Week #12 Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Once I explained to Brian why a church founded by a “1950’s civil rights leader” would mostly be attended by tall blondes with German last names, we were ready for week #12 Holy Cross Lutheran Church.  Now coming from the Midwest, I was no stranger to Lutherans, but this was still my first time attending a Lutheran service.  Brian, however, had been to “tons of them.”  His experience combined with the five straight years I made nearly everyone I met watch the film Drop Dead Gorgeous was all the research we needed.  What does that Oscar worthy film have to do with this religion? Skip the Netflix and just buy the DVD to find out.  If you are a Caucasian female between 25 and 35 who grew up in a small Midwestern town, you’ll marvel at how humorously and precisely it captures your high school experience.  If you are part of literally any other demographic, you’ll just wonder how to get that hour and a half of your life back and how Kirsten Dunst ever had a successful acting career.

Lutheran Sisterhood Gun Club aside, most of us know some of the history of the Lutheran faith, the Protestant Reformation, the 95 Theses…If you haven’t heard of these events, exit this window and read a history book or Wikipedia for goodness sake.  For the purpose of this all you need to know is that in the 1500’s some folks broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and a new blog topic was born.  Being that Lutheranism is only once removed from Catholicism, the service remains fairly traditional.  There were altar servers, an elaborate organ, pastors in white robes, standard church hymns and even a silent auction in the community room featuring a German potato salad that reportedly went for over $700 last year.  It was pretty standard.  The service began with a procession down the aisle and a formal greeting to the congregation with a scripted response.  They said the lord’s prayer, sang, sat, stood. 

 They offered the Eucharist with two interesting twists. #1: The weekly program outlined who could take communion.  This is important coming from a Catholic background.  You see Catholics are picky about this.  Only Catholics can take it and only after they take two years of religion classes, go through the sacrament of First Holy Communion (which Brian swears involved a test, that apparently he cheated to pass, which is sad because I’m pretty sure it only required memorizing 10 commandments and a prayer that is said every week at church).  And that is not all, after all that vetting only the Catholic who have not sinned can take it. (That last piece may not be true, but I can remember my grandmother saying that you couldn’t take it if you didn’t go to church the week before because apparently that is a sin).  Point is there are lots of rules.  Not here, the program said that anyone could take it who wanted to welcome Christ into their lives.  #2: They dunked the wafer in the wine.  Awesome idea, much better than everyone drinks from the same cup!  The guy with sniffles just swigged from the communal Blood of Christ cup along with half of the congregation, how is that sanitary!?  But what are your choices, group cup or just having the dry wafer, not if you’re Lutheran, the dunk is ingenious.   

One other notable difference, and I’m sure this came a while after Martin Luther, the service was given by Pastor Stephanie, yup a woman.  She was good too, energetic, welcoming… She led a children’s gospel lesson, always our favorite part of any service.  They did an interactive “bearing witness” lesson where the pastor left and the kids shared what they did on Saturday and then she returned and the “witness” told what they had heard.  It was less evangelicals in training and more illustrating what the apostles did following the resurrection.  Which makes sense because this was a few weeks after Easter and it aligned with the reading for this week. This also illustrates another key distinction between the more traditional religions and the ones that have sprung up over the last few years.  Lutherans, Catholics and the like, have a schedule of gospel readings.  It is the same reading the 2^nd Sunday after Easter every year for the last 500 years or whatever.  There is normally a gospel reading followed by a sermon reflection upon said reading. These new fangled faiths seem to have less cohesion, the preaching is more driven by topic or theme and select bible quotes are throw in to affirm the point.  

I am focusing on this distinction because I think it is at the cusp of how American Christianity is morphing.  Not the good kind of morphing like when sewer turtles encounter green ooze, more the Kafta kind where you go to bed a salesman, wake up a bug, eventually die and then the whole family is better off now that you’re dead.  I’m pretty sure that is exactly what is happening to Christianity in America, it’s morphing from this traditional structure (bible reading then sermon about the reading) that you’ll see in a Lutheran service with 100 parishioners to the sermon about a theme the pastor thought up with a sprinkling of Bible quotes throughout, implying that the bible supports the pastor’s beliefs and is broadcast on national television to millions of viewers.  I’ll elaborate…

There is a fundamental difference between reading an entire passage and then speaking to how it can be applied to everyday life (as is done in a Lutheran/Catholic, we’ll say “traditional” church) and giving a persuasive sermon with some quotes from the same passage thrown in (as is done in some of the non-denominational churches).  This distinction is both interesting and scary, allow me to illustrate with a  piece of secular text:

Traditional religion- reading followed by applicable sermon. 

