Rainy Sunday
Today, I walked a mile to Trinity Episcopal Church, an old
church with roots going back to 1847. One of the first rectors who served the
church died four months after his arrival, succumbing to yellow fever. A Catholic church, a great cathedral, awaited
across the street. Those churches often
leave me cold because everyone wants to be all efficient about a Catholic
service. The priest says the benediction and five minutes later, parking lot
empties.
A friend offered to give me a ride to a Baptist church
located on the Mississippi River in Jefferson, a suburb of New Orleans. To be
frank, I attended an Episcopal church in Round Lake. I attended an Episcopal church in New York,
New York. I attended an Episcopal Church
in Washington DC, the one known as the President's Church. Thus, I wanted to seek out an Episcopalian
church where I would know the songs by memory and could follow a familiar
liturgy.
I sat in the row with the remaining two open seats, arriving
just in time to hear the New Testament reading, coming after the Old Testament
and the Gospel reading. One open seat belonged to the man reading the New
Testament reading. His wife waved me into pew and gave me the seat to her left.
Her husband returned to the seat at the aisle, to her right. We followed the
service together, reading in unison the Nicene Creed and the Lord's Prayer. No
matter what I believe about God, I love these familiar passages.
The man to my left, dressed in a red silk tie and a blue
blazer said to me, "You have a fine voice". I never heard that
compliment in Washington as I sat among the nation's public servants. "Do
you preach? Do you sing?" "Do I sing? Does Karaoke on St. Claude
count"? The woman to my right introduced herself as Eleanor and her
husband as Buddy. I could never read the scripture the way Buddy read it,
southern without a drawl, soft spoken almost to a mumble. That accent signifies
a lifetime citizen of New Orleans who has family roots going back before the
War of 1812. Eleanor introduced me to the usher, and asked, "Are you
coming to coffee"? "Yes, of course". The Episcopals won my
attendance for many reasons, good coffee being only one of them.
A lady named Reese chatted with me and we talked about the
upcoming adult education session sandwiched between the little morning service
at 8 AM and the big service with choir and all at 10:30 AM. I was thinking of
going to "The Twelve Steps are for Everyone". She invited me to
attend, in the "big house", a session on Faith and Fiction.
The group had just read the short story "Vegas"
from the collection written by Tim Gautreaux. We stepped out of the cathedral,
sprinted through a rainy courtyard and went up a ramp into a garden district
painted Victorian with a lovingly restored parlor. I enjoyed sitting in a
circle, even the rector in attendance, going over a short story looking for
lessons of faith. As one participant said, "It seems that the men in the
story think that women are too complicated. The women, on the other hand, seem
to find one man interchangeable with another".
A retired obstetrician read a passage that resonated with
him about a man up for parole who told the board, in effect, "Keep me
locked up. Let me out and I'll only steal". The entire board voted to keep
him in jail, including the highly liberal outlier on the panel. One woman, a
transplant to the city, was struck by the woman who wanted to go to Vegas so
much she thumbed a ride.
She was picked up by a carload of Jehovah Witnesses driving
a car stuck in second gear that overheated every hour. The woman began to
sweat, ruining the special dress she had put on to make an impression when she
got to the city of Lady Luck. I promised myself to find a copy of that book so
I can learn if I had heard all that right.
#TimGautreaux #GardenDistrict #Episcopal
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