The One with Baby Jesus

Written on: le 23 Janvier 2011

It is Sunday morning and most of my neighbors are going to mass. I am blessed (haha, I couldn’t help myself) to live adjacent to the Catholic mission in my village, and right now if I peek out my window I can see a stream of pagne-clad women carting their children to and from the church gates. I can hear the loud hymns and lively chatter – at least I could, before I plugged my ears with headphones and escaped to the dark, cool cave that is my iPod.

You see, while most of my neighbors go to mass, I prefer to hide. I tried the church thing one Sunday early on, really, I did: I got dressed up and sat up straight on a bench and did my best not to let on that, given that the service was in not one but two languages I could not understand, I had no idea what was going on and was thereby bored out of my mind. But no matter, I stuck it out. I clapped with the rhythm of the hymns, kneeled in prayer, even remained still as a stone while the father, a gray-haired Polish missionary, vigorously sprinkled Holy Water on (well, more like at) me.

I managed not to roll my eyes as I regarded the art adorning the church walls. On the right, an innocuous string of murals depicts a black Jesus doing Jesus-y things like curing the sick and feeding the hungry; on the left, more of the same. But in the center, elevated above the position of the murals, hangs an outrageously large portrait of a white Jesus, doing nothing but looking quite Jesus-y. It was not lost on me, the audacity of Huge White Jesus, in front of whom stands a white preacher, both of whom are flanked by cheerful black followers.

This did not seem to bother my neighbors so I tried not to let it bother me (the Black Jesus murals were a nice gesture, weren’t they?), instead turning my attention to the fidgety children squirming in the pews. I couldn’t help but let a silent smile grace my lips, comforted and amused by the universality of a child’s restlessness at church. I smiled at the acquaintances I recognized, enjoyed the music, and thanked the père for an “excellent” service (my French vocabulary, and thus my capacity for compliments, is still quite limited).

So yes, I tried in earnest to do the church thing, but I had to resign myself to the fact that, for all its prominence in my community, it’s not for me. And so now Sunday mornings are a time to hide.

I am sprawled out on a mat on my floor, sipping on my crude rendition of a chai latté and sifting through the pages I have tossed out around me: poems, favorite books, quotes scrawled on scraps of paper, letters from friends a million miles away. The words enthrall and enchant me. They take me home to the good that’s always there, help me remember what I already know: that this whole experience is magic, even – perhaps especially – when it’s frustrating or exhausting or boring. “It is a sublime thing to suffer and be stronger,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow tells me, and I feel light spill into a dark corner of my stomach. Then Baby Suggs in Beloved: “Here… in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard…”

Sinking into the floor, I sparkle a little more with each reminder, the words gently scrubbing away the crust of malaise that has settled over my spirit this past week. I flip to a random page of Anne Lamott:

“Think of those times when you’ve read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone’s soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think, to help others have this sense of – please forgive me – wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in our small, bordered worlds.”

And that’s when it hits me – I am at church. This is my worship, these are my preachers. My neighbors convene in fellowship, sing, kneel, pray; I retreat into music, read, write, create. We are all seeking the same thing: a brush with grace, a reunion with love, a reassurance of magic and meaning.

I get up and pull out my headphones for a minute to wash my face. I can hear the clamor of churchgoers milling home; it sounds beautiful.