Life Inside The Sane Asylum...As I Sit Here

Life Inside The Sane Asylum 

As I Sit Here...

It’s Christmas Eve Mass, and I sit in this beautiful cathedral. I am watching an Episcopalian choir sing. The music is good enough to bring a tear to a glass eye. One soprano has a voice so robust it makes the stained glass vibrate and the rafters shake.

The choir is singing in Latin. At least I think it’s Latin? The Baptist churches of my childhood had choirs, but not like this. We did not sing in Latin. We sang in polyester and khakis.

Episcopalians are interesting birds. The “Piskies” do everything differently than the Evangelicals who raised me. They even have different terminology. I have trouble remembering all the definitions.

For example: a priest’s robe is a “cassock.” This comes from the ancient word, “cass,” which is literally translated: the American lead female singer from the Mamas and the Papas.

Some other explanations:

Those in the congregation are not “people,” but “laity.”

The area where the the laity sit is called the “nave.”

The short prayers between the priest and the laity are called “suffrages.”

And the official title for the man who reads the scriptures aloud to the laity is: “Randy.”

After the singing, a woman takes the pulpit. She is middle-aged, wearing a cassock and surplice. She is not the priest of this parish, but a “curate.”

This curate’s name is Alice.

Like many Episcopalians, Alice was called into the ministry later in life. And this means she is, by default, a person with real life experience.

Lots of Episcopalian clergy enter the ministry later in life.

This is unlike the Evangelical ministers from my childhood. My friend Wilton, for instance, received a call into ministry around the age of three. He became church treasurer by age nine, associate pastor by age twelve, and he finally got his own Freewill Baptist church three weeks before he sprouted armpit hair.

That’s how it was. You could receive “The Calling” at any age. My father once asked me if I ever received “The Calling” to be a shepherd of the flock, what would I say? That was an easy question for me...”I would ask Him to reconsider.”

Our priest was called a pastor or brother, and our Curates were deacons. We grew up thinking Welches Grape Juice was the wine referred to in the Bible and Catholics worshiped idols, and were sinners because they played bingo.

I always loved the Catholics, especially the Catholic girls at St. Mary’s School. I think it was those green plaid skirts and knee high socks to match. I even feel quilt today as I think about them. Heaven forbid if a Baptist ever married a Catholic. One could only pray for salvation and conversion of the lost Soul. Maybe one day they will see the light and find their way back home. Back home to covered dishes.

The Baptist way of celebrating was eating covered dishes after special occasions or any occasion for that matter. Graduations, births, deaths, or for no reason other than to have on. I remember a time when Mrs. Lindsay stood up during a Wednesday night prayer meeting and suggested we have a covered dish lunch on Sunday, just because it had been sometime since we had one. And so it was. 

A Dinner On The Ground was different than a covered dish meal.  A Dinner On The Ground was held outside and it was to celebrate the church’s founding day or homecoming as we called it.

Now l must be truthful about this. My mother would always tell me what she was bringing, and to eat only out of her dish, but I loved Mrs. Minnie’s banana pudding. There you have it. A confession of sorts.

I use to envy the confessions of the Catholics as a quilt reliever. As a Baptist, I just carried mine around with me. To this day I still feel guilty when I eat banana pudding.

Since I am on the subject let me tell you a few more things about growing up Southern Baptist.

The Baptist sing from The Baptist Hymnal. I actually remember in the early years it was entitled The New Standard Hymnal, but somewhere along the line some Committee on Committees voted to become more modern and issue a new book of songs and creeds and covenants. 

Anyway, if you were Baptist you only knew the first, second and last stanza of any hymn, except Just As I Am. After all these years I have come to understand that it was a time saver thing. If we eliminated the third verse of each song and the preacher kept his sermon to thirty minutes, it would put us out of the church in time to get ahead of the United Methodist congregation at the Dairy Queen.

The order of the service was always the same. Three songs, first, second and last verse only, the pastors welcoming the visitors announcements, and then sing the doxology while the ushers collected the offering. This was followed by the choir special, the sermon, the offer of invitation, and last, the benediction. 

During the benediction phase I would never look the preacher in the eyes for fear of being called on to say the closing prayer. Those were always the hardest prayers for me.

Well, here are a few more things that cross my mind, that crossed my mind growing up.

I know beyond a shadow of doubt that the “wine” referred to in the Gospels during the Last Supper was actually Welches grape juice.

I believed that when I died , I should take a covered dish to heaven.

If I clapped in church, I would feel guilty for a week.

I know all six verses of “Just As I Am” without looking a The Hymnal.

I spent all my formative years as an Royal Ambassador and have nothing to show for it other than a memory of  a loyalty pledge. I lost my sew on badge.

Never put money in the offering plate and take out change.

Where two or more are gathered together, there will be lots of food.

I think God’s presence is always strongest in the back three pews.

I could go on and on in my mind, but the choir is about to sing the Hallelujah Course ...Can I get an Amen?