Step Four

Here I must stray into the ineffable and try to make it at least a little effable, because converting for me wasn't all about ideas and contrasts; it was about coming home. I grew up on C.S. Lewis, Tolkien and other books that put Christian values into fantasy settings. In those settings I found the reality I kept nudging but not quite finding in my actual worship experiences. One of my favorite, lesser-known books of that type is Karen Mains, Tales of the Kingdom. In it the worshipers gather in a sacred circle of flames and become real, and the King is always present. I knew what that felt like in my heart. I knew it because I'd experienced it at various times in church or at other gatherings of Christians, and it seemed to me that that is what church really ought to be like all the time.
For those of you familiar with the book, I had a Princess Amanda experience of the worst kind, and I was badly burned. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, I discovered that some of my most cherished ideas were evil. The funny thing is that I'd acquired them not by disregarding my training, but rather they came to me from my training. It was quite painful, and church itself wasn't helping. Every time I entered church I kept bumping into my terrible ideas and their consequences, and I couldn't sit still and endure it anymore. Finally in an act of faithful desperation we decided that after our move we'd investigate any group that met in Jesus name according to their geographical distance from our house. It was amazing. I learned a lot and did some healing, but I still wasn't finding a home. On that list was St. Mary's Catholic Church. It was there because I'm a perfectionist and it met the standard. I never expected it to work out, in fact I waited for a Sunday when the kids were sick, so I wouldn't contaminate them. Catholics were not only wrong, they led people into hell. However, they still met in Jesus name and I couldn't write them off without breaking my own standards.
I sat in the back, and I mean sat--no way was I going to be kneeling. I was just checking a name off of the list. But the experience was not at all what I expected. Sitting was somehow more than enough. I don't remember the homily. I don't remember the prayers or the music. I remember little children playing all over the place. I remember being offered the gift of peace. I remember leaving feeling healed for the first time in years. I'd been real for an hour and the King had most certainly been present. It's the experience I'm still having every time I return, though now I do more than sit, not much more, but more. Healing is a slow process.
This is part of a series that begins Here. This series continues Here.