God Stomping Through

DIARY

This has been a strange weekend; when I've been social, there's been an overabundance of friends, drink, and merriment.
And when I've been alone, I've been so alone.

Jess left on Friday. I tend to forget, sometimes, just how much my social life is dependent upon her.
Elisabeth and Jenny moved in on Saturday; I've enjoyed seeing her at rehearsal most days, but am sad we've haven't been able to spend more time just hanging out yet.
Now that it's cleaned, my apartment is tolerable, but I'm always here alone.
I went to see Sarah Nerboso's play, "the Rover," and enjoyed it, but afterwards, the 55 Bus stranded me at the corner of Garfield and Ashland.
I went to Armand's barbecue today, but I ate too much and headed home after two hours.
Bitch bitch bitch. Whine whine whine.

It's just been that kind of a weekend. Lots of bluster and excitement at the oddest moments, followed my silence where a climax belongs.

* * * * *

There was one exception.
Of course, my favorite church in Chicago is the church at which I was confirmed; St. Thomas the Apostle.
But that's in Hyde Park, and this Sunday I was in McKinley Park.
There are two parishes I frequent here; St. Maurice, two blocks away, when I manage to get up early, and Our Lady of Good Council, when I do not.
This Sunday was set for Our Lady of Good Council, so I got up at 9:30 and at 10 stamped over six Chicago blocks to attend 10:30 Pentecost mass.

Our Lady is what I call a pedestrian Catholic church, which is unfortunate because the people there really are pretty friendly. Still, their walk, their voices, their gestures, their body languages all convey and attitude toward mass that is something like commuting to work in the morning: tired, impatient, sleepy, and barely any recognition at all.

In a way it's hard to blame them; the same hymns are repeated a million times and priests rarely say anything that wouldn't have occurred to a child. If you look carefully, the eyelids on the statues seem to be drifing to sleep.

This Sunday, though, two cool things happened at Mass.

* * * * *

The first was a very little thing, and its something that might not make sense to non-Christians reading this, or even those who don't view the consecrated host as the literal Body.
I noticed, as I approached the altar for communion, the way we walked.

It's a shuffling walk. Your head is bowed; you only see what approaches peripherally. Your feet barely leave the ground. You look down and see dark wooden floorboards (or slabs of marble, or carpet, or a tile sheen) quietly pass beneath feet that seem to belong to anyone else.

I was painfully and poigniantly reminded of children that emerge from their rooms at night to tell their parents that that they cannot sleep, that they are scared, that there are monsters under the bed.

"That's what we are," I thought.

It was a momentary observation, and I suppose, in that low-ceilinged, brightly lit, thundrous (see below) church, the thought was for me and nobody else. So I thank you.

* * * * *

The other event, however, was quite public.

Pentecost is, of course, the celebration of the birth of the Church, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles after Christ's Ascension, giving the power top speak all languages. The Holy Spirit is described as a sort of great wind that blew through and stirred them into greater action.

Well Chicago's been having very peculiar weather laterly, with brief storms blowing through two or three times a day. One came on as I sat in this pedestrian church with the pedestrian parishoners listen to a pedestrian preist deliver a pedestrian homily. I'm sorry; I'm calling it like it is.

When the mass was finished, when we'd all had our eat and drink, we stood for the final hymn... "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory..." the one that sounds almost liek the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

As we sang, the choir and the parishoners, the storm sprang upon us, like some sort of demon intent on devouring the song. These people hadn't even sung the psalm for goodness sake, they just stood there mouthing the words.

Imagine my surprise then, when the choir directer cranked up the volume on her electric keyboard, and the choir began belting out the lyrics, not carying that they souded a little shrill, that they couldn't harmonize. And then the parishioners, even those on their way out the door... even the priest stopped where they were, and joined in the song, determined to make it more of a presence than this sudden storm.

And when they finished, everyone applauded.

A wind, quite literal, had blown in through the slatted stained glass windows and stirred us up, causing us to rub our forearms to stay warm. At the very least, we sang a little song.

* * * * *

I stayed awhile, thinking I should talk to somebody... get to know someone from this neighborhood I truly love and have lived in for two-thirds of a year now. But everyone had someone to talk to and was already talking.

So I walked home through the flood, and got drenched, and probably ruined my shoes for good, and that was the start of another lonely part of this past weekend.

~ Connor