To Aim and Miss the Mark
Chapter Eight of Cosmic Heart, a spiritual memoir
Cosmic Heart is a spiritual memoir. You can learn more and read the previous chapters here. Thank you for subscribing and reading - I’m so glad to be writing this book here with you.
There is a fragrance. It’s a combination of frankincense, wooden floors and pews; melting candle wax; and fresh flowers- heady and perfumed. Every Episcopal church I have ever been in smells like some version of this. It is an aroma that hits on a complexity of levels, removing me instantly from the outside world.
The undercroft may smell like chili. The vestibule may smell like coffee and donuts. The children’s chapel may smell like crayons. But the nave always smells like incense, wood, wax, and flowers.
When I stepped through the doorway that Easter morning, my senses were flooded with that familiar aroma. I took a program from a man wearing a suit, then turned and looked down the aisle toward the sanctuary. The church was already packed as I made my way to my brother and his family, who had saved me a seat in their pew. There might as well have been a neon sign flashing over my head telegraphing that I didn't belong in this space. I felt so conspicuous, so out of place.
All the signifiers were there - the reasons I had long since left the church. This was not where I was supposed to be, and yet my guidance brought me to this place with an insistence. I was there because I could no longer ignore the voice that pushed me to this particular place on this particular day.
I took my place with my family, and the procession began. I felt my body gesture, leaning forward as the cross passed by, a reflexive memory. The prayers were so familiar, I almost knew them by heart, but they contained words and phrases and ideas that were so out of line with my beliefs, I couldn’t bear to say them.
When it was time for the sermon, the priest stepped up to the lectern and turned on the light. He was my neighbor, and I had seen him walking in the park. He seemed to be about my age exactly, and I was glad about that.
“What does an evangelist look like?” he said, “If you ask Jesus, she looked like a woman.”
I stopped breathing for a second. My mouth fell open, and I snapped it shut. Even though he had turned on that little reading light, he didn't read his sermon. He spoke it the way a great teacher might speak in a lecture hall. He preached a sermon about Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles, the first preacher, the first to proclaim the risen Christ.
I could almost hear my spirit guides laughing. So that's why they had brought me here, to this church, on this particular Sunday.
The next week, I got up, got dressed, and walked to church.
I was deeply unsure about my place there; I felt uncomfortably conflicted from the moment I walked in until the moment I left, but there was something happening in this place that called to me, spoke to me.
I made an appointment to see the rector. I wanted to preempt the heartache of rejection, so if this church wasn’t going to want someone like me, I wanted to hear that and get it out of the way. I sat in his office and rambled about what I believed in what I didn’t believe in, and what I would never believe in. He listened to me very patiently and then said, "Welcome. I’m glad you’re here."
I am an all-or-nothing person, it seems. I don’t do moderation well. When I went back to church, I went back all the way. I was reaffirmed as an Episcopalian and started attending every Sunday morning. Even when I was on vacation, I would find the nearest Episcopal church. I went to the rector’s forums - classes - before the service and evensongs - sung prayer - at night, once a month.
Adopting church-going as my primary spiritual practice, moving through the year with the Book of Common Prayer as my guide, participating in the liturgy, sitting in the beauty of the harmonics and light streaming through stained glass, praying with others, the Eucharist - I loved these things and they were each important to me, but I must be clear that I when I returned to church, I returned because of the rector.
It was his sermons that drew me in, captivated me, and split me down the middle. I went to church to hear this priest. He wrote sermons that sounded like poems. He was kind, and he had a dry sense of humor. When he preached, the top of my head tingled - a physical tell that meant truth. This man was connected to the sacred. He knew what he was talking about. Every Sunday, I left challenged and rearranged. I walked home with my energy reset and my mind full of new questions and understandings.
He invited me to lead a Rector’s Forum on Mary Magdalene and another about my theological studies in a summer program at Oxford that I attended with my mother. I joined small groups. I exhibited and sold paintings. I went to every service during Holy Week. I went to Living Compass training. And eventually, I enrolled in EFM - a four-year course of theological study.
I learned a lot about the history of the church, the politics of how the Bible was written and re-written and compiled, how to read it in historical context, the things we’ve been taught are in there that aren’t in there, the things we’ve all collectively misinterpreted.
Once, I saw energy swirling over and into the chalice during the Eucharist consecration. I saw it. Sometimes I felt that energy move through my body when I received the bread and wine. There was a mystical presence in the church that was undeniable, even when no one was speaking about it.
And against all odds, I found a home there, a community. I found peace and wholeness in the Eucharist; illumination and guidance in the sermons; and the Gospels began to sound like secret codes. I came to see that before church, my spiritual life had become self-centered, that I had surrounded myself with people who more or less saw life the way I saw it and believed what I believed. Church opened my heart to walking with and loving and allowing myself to be loved by people different from myself, who believed differently and lived differently.
Church changed me. I would never be the sort of Christian who believed in a literal hell, eternal damnation, a vengeful God, or the chosen saved, but I began to understand a concept of Jesus I could follow. I would never be able to go to a church where I was told what to think or believe. What I loved about my church was that conversation and debate were always on the table, and there was always, at the end of the day, mystery. There was room for me and my dissent, and my beliefs got turned on their heads in the most beautiful and fascinating ways.
Before reaffirmation, the leader of my confirmation class asked if there was any part of the Baptismal Covenant that we had a hard time agreeing with. There were several things, actually, but the one that stuck in my throat was the judging of the living and the dead.
“I have a hard time reconciling a loving God who would judge us when we die,” I later said to our rector.
“Judge doesn’t mean punish,” he said.
Oh. Right. Of course, it doesn’t.
My mind was blown, just as it was blown when a guest minister, a woman, preached about the actual meaning of the word “sin.” (It’s an archery term. It means to aim but miss the mark. Something we all do all the time.) That understanding changed the whole tone of the confession for me.
But right at the very beginning of this church-going renaissance, during the summer that followed the Easter of my return, I experienced a different sort of rebirth. Something happened that solidified my belief in a completely non-religious spirituality. Something wholly magical.
Notes:
You can find a glossary of Episcopal terms here.
You can read previous chapters here.