 

Reader: “A reading from the book of the Lorax

‘I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees,
Which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please;
But I also speak for the brown Barbaloots,
Who frolicked and played in their Barbaloot suits,
Happily eating Truffula fruits.
Now, since you've chopped the trees to the ground
There's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!
And my poor Barbaloots are all feeling the crummies
Because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies’.”

Congregation: “Thanks be to Dr. Seuss”

Priest: “If we don’t look after our planet, we will have nothing left. Treat resources with respect, protect them and they will still be here in the future.  You - yes, you - have the power to impact change.” Obviously the sermon would be longer and have some anecdotes thrown in, but I’m not writing sermons, I’m illustrating a point.  

Non-Traditional religion-sermon with some quotes 

Pastor: “This week’s topic is ‘Getting into Heaven,’ The only path to eternal life is through our religion.  All followers of other religious traditions that are not ours may be happy now, but when the end times come (should be the Tuesday after next) they will not get into heaven.  As Seuss wrote in Lorax 3:16 ‘There's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!’ Only the followers of Seuss will have the Truffula and eternal life with Seuss…

See the difference? We’re moving there, one televangelist at a time.  So I’m glad that Pastor Stephanie and her Lutheran crew were holding tradition.  We also lucked out this week because it happened to be a baptism in addition to the regular service.  It was like a oneCHURCHaWEEK bonus.  Like other traditional Christian religions, the baptism was for a baby.  No grown adults were fully emerged in a lake or anything like that.  I’m on Larry David’s side with those baptisms, I think I’d mistake it for a drowning and jump into help too.  Luckily I’m not a Jew, so my lifeguarding skills would be better received.  Regardless there was no need for accidental CPR today, because the Lutherans just had the parents denounce the devil and promise to raise the baby in the church and then dripped some water on his forehead.   The baptism took place at the back of the church where they had a little table set up with some oil, a baptism candle, a baptismal reading, a water basin and oddly a plastic water bottle.  At first I thought that maybe someone was thirsty and had accidently left their beverage on the baptism station, or maybe all the challises were in the dishwasher.  Turns out I was incorrect, the bottle was there on purpose.  It was actually full of water from the river Jordan and it was used for the ceremony. I think it is the river Jesus was baptized in or something, I don’t remember the details.  I understand why it would come in a plastic bottle with “Aquafina” written in Arabic on the label, but I’m still not sure why they never poured it into a different container.  Oh well, they figured out how to not have the body of Christ stick to the top of your mouth so I’m sure they’ll eventually figure out how to repackage the holy water. 

 

Week #11 Vajrayogini Buddhist Center

Finally! It’s time to get to the interesting stuff outside of the Christian norm…Here is the tricky part with the non-Christian religions: turns out they don’t just meet every Sunday at 10:00am.  The previous inhabitants of our house were apparently Scientologists, or were a bit too liberal with disclosing their address.  Regardless, we are now the recipients of some very creepy videos, catalogs and brochures.  Before you get too excited, the point is that I still don’t know how to actually attend a Scientology function.  I know where to order a Scientology E-reader.  We all know that an E-reader is an electronic device used during Dianetics and Scientology auditing, and that the device is a variation of a Wheatstone bridge, which measures electrical resistance and skin conductance, but now I also know how to get one.  However, I still don’t know how we would actually attend a Scientology service.  Judging from the fact that the catalogs list no prices, I’m pretty sure we could not afford to attend an event even if we did know when to show up.  Point being, the interesting stuff may take some planning and investment.  S o for this week we branched out, but just not that far.  We went in search of dharma at week #11 Vajrayogini Buddhist Center.

This center practiced Kadampa Buddhism, a Mahayana Buddhist school founded by the great Indian Buddhist Master Atisha in the 11^th century.  So it is a few days older than Scientology.  However, the two religions do have one striking similarity.  Both focus on scamming funds from wealthy action film stars to build elaborate facilities and manufacture 7^th grade science fair contraptions to measure fictional biological factors that can then be sold back to celebrities at undisclosed prices.  Just kidding, that is only one of the two religions.  But they both do seem to hold reverence for images of their religious leaders, and honestly, I think that is about all they have in common.   

The photo below illustrates this comparison.  It is a page from a Scientology catalog that arrived in our mailbox on Wednesday featuring a spread of L. Ron Hubbard portraits spanning the last 30 years juxtapose to a collection of Buddhist monk photos and stone carvings that I bought for about 2 baht apiece on a street corner in Bangkok.  Most Thais wear similar images around their necks, and temple altars typically feature a framed photo of a monk; the L. Ron Hubbard thing is just weird. 

