Rise, Shine, You People

Ages. It's been ages since I've been to church.
But this morning, Crash and Jessi were both asleep, DanPar and I were up, and I knew every moment with that loud boy (and his loud dad) in the house was risking waking up the rest of the household.
So you know what? It's Sunday. I'm Christian. Let's go to church!

I chose the closest one with the earliest service, which happened to be a Lutheran church nearby. (I was also able to get the Pokestop outside!) I was nervous, for a couple reasons:

1, classic, I hadn't been in a while. There's some sort of shame involved, but I knew it was dumb, so I muscled through it. While keeping an open ear for Crash, just in case "Oh no he's up guess I'm staying here."
2, I'd never been to a Lutheran church before, and while I was pretty confident DanPar could get away with wearing a nice jacket over his Avengers pajamas, all I'd been able to scrape up from our clean laundry was a golf shirt and a pair of jeans (with only one stain!)

But there's no chance I'd let #2 get to me, because if the Screwtape Letters taught me anything, it's that you don't need to follow every tenet of a church in order to attend and feel that divine belonging.
So with a wet hand through the hair, one last check on Crash to be eeeeeextra sure he was asleep (he was, dang,) we headed out.

The closer we got, the more real everything became. Over the last year, I'd come to think of religious folk as a voting bloc, thinking of them less as a group I was certainly a part of, and more of a tangle of politics and personal ethics. Before turning into the parking lot, I nearly turned off to find a nice  McDonald's to take DanPar, because I was overflowing with concerns. What do Lutherans think about gay marriage? How do they tend to side on racial issues? Are they active in the homeless community?

But by the time the car stopped, I was ready for church. Religion is a weird thing. I follow the idea of "You are not a body with a soul. You are a soul. You have a boy." (Not CS Lewis. Hard to find the origin.) And I could tell this was going to be good for me. So, deer in headlights, I walked in, trying to take everything in. Okay, everyone's wearing jeans. Cool. What the, is that a little thing of holy water? Mmkay, no problem, just pass it. Oh crap, the pastor's wearing a robe? That's a thing in protestant denominations? Well, the pastor's a woman, so that's neat.

The poor usher. I gushed everything to him. Confessed full ignorance, shared my worry that we were underdressed, and told him the only reason I came was because it was open early. I probably went a little far, but he gave me a big smile, and said, "Well, I'm glad you came. And we're not going to turn you away because you're not wearing a tie."

That's what made it all come back. The small-church churchgoers that were never anything but glad that you were there. It was like God nudged me and gave me a wink. It was all good. Good to have you here today.

Daniel was the loudest kid at the service, but not because he was sad or angry. He just told me in his normal volume (THIS IS HIS NORMAL VOLUME) all about the red car, about drinking milk, about Santa. But, and this was weird, the thing he said the most was, "Bless you, Dad." You can call me superstitious all you want, but I've already admitted to believing in an all-powerful magical being, so yeah. It was sweet of him, and in a way, it was comforting to hear it. I still had God's blessing, I hadn't fallen out of His favor, and it continues to remind me of powerful lyrics:

And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?

One last note: Today, Daniel had his first communion. (The bread and wine thing.) I know that's a big deal to some people, so there you have it. After the bread, he asked if he could have pizza. That's my boy.