God wields a 2x4

My lunchtime meditation...

I admit it, I'm stubborn. My grandmother called me a 'little Missouri mule' which was OK since that's what her mother called her. And she was right. When I get my feet planted and my head set it is very hard to move me. It took me ten years from the first little stirrings of call to finally give in and surrender to it. I get it God, it took a 2x4 to finally make me move.

I got an email today from Mom. A newsletter showed up at her house. I've been out of college for seven years but they still get the odd piece of mail now and then. Most are old honor societies, student groups, or U. departments that seem to be their own little islands of cluelessness. This time the mail was a newsletter from St. Thomas More Catholic Student parish. She listed the address. I sat looking at the email. I had never given St. Thomas my name, or an address. I had been there only once... God swings another 2x4. I hadn't really thought about St. Thomas in years. Probably since I was a freshman at Western. Why would I? I'm not a Roman Catholic, it was never my parish.

But it was part of my journey. I've told the story here before in part. I think a full reflection is in order. It was fall of 1995, almost twelve years ago. I was a freshman in every sense of the word. My first weeks away from home had been rocky. The first night had seen me in a storm of tears, wanting nothing more than to come home. But I had survived, found a roommate, and made some friends. Classes were going well, I was having fun. But not all of me was OK. That fall became one of the most spiritually painful times I had ever experienced. I was literally starving inside. I thumbed the phone book looking for Episcopal churches but they all seemed impossibly far away (I had no car and it never occurred to me to call one of them). It wasn't long before my need for worship, and Eucharist, had become a physical pain.

My roommate, ParticleGal, finally suggested I go to church with her. She was Roman Catholic and walked the few blocks off campus to St. Thomas More Student Parish. I hesitated, after all, it was a Roman Catholic church. I had been to Roman services, I had never been made welcome. She insisted. No one would have to know I wasn't RC, no one would ask, she assured me. It was a student parish, no one would be checking my credentials at the door. I don't remember how long it took me to take her up on the offer. In truth the whole incident had faded so far into my memory I no longer even had a name for the church until today. But I did go at last. And the memory flooded back today as sharp and distinct as if no time had passed.

It must have been late October, the leaves whipped around our legs in little cyclones and the air was cold. But it did not smell of snow yet, in Kalamazoo the air always smelled of snow by November. We walked through the gathering shadows. The service was in the evening, a nod to late rising students. Kalamazoo is a city built on hills. The steep peaks cluster together in tight knots. We descended from the campus and started up another steep slope, the street becoming residential. Other students had joined us on the sidewalk, I could see them across the street, and coming toward us as well. A quiet crowd all descending on a low rambling house built half way up the slope. Its windows glowed warm and orange in the descending dark. We lifted our knees high, climbing the stepped sidewalk and blew in through the door. The sanctuary might have once been the family room. It was long and narrow, filled with chairs. The altar sat against one long wall on the same level as we would all sit. ParticleGal dipped her fingers in a bowl of holy water by the door. I reached out as well, and traced a cross with the cool liquid on my forehead.

Weight slid off my shoulders, pooling around my feet and evaporating. I smiled and wove my way through the crowded room after ParticleGal. We found chairs off to the side of the altar, near the back of the room. There were no familiar prayer books, no kneelers, only chairs crammed as close together as could be managed. The room filled until it seemed there wasn't a chair left. Students laughed and chatted around me. I sat quietly, drinking in the sanctuary, my eyes devouring the familiar/foreign room. With no bulletin or book the service was hard to follow. I stood silently through most of the prayers that the rest knew by heart. But the creed and the Lord's prayer flowed from my lips gratefully. ParticleGal and I grinned at each other each time I could join in a familiar prayer or hymn.

And at last I ate. I hated the deception, but I went forward with the rest, eagerly taking the wafer and the wine. We sang the last hymn and exploded out into the darkness, a laughing mob of students released from the order of worship. My steps bounced as we climbed back up the long hill to campus, and I grinned into the wind. Despite the cold I was warm and full and satisfied. It had been the balm my soul longed for. And as if by magic the Cathedral Church of Christ the King found me. I had an Episcopal family again. For the next five years of school I never went hungry again.

And today God reminded me that I need never go hungry. It was my own lack of action that led me to starve for weeks. I could have made the calls, or I could have gone to service with ParticleGal long before. Instead I sat, paralyzed and unmoving, feeling sorry for myself. I need never be hungry again. Got it. Can I request padded 2x4s please?