Grace

We're going home for a couple of weeks. The plan is to leave Friday morning and pull into Billings some time Saturday night. The anticipation of visiting my home town always fills me with a strange combination of excitement and nostalgia. Past moments that are so long gone they seem completely unrelated to my current life almost feel like the memories of someone else as they plop unexpectedly into the middle of today's thoughts like warm fat raindrops.

This is one of those memories.

As I waited for the bus I stared at the church. I couldn’t stop staring. The asphalt was hot under my flip flops and I could feel its heat all the way up to my knees. The summer air seemed to lose itself somewhere over the parking lot, and then find itself again once it reached the green lawn.

Leaves from nearby dripping trees hung over the church’s roof, engulfing it in green. As I stood there forgetting that the rest of the world existed, images of the church’s insides rolled around in my head like it was some sort of giant clothes dryer. I hadn't been inside for a long time. Memories crashed into each other and then separated again with great angst. The passing whiff of a lilac bush brought me back to where I stood, but when I sniffed again all I could smell was my own breath.

 
My old church in Billings, Montana. This is where I occasionally attended church services as a child. Unspoiled and solid, it is a miniature version of a classic Gothic cathedral. The flying buttresses rise into the sky as far as they can reach and then stop, reluctantly, at the end of their stone arms. The place even has a bell. The building is made of sandstone, has peaked stained glass windows, and tall steps up to large wooden doors.

The priest himself used to stand at the door on Sunday mornings in bright white robes that proved the existence of dignity. He would welcome us all in personally which settled my stomach when I was little. He was so tall. I felt like God himself was shaking my hand which made me think hard about where it had been earlier that morning. I could feel the holes in my tights poking out from under my skirt. His kindness in spite of it often made me curious about the nature of “good” and “bad”.

Inside was thick red carpeting that ran up and down every aisle. The carved wooden pews were dark and quiet and the place always smelled of…well…coats. I felt like I was entering silence. This was in direct contrast to the fact that it was noisy with the chattering of other people.

This baby cathedral was like nothing I had ever seen before as a child. I loved architecture, even back then. I would walk in every time with my head back and my mouth hanging wide open. I’d stop and stare at the height of the ceiling like I might ascend directly into heaven. People would bump up against the back of me not realizing at first that a child had stopped in the middle of their path.

I could relate with the peasants of old times who didn’t know how tired and starved for beauty their eyes were until they let them crawl up the inside of a gorgeous and massive cathedral. Every detail was carefully tended to and the sense of control was profound. I was just sure that God must be at the very center of such a tidy place. I felt very small inside of there. This place was vast to me in more than the physical sense. It was beautiful in every way. I could sense structure and discipline but was at a loss as to how to carry that out of the room.

Sometimes the light from the brightly colored windows would sprinkle the people inside. They wouldn’t even realize they had bright yellow and purple dopples of light on their faces. I used to imagine that God was in one of those spots of light, there and bright on some wrinkly face for just a moment and then gone again.

We actually didn’t go to church very often. Every now and then my mom would suddenly declare that we needed to start attending church on Sundays more regularly. So we’d go for a few Sundays in a row. Then the complaining and fighting and dragging us out of the bed early on Sunday mornings would get old and we’d stop going again. Then, after awhile, she would again declare, “We are going to church on Sunday mornings!” and we’d start the process all over again.

I loved what church did for my parents. They smiled and talked to people. It was like they were coming up out of themselves for a bit of air.  One time I saw my dad stick a large check into the basket. He saw me watching him, put his finger to his lips and said, "Shhh.." I knew it was money we probably couldn't afford to part with, but he wanted to give it to them. The experience produced a strange feeling in me. The sensation of having something to give away was filling like a turkey dinner. It eased my heart and at the exact same time caused my mind to flare up
and question him.

My mom always dressed up for church. She’d put on her nylons and her perfume, which she only otherwise wore to work. I used to love to throw myself onto my mom’s lap when she got home from work late at night. I’d stuff my face into her coat and feel the winter air on it which lingered awhile upon entering a warm room. I could smell the scent of her perfume and cigarette smoke. That combination brings me great comfort to this day. At church I’d have a whole hour with her coat, but the scent of her would slowly fade away while the smell of the other people would slowly conquer the room.

Wow. I learned valuable things at this church. Not in Sunday school necessarily, but in interacting with other people. They are lessons that I've carried with me and still apply in my life today.

