Sunday, January 08, 2006

Some things I like about church, in no particular order

  1. Children's moments. We have this every week back home at UUMC, but at FUM they only have them once in a while. This morning was a doozy...the leader, upon listening to a little girl chime in about every thirty seconds witha story, quipped that the pastor (her husband) would have to shorten his sermon.
  2. Anthems. My Dad always sang in the choir throughout my life (Mom did too, before they were married; that's how they met!), and I always love listening to our choir sing...when I was helping in Sunday School downstairs, I even used to sneak up to the stairway closest to the choir and listen when I knew they were doing something nice or special. The FUM choir is nice, too, smaller but well led. They often do some interesting or exciting pieces.
  3. Quippiness (related to #1). I don't know what it is about Methodists, but the two United Methodist churches I've attended regularly are such quipsters, ad libbing and joking around. They're not always funny outright, but they are definitely masters of quick one-liners. At UUMC Pastor Frank is both a funny guy and quippy.
  4. People who look like people. OK, so this isn't strictly about church, but as I was acquainting myself with FUM I was noticing people who looked familiar. One of the choir ladies could be related to GSW's former secretary, Connie. She sang a solo today during the anthem. I have nicknamed her "Connie lookalike," in homage to Steve's made-up stories about people at the gym.
  5. That feeling you get when you pray, or are listening to a prayer, where you feel as if you're a mile above the earth, as if your body has left the bench, or at the very least your head, and you're floating way up there, with your eyes closed. Usually, that feeling goes away as soon as your eyes open, but today, while the feeling was slow to get moving, it lasted long after I opened my eyes, and it was a little alarming because my senses weren't normal.
  6. Singing hymns, although I need to put a vote in here for The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Now, I know it isn't strictly a propos for these crazy times, but singing that song just makes you feel good and triumphant about God and life. It doesn't make me want to fight, it makes me want to live, which in some cases might come to the same thing. Anyway, hymns are great. Sometimes I botch them, as in one of today's, or a couple of the ones we sang at Christmas Eve...even my Dad struggled with one of those carols, and we were both sort of laughing about it because it was so hard. Basically, it's fun whether you get it or not.

That's about it for now. There are some other things I like about church, but those are the ones I think of often, really every week.

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