The Church of St. Vincent de Paul - Stirling, NJ

           After this past Sunday I realized how gingerly I kicked off this project by going to the church I grew up in and then a church that my parents have chosen to go to because of how similar it is in method and belief to the first.  

            I wasn’t stepping out of my comfort zone.

            The best way I can think to put it is that I felt comfortable in the past two churches in the same way someone would feel comfortable revisiting their high school.  You don’t feel at home anymore but at least you can wrap yourself up in the comfort that comes with simple familiarity.

            Comfort of that sort wasn’t mine when I visited The Church of St. Vincent de Paul.

            I can’t say I didn’t know what to expect.  I have been to Catholic mass before.  In fact, the most recent time was for midnight mass just this past Christmas.  I’d never been to midnight mass before but it sounded like just the kind of tradition I ought to be jealous of and start cashing in on, Catholic or not.  But this isn’t about midnight mass.  It’s about this past Sunday when I drove to Stirling and walked into St. Vincent de Paul.

            There was organ music playing and the acoustics were great.  The chapel had high ceilings and impressive stained glass windows with abstract art that looked heavenly without being forward enough to try to directly represent what “heavenly” might actually look like.  People slowly filed into the wooden pews and took their seats silently.  Noise was kept to a very low hum of murmurs and suppressed coughs.  The reverence was palpable

            But for me, something was missing.  And while this next part might get me in trouble I’d have to say that I could sum that something up in one word: warmth.

            And the rest of the hour that I spent in my pew felt like a rehearsal for a play I wasn’t acting in.  Quite literally, I didn’t have any of the lines.  One woman lead praise worship which consisted of traditional hymns.  When she raised her hand, palm up, I didn’t know that it was my cue to join or repeat.  I was always one step behind whenever it was time to stand, sit or kneel on the prayer benches (please excuse me if I use incorrect terminology … I referred to the Eucharist as a “cracker” to my boyfriend, whose family is Catholic, and his head spun as if I’d slapped him across the face.)  That’s not to mention the times when the congregation spoke in unison words I had no access to as well as Communion which a page in the praise book clearly told me I was not to participate in.

            As a newcomer, I actually felt left out.  

            And in my opinion, that’s awful.  Any place I go where I feel so thoroughly left out is not a place I’m likely to want to return to voluntarily.  I understand that as I experience different churches there will be varying degrees of openness toward newcomers.  It just occurred to me the other day that I will at some point be ending up at a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall.  I doubt I’ll be able to make it in and out of there anonymously.

            I guess I have plenty of time to discover exactly what degree of openness I find appropriate and … comfortable.

            The sermon, or homily (there’s one term I do know) was about ten minutes.  I thought that if I couldn’t identify with the ceremonial method of the Catholic church I might at least find some truth in the message I was going to hear.  The message turned out to be one that only the most hardened criminals could disagree with.  The visiting priest spoke on kindness.  The congregation was told to look into a mirror and only then could we discover what it meant to be truly kind.  I believe it was meant to be an abstract spin-off of the golden rule.

            So there was truth in the message.  But there was no substance.  Nothing I could latch onto.  Nothing I could sink my teeth into.  Nothing I could ARGUE about with anyone.  Nothing that could challenge me or make me question.  Nothing I could bring home with me and chew on all day.  You get the point.

            And here’s where I stopped myself and wondered whether or not I am sounding hypocritical.  The past two churches I went to certainly addressed very challenging topics and I wasn’t satisfied with that.

            Maybe I should break it down in TWO again.

            I want truth.  AND I want a challenge.

            Because this can’t just be a search for truth.  It has to be a search for truth in the form of a continuous learning experience.  I disagreed with a lot of what was said at Millington and Stonecrest but they really did get me to think about a few things.  At St. Vincent de Paul this past Sunday I couldn’t possibly disagree with the broad concept that we should be kind.  (It really was that general.  It was a directive, without any specifications, examples or nods to how hard this directive could be in the face of, say, the woman who cut me off the other day and then gave ME the finger.)  I digress.  While I agreed that we ought to be kind, I also didn’t feel as if I had learned a single thing.  I felt just a little numb.

            But I want my brain to be buzzing when I leave church.  And ideally, maybe even my heart too.