I remember being babysat one time in the nursery at this church. There I met a girl with bright, smiling green eyes. She was playing with another little girl and when I asked them if they were sisters they said, "yes."

They explained to me that the girl's mother had passed away and that the other one's father had passed away. Their surviving parents had fallen in love and had just gotten married and they, therefore, were step sisters.

This memory flips my stomach over even twenty five years or so later. I didn't believe them. You see, I was a little girl that made up stories. I did it all the time so I just assumed that all other kids did the same sorts of things. And this sounded to me like a story I would make up. I actually told them I didn't believe them.

I found out quickly that they were telling me the truth. Over the years these girls were usually at church and other church activities. They were always gracious to me, even after that. But I could never forget about the day I didn't believe them. My own capacity for carelessness and cruelty shocked and horrified me up. I kept an everlasting distance between myself and them as a result.

I think of this memory sometimes when I'm tempted to make a snap judgment about a person or situation. Recently, when Shane and I were in the JumpStart class at SARRC (Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center) for Cale, there was another parent in the class that I formed an inaccurate judgment about. I thought of the above story and decided I'd better keep my big fat mouth shut about it and try not to create opinions based on my own screwy perceptions.

This parent lived in south Phoenix (popularly referred to as "the ghetto"), came into class late every day, never talked to anyone, wore baggy shorts, torn up black t-shirts, and chains. He looked tough and I immediately made an assumption about what kind of parent he was. I did mention this to Shane one day and he said, "Now sweetie, be nice to him. He's probably the guy you want to know if you ever break down in south Phoenix." We laughed but then continued to keep a bit of a distance from the guy.

For awhile I wondered things about him. I wondered why, for example, he never brought to class the mother of his autistic son. After a few weeks of class, he came in one day and started talking. He interrupted the teacher's lecture and burst open, telling us every detail about what he'd been through with his son during this past year.

His four year old son was feeling sick one day so he took him to the emergency room. Upon arrival at the hospital they discovered that the little boy was in the midst of heart failure (at four years old!!). They immediately flew him and the dad to Denver and performed a heart transplant. The son almost didn't make it. The dad sat there, in class, and described in detail several of his son's very close calls. He had to stay with the son at the hospital for months while he recovered and finally established some stability with the new heart. The wife didn't go because she could not handle it.

Upon arriving home they found out that the son is also autistic. The wife went to bed and cried for two weeks straight (that's what I did) and hadn't been able to bring herself to do anything about the autism. So the dad was, again, the one who was getting the child to the doctors, keeping track of his multiple medications, filling out all the paperwork, getting him multiple therapies, and taking the jump start class. He had that look. The one that autism parents have when the grief pulls down the corners of their eyes. His eyes were light brown.

After class several of us parents talked about what we'd thought of him before he talked and how wrong we'd been about him. Here was a strong, present, and loving father who was doing the best he could against incredible odds. One of the other mothers asked me, "I want to tell him he's a good dad. How can I tell him he's a good dad?" I said, "Well, you just tell him." So when he found us after class she blurted, "I think you're a really good dad." The man smiled and cried at the same time.

As an adult I think back to that church and the experiences I had there. I'll have to visit it when I go home. I'd like to see the inside again and experience the inevitable shrinking effect that takes place when my memories are that of a child, and I'm now much bigger. That church contributed significantly to my survival and to who I've become today. And it's not because of the architecture. It's because of the people. I wonder sometimes if Cale's significant memories will include other people or if they'll all be about the way that water pours onto the cement differently each and every time.

I recently heard someone say that grace, like a pebble hitting the water, has a rippling effect throughout one's entire life. One gracious act leads to another. One memory leads to another. For me it is times like now when I'm in the most fear, the darkest times, that the light shines through my memories, through these life lessons, and guides the way.

To finish the story of my original memory, “Come on Jess, let’s go!” I stuffed the last of my things into the luggage compartment of the giant yellow school bus that was gearing up its tired old insides in anticipation of climbing tall mountains to get us to camp. As we rolled out of the parking lot, the engine noise peaked on its way into the street. I looked out the window at the church. I was thirteen years old.

Bumping along on the bus I thought about the fact that the church had paid for me to go to camp again that year even though we hadn't gone to church very often. They paid for me to go every year even though we didn't go to church very often. Huh. They also gave my family food out of their basement storage room when we couldn't afford groceries. They did it every time we couldn't afford groceries. And they did it even though we didn't go to church very often.