This is Why I Come to Church

I’m listening with tears trickling down my cheeks as a gently-spoken husband and wife, parents of three young girls, play an achingly sweet violin duet on the chancel before the Meditation. Beside them, in two brightly painted, child-sized yellow wooden chairs wriggle two of their beautiful daughters as their parents draw their bows across their instruments.

The middle girl, around 5, occasionally taps the little toy drum her parents have given her while her older sister, around 7 and severely autistic, rocks and shakes a clear plastic rattle, watching the beads as they slip and roll past each other. Occasionally her younger sister gently places the rounded end of the drumstick against her ear, she smiles and rocks a little faster, and her sister smiles back. Their father, during his wife’s solo section, reaches down with his bow hand to stroke his oldest daughter’s shoulder, reassuring her that he is right there with her, that she is loved.

The youngest daughter, about 4 months old, significantly premature and only a few days successfully weaned from her oxygen canula, is swaddled on her mother’s back, dipping and swaying as her mother’s body dips and sways with each note she plays. She begins to fuss, as infants will do, and the DRE slowly, almost reverently, walks onto the chancel, and behind the parents as they continue to play. She lifts the baby from her backpack, crossing to sit next to the minister, and rocks her gently in time to her parents’ music.

This is why I come to church. Don’t get me wrong—I completely embrace the cyber frontiers of the evolving UU church. I understand that we must reach people where they are if we are to remain vibrant, relevant, if we want to grow. I tweet the church’s Services, manage our Facebook page, support live-streaming the Services. I have been a leader in a virtual UU church for over 5 years and have proudly carried our banner at the past two General Assemblies.

But these few moments, these moments of Beloved Community, when we flawed folk come together, take care of each other and help each other to sing the unique songs of ourselves—this is why I come to church. We don’t love each other “in spite of” but “because of”. I see a young couple, their young daughters with them on the chancel, playing on until the last note of their duet dies away, knowing that their faith community is there to support them. But I see so much more. Through my tears I see a love so bright, so fierce, it almost hurts to look at it; it’s hard to breathe in its presence.

We talk of coming to church on Sundays to be renewed, to be strengthened so that we may go back out into the world to do the work we are called to do. The paid staff and volunteers work diligently on each aspect of the Service, with an eye toward a worship experience that is “seamless”, “cohesive”, “well-crafted”. And that diligence is to be applauded; we want that; we expect a high level of excellence in our worship services.

But in the unscripted moments—through these cracks, if you will—a wild joy, a dazzling grace can leak through. A love so bright, so fierce, it almost hurts to look at it. And this is why I come to church.