A SLIP OF THE SOUL

   

 Maybe it was because I sat two rows from the front of the church, no one between me and the minister, me and the pulpit, me and the choir in its stall above the congregation.

Or maybe it was because the interior of this building has changed so little from 1860 when it was built and from 1960 when I was girl beginning my journey into church membership.

It may have come through collective family memories deep in my bones.  My grandparents worshiped here from time to time.  My mother and father married in this sanctuary in September 1946.  I married before this same altar in September 1969.

Perhaps my New England roots travel back to 1671 when the Reverend Edward Taylor, a minister-poet, gathered his flock and composed a congregation that bears witness even to this Sunday  two weeks before Easter 2018.

Whatever was stirred within my heart, I slipped in time.  The sun shone through the translucent windows, no grand colors for stern Congregationalists, and lent glory to the white interior.

A patch of deep maroon of the pew to my left glowed.  As the hour passed, those rays moved from cushion to floor covering to blue hymnals to the wooden rails.  Above me I remembered the quiet independence of the balcony, aloof and closer to what -- God?

But mostly I thought how old and anonymous I have become in this space once the stage for my life's great dramas.  Marriage.  Faith.  Illusion and loss.

Here I am being invited to search my soul and join with these others in celebration.  Yet I still sit with strangers and still feel the ousider, even as I marvel at the fire in those memories and mysteries from so long ago.