We have been to beautiful, elaborate Buddhist temples in Nepal, Thailand and India, but Buddhism in Fairfax County Virginia lacks that history and establishment, so today’s teaching and meditation session was held at a public meeting place.  It is actually a historical chapel on the grounds of a public park that is rentable for weddings, meetings and meditations.  The setting may have been more conducive to this service a month ago, but it is now mid-April and little league is in full swing, literally.  We had to park along the third-base line, so the first part of my meditation was wasted praying a foul ball wouldn’t go through my windshield. 

The service started out much like last week, Brian was unsure and made us circle the building to make sure it was a go.  Last week, we at least got to circle in the car, this week we were already parked and he make me walk through the wet grass and stand 20 yards away as we waited to see who entered.  My feet were getting damp, so I finally walked up, spoke to the lady at the door and waived Brian to come on in (never once indicating that everyone inside was over 60 and had ovaries).  In the chapel, there were two rows of chairs in a semi circle around a single chair and podium holding a Buddha statute and a photo of the monk who was to lead the teaching and meditation.  At least I think it was the same monk; it is hard to tell, they all dress the same and have the same haircut.  This monk was a Caucasian female so I should really be more confident about that.  Correction: she was not a monk, but a nun, just checked out that fact, sorry.  Both monks and nuns wear the traditional yellow and maroon robes, shave their heads and give up many of the awesome things in life like sex and trips to Nordstrom Rack (so many deals on so many great brands, and they just don’t even care). 

The service asked for a $12 donation up front to help cover the costs of the room.  Actually, we appreciate that, since we began this adventure, it always results in the same scenario when the collection basket comes around.  We whisper about what to give, decide on an amount and then check our wallets to determine that I only have three dollars and some change and Brian only has a $20.  Do we give a $20, does the golden rule of never tipping change apply here, is it wrong to make change out of the cash in the basket…? Ah such stress, not today! We knew what to give, it was on the website.  Getting that out of the way, we were ready to get our meditation on. 

The service was all led by the nun and we started with a breathing mediation exercise.  She asked that we all close our eyes and focus on our breathing for about 10-15 minutes.  I found this much more relaxing then having to stand then sit, then stand then sit, then stand then kneel , we got in a zone.  After the breathing meditation, the nun delivered a teaching about inner peace.  Somewhat similar to the sermon, but much more casual and referencing a book that looked like it could be purchased at an airport bookstore.   After the teaching, we were asked to have a discussion about the teaching with another person in the room.  Turns out that the person next to me is not great about spiritual discussions.  I told him what I got out of the teaching, which was about finding happiness by eliminating negative thoughts as well as using your thoughts, words, actions and being to make life happier and better for those around you.  Then I asked what he had gotten out of it and what he planned to meditate on for the second meditation.  I think he answered something to the effect of “what you said.” Then he outlined why he can’t meditate because it is like a TV show in his head and there is too much awesomeness going on inside it and he forgot to take his Zyrtec  so he couldn’t breathe through his nose.  All I could think is, man this guy needs some mediation, and who let him leave the house in dad sneakers, basketball shorts, a promotional t-shirt and hat hair. Oh wait, that was me, I really let him wear that, oh well. 

After the discussion, we concluded with a mantra meditation focused on the Sanskrit words “Om” “Ah” “Hum”.  This incorporated saying “Om” on the inhale, “Ah” on the pause and “Hum” on the exhale .  This mantra brings the primal, universal, infinite vibration into one's heart and being, into one's awareness. (wow Brian actually came up with that line, so I guess he brought more than just seasonal allergies to this).  That was pretty much the service. 

For those less familiar with the practice, it focuses on the belief that through training in meditation and other Buddhist practices you can improve the quality of your life by developing inner peace, compassion, and wisdom.  That sounds pretty awesome, but how do you get there:  apparently, “happiness and suffering are states of mind, and so their main causes cannot be found outside the mind. The real source of happiness is inner peace. If our mind is peaceful, we shall be happy all the time, regardless of external conditions, but if it is disturbed or troubled in any way, we shall never be happy, no matter how good our external conditions may be. External conditions can only make us happy if our mind is peaceful. We can understand this through our own experience. For instance, even if we are in the most beautiful surroundings and have everything we need, the moment we get angry any happiness we may have disappears. This is because anger has destroyed our inner peace. We can see from this that if we want true, lasting happiness we need to develop and maintain a special experience of inner peace. The only way to do this is by training our mind through spiritual practice – gradually reducing and eliminating our negative, disturbed states of mind and replacing them with positive, peaceful states.” 

