Skip to main content

Church Tourism

I talked with someone a while ago about how I like to visit churches. There's even a post or two below about the careful processes behind it. I don't consider myself a church tourist, of course, because the implication behind that phrase is a disinclination to attach oneself to a given church. And I am far from disinclined. I am eager for the Church I will call Home. I think I have such a one in Long Beach, but I know that I am hesitant there. Not because of theological disagreements, although I know I have a few. Not because of the people or the preaching or even the largeness of the space. If anything were to deter me, it would certainly be the presence of a coffeeshop on the church grounds - but strangely, that's not it either. It's the general feeling of nomadism that I still have. I will settle in a church when I settle in myself. But I am still unsettled.

One of my favorite bloggers just posted about her own church 'tourism', and I was delighted to read it. I am always delighted to read about good experiences in the Orthodox church, because I have a not-so hidden love for them. They are still my least familiar of the churches (I have only once attended an Orthodox service), but perhaps for that reason, I have this sneaking suspicion I will be Orthodox one day. I may be sixty years old when it happens. I may never officially 'convert'. But I associate it with all the possibilities of resting after restlessness. Perhaps, perhaps....

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

window in the sub

Dear Nathaniel, I am microwaving pie that Mom bought up in Oak Glen this week on her way home from the orthodontist. As I put it in the microwave, I was full of sadness that I was not in Oak Glen with her. Why did I not go? I was working. I want to see the trees turn. I want to wander slowly through autumnal gift shops. Under the water, you cannot sense the approach of the seasons. Even here it is difficult because, after all, it's California. But I can still sense it. After three seasons in Illinois and one in Scotland, it must be with me for good. Or at least for a while. Because I am all abuzz with eagerness for fall and winter, for turkeys and dried leaves and Santa. I should start cooking again this fall. Fall foods are my favorite. Baked squash dripping with melted butter and brown sugar, pumpkin soup... this year, if I have enough money, I will put together a holiday dinner for my friends. And we will drink Scandinavian mulled wine, which is the most wonderful thing I have e...
13 comments
Read more

At the close of nine years

I'm moving to Texas in less than two months. I've lived in Long Beach now for nine years. Already I have stacks of books covering my dining room table that I'll be reading for my PhD program in the fall. I've quietly begun the tedious work of sorting and cleaning everything in my little apartment. I'm scheduling all of my last days with friends, moving through my calendar in reverse order from when I expect to slip into my car and drive away. This is the longest I've lived in one place, so I've never really experienced a leaving quite like this before. I remember the day I left Wheaton, closing the bedroom door on my best friend, walking down to Chaeli's car so she could drive me to the airport. (The greatest grace of Texas is that she will be there. Some friends we never lose completely.) I remember leaving California for Scotland—walking away from my mother in the Palm Springs airport. We leave people who have changed us, and we leave places that ha...
1 comment
Read more

wanderlust

I am going home tomorrow morning. This is a strange idea. It will be a stranger reality. I am glad to go home, glad to step away from this world for just a moment, to better see it new and fresh but familiar when I return. More than this, I am glad for my sister's wedding. Glad for the vows, the strange appearance of extended family members, the green skirt. Glad for seeing my brother and my mother and everyone. Glad for the twos-on-twos. On the airplane, I will do my best to blitz through Samuel Richardson's Pamela. I will ignore the assigned readings of Foucault's "The Deployment of Sexuality," in part because I couldn't get it at the library and because I don't want to buy it, but most of all because I simply don't want to read it. I will read the essay by Adorno instead, and the chapter of Adorno and Horkheimer that I couldn't finish last night. I will listed to Rob D on my iPod. I will buy an overpriced sandwich in the airport. One of the airp...
5 comments
Read more