Leaving the Station

I have been confronted with death a lot in this past week.
I know that sounds dramatic and deep, but it's true and it's been on my mind. So I think I'll work it out here, if that's OK with you. Why not?
There were two deaths this week in the church where I work. One older gentleman, he was 99 years old, and the other was the son of a parishioner. He was close to my age.
My mom called me this week and said she had some sad news. She said one of her neighbors down the street - an older man who, along with his wife, had buried his only son a couple of years ago - had passed away the night before and his widow had knocked on her door to tell her about it.
I started to wonder why, in the wake of losing her husband, she would so quickly be compelled to knock on my mom's door to share the sad news. They were neighbors, yes, but not particularly intimate friends. Why would she turn so immediately to someone she didn't know very well?
But my mom pointed out that this woman was now alone. She had lost her son and her husband and hadn't a soul left in the world.
And I started to wonder about who would take care of her needs. Who would bring her something to eat and share in her grief? Who would check on her every so often to make sure she was still, well, alive? Was she part of a church? Surely they would be helping her out at a time like this.
No, my mom said. She wasn't.
Contrasting this woman's situation, I came to work on Tuesday to see the parking lot full of cars and people carrying casseroles to the Fellowship Hall and flowers being delivered to the sanctuary. Family and friends, gathering in a central location, to care for the grieving and to comfort each other. The members of the church who are more removed from the pain - those who weren't as close to the family - take care of making coffee in those gigantic urns and attending to the tasks at hand. Someone had left a homemade cake on a beautiful jadeite cake stand with a sign on it that said, "for the luncheon." Someone else had taken out a beautiful cut-glass beverage dispenser and had it wiped down to get it ready for the tea. Probably sweet tea. It usually is.
It occurred to me that removing our family from the traditional church and to the outer fringes of my faith has been more than I bargained for. It's been an adventure and has caused us to re-think what we believe and to re-define the way we worship. And those things have been painful sometimes.
We love what we do and can't imagine any other way to "do" church. But once in a while, I'm reminded of just how far away we are from the center of Christian culture. And we're out here without a safety net. We don't have a Fellowship Hall or giant coffee urns. We don't have a sanctuary for setting up flowers. And we're the pastors.
Who will take care of those things for us when it's our turn?
I mean, I know that people die all the time who aren't part of a church community. I know there are social systems in place to help tie up the loose ends of a life. People who Know What To Do.
But still. It was a disconcerting moment to realize that I've walked away from the systems I've known and understood all my life.
When I left work yesterday, the parking lot was pretty much empty. People had gone on their way and the church kitchen had been cleaned up. A relative had come into the office to thank the pastor. And I watched the last person leave the building, carrying the luncheon garbage out to the back.
And I felt a lonely hole in my belly as I pulled out onto the street.
Not that I knew the man who had passed. I didn't.
But from all the way in my car, I could feel the finality. The end of the party.
One aspect of the church that I love is that it is central to all the events of life. The big ones, you know? Baby showers and baptisms, confirmations and first communions, weddings, holidays, funerals....
It's like the Grand Central Station of life. It gives us a physical place where our lives, all on different tracks, can meet.
In spite of my choice to leave her traditional structure - the one we've all come to know - I find that there are parts of her that I miss. And that's one of them.
Oh, I have a community of believers around me. People with whom I share my faith and raise my children and discuss the finer points of trying to live the way Jesus did. People I have come to know and love in a much deeper, fiercer way than I had thought possible when the only way I knew to share my faith was facing the front of the sanctuary next to others instead of facing each other and sharing our lives.
But I always try to bear in mind the fact that The Church has gotten a few things right.
And no matter how much I distance myself from her, I'm beginning to think that there are elements of The Church that I have taken with me - things that aren't defined by buildings. And those are the elements that, I think, that make The Church (at least, The Church as it was meant to be) available to everyone, everywhere.
And even though I don't have a building and giant coffee urns, I still feel like I should take my mom's neighbor a casserole and a homemade cake on a jadeite cake stand.