s are used to the tardiness of the overwhelmingly filipino parish of beacon hill.

the building is more chapel-sized than the faux-cathedrals and modern monstrosities that pass for catholic churches in wealthier suburbs. the exposed beams are of a dark, probably rotting wood, while the brightness that the stained glass windows might admit is muted by what seem to be plexiglass casings or coverings, as if to protect from whatever large weighty objects might be thrown their way.

a few rows ahead of me sat a middle-aged woman who kept badgering the old ladies a pew ahead of her. at first they humored her, but as the mass proceeded they ignored her, even shushing her a couple times. eventually she wandered to the back of the church, and for a minute, when she approached, i was afraid she’d talk to me and that i’d have to shush her too.

mass is secondary to these spectacles and distractions. the church seems alive and awake.

ii.

again, i rushed into a set of church doors not wanting to be late. but you pay if you get to st. james cathedral at 10a on the dot. you have to grab the first empty seat you see, which can be difficult because every seat is probably taken by 950a, and the pews are scattered in four areas that face the center, where all the holy action takes place.

everything about st. james startled me, starting with the punctuality of its well dressed members. the pews were filled with a mix of respectable upper-middle class folk, the elderly, students, and what i thought was the occasional hobo hiding in the back pews. as if under the roof of what you might characterize as The City’s Catholic Flagship Church it must be emphasized and demonstrated that everyone is served, everyone is welcome. even the army of clergymen and women is rather diverse.

for all of its plurality, the cathedral is magnificent in the way that cathedrals are supposed to be: dramatic ceilings and skylights, a musty antique feeling, cold marble floors and walls, a heavenly choir. this last thing is the best part, almost outweighing the building’s unforgiving acoustics when it comes to crying babies and the vitriol that the priest spouts.

[i’m reminded here why i can’t be catholic, at least not now.]

iii.

queen anne’s parish is predictably st. anne’s church. they’ve just finished renovating or maybe just building anew altogether one of those modern monstrosities that are so in vogue. the ceilings soar and slant. like a cathedral, the floors are cold [via concrete, not marble] and the seats are arranged in a sort of cross centered on the altar. the stations of the cross, i’ve noticed in many of these new churches, are enormous. all that’s missing is a gigantic crucifix to go with it [for which they’re still soliciting].

the sermon to this very homogeneous parish included the following admonishment: “don’t say, ‘i have a boat and we need to go boating, so i can’t go to church on sundays.’”

i saw no one in the pews like me, except for maybe the visiting african priest and a middle-aged filipino couple. we [the couple and i — i created a bond in my head with them over the course of the mass] crossed our arms half the time.

when the priest said, and i paraphrase, ‘when you’re part of the church, part of any collective, there are expectations,’ he seemed to be looking at me.

he will cut your hair when you’re gone

i awoke early this morning to get some reading done, to find markets in disarray and continuing general financial chaos. and then i read this:

“A legal suit in 1856, involving a woman servant who claimed that Baltazar had cut her hair for reasons that are not clear, sent the poet to jail for four years.”

best biographical side note ever.