Well that is what the website says, and it sounds simple enough.  The downside is that I think it takes more than 90 minutes of breathing in a park to get there.  Once the Buddhists invent an electronic device that pulsates inner peace straight from a direct current connection into one’s soul, I think it will catch on in America or at least Hollywood.  

Week #10 Easter at The Life Church International Herndon, VA

Nothing embodies the holy spirit of Easter like worshiping our savior’s great sacrifice and resurrection in a movie theater, and not an old converted movie theater, but literally the theater where we saw the last Harry Potter about 3 months ago. And to further embrace the true spirit of the holiday, the movie theater that turns into a church before the first matinee also promises a free movie ticket to first time guests.  I have two things to say about this: #1. Even we feel a little troubled about celebrating what is undoubtedly the most sacred day in Christendom just to get a movie ticket #2. The ticket better be for a real movie and not for Passion of the Christ or some recruitment flick.

We didn’t plan to celebrate Easter at the movie theater church.  Originally, we planned to attend the Ukrainian Orthodox Easter Bizarre, I’d even written it down.  However, when I went to the website on Saturday night I realized that the Ukrainian Orthodox Easter was not until April 15.  I guess their Jesus took a while longer to decide to return to earth.  I can’t blame him, I’ve never been, but pictures of Ukraine always make it look gray and cold and like it would smell like cabbage and street crime.  When that plan was foiled, we looked at going to the National Cathedral, turns out you need tickets for that.  So that brings us to week #10 The Life Church International Herndon, VA.

I’m pretty sure this was my first service with an African American preacher, and it is true what they say, “I’m not going back.”  We were a bit nervous at first, there were not a lot of cars in the parking lot, but once it got started it was pretty good.  The husband/wife preacher team had so much energy it was contagious.  I love the style, the passion, the intonation, the women yelling out “teach it preacher” “amen” “hallelujah” “preach pastor”… with that energy you feel God, you really do.  Any doubt we had about the authenticity of church in a movie theater was gone, it was actually quite nice; the seats are comfortable, there are cup holders, the sound system is great, all it took was some wooden crosses, a podium and some flowers and presto you have a church.

It took a while to fill in (insert raciest comment here), but eventually there was a nice mixed crowd.  There were Asians, Indians, blacks, whites (well 3), most of them knew each other, but they were welcoming without being overwhelming.  The service started with some worship singing, followed by the “love feast” sounds scary but it was just greet your neighbor time, then an interpretive dance, some very engaging preaching and a benediction given by a lady with such zeal and energy I’d probably follow her anywhere. 

The opening worship songs woke us up right away, there was clapping and even with the small group, people sang.  The sermon had so much energy, and the preacher had a true talent for vocal inflection.  I can’t even put it into words, and my impression was laughable at best, if you can’t visualize it I don’t know watch a Tyler Perry flick or the scenes in Coming to America with the preacher, or something.  The best part, well after the energy and the faint smell of popcorn, was the topic “God’s unconditional love”  love for everyone, not just a few, but everyone.  That is a great message.

In the end it doesn’t matter where you worship, that is just a building.  The church is its people and this church’s people had heart.  Heart, and a free post church film, can I get an “amen?!”.

