14 March 2012

Laetare. Mom's orders.


I, for all practical purposes, do not have a mother church. The church where I grew up is no longer a place where I can go on Easter to sing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" with each verse rising a half-step to a thundering, golden finale of impossible height. It breaks my heart, for there is a sense in which there is no church like one's home church. I want that glorious Easter back. It's not just that I personally can't get there. It doesn't exist.

That's not good, but it has helped me understand the obvious fact that part of growing up is being able to leave Mom. I have to be able to love someone else's pie if I'm ever going to be happy eating pie again. Is my stubborn insistence that only my mom can make a good pie worth never enjoying ANY pie? Of course I will always love my own dear Mom's own dear pie, but she would be the first to tell me I was an idiot to mope every time someone else's dear mom put a piece of pie in front of me. The truth is, lots of moms are really good at making pie. Mom would also be completely disgusted with me if I didn't know it was beyond rude to mope if someone is kind enough to make a pie and give me a piece, even if it's not the world's best pie.

So as I approach another Laetare feeling a bit orphanish, I am glad that the place that was my mother church was not really my mother. I haven't even had my real mother's pie yet. One parish is not the Church. One building is not Jerusalem. One hymn is not the Song. One pastor is not the Shepherd. Each little Easter, wherever I happen to be for it, brings me closer in every way to the big one. God grant me the grace to receive what I am given, however modest, with thanks and rejoicing.

6 comments:

Gayle Wilson said...

Brilliant. And you would be privileged to taste my pie :)

Kristi said...

Thank you for this! Honestly, I have struggled time to time with "am I where we are supposed to be". And when I read "one parish is not the Church" it struck me. Thank you, I love this blog. I always come here feeling parched and leave feeling refreshed! :)
Kristi

Emommy said...

"I haven't even had my real mother's pie yet." Oh so true, and so good to remember this now. Even so, Lord Jesus...

megan173 said...

I always felt like I was forced to leave my Mother church much too soon. When we left for Sem I had been baptized all of about 3 years. I felt like I was just weaned, with no time to even taste the pie.

Anonymous said...

And here I was moping about having to play organ at a parish that isn't my "home" for Sunrise Service this year. Thanks for putting things in perspective. :)

Anonymous said...

I hear you wrt the music.

My son is only in middle school and he and his buddies are getting together to go to a rare Bach vespers service in May. Pretty sad when middle school boys have to organize themselves to reclaim their own heritage. We should be ashamed of ourselves for our complicity as a culture in pushing the crappy new music to our kids who would love to have fellowship through the music that their forbears created by the grace of God.