Church (Continued from Last Week's Struggle)

Last week my husband and I sat Charlotte and Lulu down and told them we were thinking about just doing church at home and seeing how that worked out. That way, we wouldn't need to get up early. And they wouldn't have to suffer through me singing too loud to suit them. And Lulu wouldn't have to brush her teeth until that night. And we could make the day be about celebrating God in ways suited precisely to us. Maybe take a walk as a family. Maybe invite some of our friends from our old church over for a dinner/Bible Study, which the girls could participate in or not. We would probably take naps.

To our astonishment, both girls looked aghast and agreed that they didn't want to do anything like that.

"That's what atheists do," they told us, as if atheists were a club that not only got up late on Sunday but had small group worship and Bible studies and rested all Sunday long.

But the message was that they didn't want to be atheists, which was good news. So, we discussed some more and decided to try yet another church, one that I've been a bit leery about and starts even earlier in the day than the last one we visited but that has a youth group of local renown.

So we went, and the most amazing thing happened. First of all, the youth group leader—a youngish married man wearing his checked button down shirt untucked and toting a tiny newborn high on his chest—went over to the girls after the service and introduced himself. Then, a girl about their age talked to them. And then, most amazing of all, this guy that had been a counselor at a nearby summer camp they go to—known among the girl campers as one of the hottest guys there—came over to greet them and knew them both by name. That did it. The power of being known by name. By someone goodlooking. So now they want to keep going there, for the nonce.

It's an okay church, from my standpoint, although I've checked and they have absolutely no women in any kind of position of authority. Not even as a deacon. That was a bit disturbing. And the sermon was not electrifying, but it did cause me to go to this place in Matthew where Jesus says, "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (11:27).

In other words, God the Father is knowable, via Jesus' revelation of him to us, but no one can know Jesus but the Father. So, what I have always found to be the case in my own experience is, in fact, how it should be: that is, I feel like I understand God the Father, sort of, but Jesus typically comes across to me as one big conundrum. What a relief! All these years just about every sermon I've ever listened to and every hymn I've sung seems to want to assert just the opposite: that Jesus (what a buddy, just like us, 100% man, etc.) is knowable and God (omniscient, omnipresent, omnieverything supreme power) isn't. I've always thought there was something wrong with me that I have such trouble really "knowing" Jesus the way my friends seem to, especially compared to my relative facility with understanding God the Dad. I mean, I get him. He's a parent, like me. He loves his kids even though they mess up. And he loves their genuine remorse and gratitude—oh rare delights!—even more than their perfect behavior. His biggest joy is when his kids to get along. I can't tell you how it thrills me when Charlotte and Lulu hug and call each other Sis and spend the whole afternoon playing Viva Pinata. God is like that about us, I think. So, anyway, I am entering this week with something new to consider. I like that.

This is one of those temporary happy ending struggle stories. Like most, in my experience. Except when I'm in one of those temporary unhappy ending struggle stories, which seem to subsume all else.