Week #9 Denver Street Preacher

Ah Palm Sunday, the day Jesus came back from the desert  and rode through the streets on a donkey while people waived palm fronds at him or laid them in front of him, maybe it was a horse.  I’m not really sure about the details.  I would have received some clarification had I attended any of the millions of churches that celebrate this holy day, I did not.  I was in Denver for a pre-work conference vacation followed by a work conference and it was 75 degrees and sunny so I got up Sunday morning and went for a run, I planned to follow my run with a visit to the local Cathedral.  I even witnessed the first service parishioners lining up outside of the church receiving their palms.  I planned to be in the same line in about an hour in a half, key word “planned”.
Week #9 Denver, CO Street Preacher The church I planned to attend The guy I listened to instead The concept of Palm Sunday would be worth exploring in this blog.  It is fascinating that they still pass out the palms to every guest.  What do you do with them after that?  It is kinda like a National Geographic, you’re done with it, but can’t really throw it away.  So, just like the National Graphics, you find a place for it.  You can tuck it behind the crucifix on your hallway wall if you’re Catholic, or you can weave it into a cross if you’re crafty, or you can put it in your rearview mirror if you’re Spanish.  This gave me a lot to think about while I ran, and then it hit me…oh not what to do with my palm, what hit me was the altitude, hangover, and breakfast burrito.  It is harder than I thought to run in the mile high city, even harder after a night of craft brews and a huge breakfast that I ordered with the intention of only eating “half”.  So after a solid 15 minute run, I was ready for a walk/smoothie break.  Luckily I had landed at Denver’s 16^th Street Mall, offering several blocks of pedestrian shopping, eating and on Sunday mornings home to a 16^th Street Mall street preacher.
We’ve all passed by a street preacher on our way to happy hour or economics 202. Who can forget the posters of late term abortion fetuses or the verbal reminder that we are going to rot in Hell. It takes a special mix of crazy, prior addiction, corduroy skirts, blind conviction and oration skills to make a street preacher.  We’ve all stopped and watched for a minute or two, or sneakily posed behind them with our yard of beer while our friend snapped an iphone photo, but this time I stayed to listen.  For three reasons really, I had to finish my smoothie before I could finish running, this guy seemed to be a happy preacher, and literally no one else was listening.  His voice carried too, it wasn’t as if no one could hear.  It was sad that his passion was falling on deaf ears; it was just background noise like a passing bus or music spewing from H&M.
I sat on a bench across the street and clandestinely listened as he preached from a doorway in the facade of an office building.  His pulpit created just the right acoustics to allow his voice to carry down the street.  At this point I would have been either late or smelly for real church so I committed to stay for at least 30 minutes, somehow that seemed fair enough to count for the week.  Plus, he seemed truly passionate and I was interested to learn what drove this passion.  He was preaching out with a good chance that no one would even listen, yet he felt what he had to say was so important that he would continue on the off chance that even one person would hear.  That is pretty deep, I’ve never been that passionate about anything and I respect that.   In the close to forty minutes that I sat listening, I learned the following things: 1.       Jesus saved this particular preacher from a life in jail (no cynicism here, that is awesome, I mean if your faith can turn your life around what more can you ask for?) 2.       Jesus can cure AIDS 3.       Jesus can cure the diabetes 4.       Street preachers bank on no one listening for more than 2 minutes so they really just say the same thing over and over againRegardless it is still a fascinating form of religious expression.  It is one thing to speak in front of a group that got dressed up to hear you preach a sermon in-line with their believes, but it takes balls to stand up in front of random shoppers who probably just think you’re a bit crazy.I wanted to go up and talk to him after, I wanted to know more of his story (truthfully I got the bulk of it in the 40 minutes I was listening) but I’d love to know why he feels this is the best forum to deliver his message, what does he do the other 6 days of the week and how can he preach like that without a water break.  So many questions were still unanswered.  But low-income middle-aged crazy guys tend to find me attractive, especially those with gold teeth.  It is a blessing and a curse, well more of a curse, a curse that has resulted in several awkward conversations at gas stations and convenient stores.  It wasn’t worth it.

Week #8 church van

Week 8 Also too lame to make it to church.  We did, however, ride in a church van.  That’s odd! I know!  If you want to know why we were in a church van, message my mom, Pat Gase and ask (she is on facebook and doesn’t read this blog).  You can ask her: “why did Jen and Brian ride in a church van?” or “Why did you not go online and rent a car before arriving in Florida so you would not need to rent the last vehicle on the lot?” One kinda answers the other.  It was funny because they followed us down the FL toll road in the church van and at each toll, we would pay double, for our normal sized rental car and for “the church van behind us.”  It was funny…for the first toll. 

Week # 7 St. John Basco La Fortuna, Costa Rica

There are two things Costa Ricans hate, road signs and pavement.  So those who make it up the mountain to church every Sunday morning have my respect.  However, those who will give me a 3 hour spa treatment for $50 American dollars have my time and money.  So we didn’t exactly make it to church the week of our Costa Rican vacation.  We did make it into a church, and Brian told me to make up the rest, but truthfully, I’m not that creative or motivated.  I’ve been to a Catholic church in a foreign country before so I really could have made something up, and it would have gone something like this…

Week #7 St. John Basco La Fortuna, Costa Rica.  

First of all, Costa Rica is awesome, it is one of the few vacation spots we have visited more than once.  There are sloths, beaches, hot springs, monkeys, zip lines, waterfalls and beers.  And for about $230 bucks, you can rent a Nissan Tiida for a week.  What’s a Nissan Tiida you ask? I’m pretty sure it is Spanish for Nissan Versa.  As we soon learned, the Tiida is a miracle of modern machinery, it has two wheel drive and maybe a 4 cylinder engine, and somehow hauled 5 people and 5 suitcases up and down 3.5 very suspicious rainforest mountains. The .5 is because we were too cheap for the GPS resulting in a 30 minute night drive up the wrong mountain road on our way to paying $40 to take a rickety metal cage out over a canyon just to jump off in winds that would shut down most American cities. (I’m pretty sure the OSHA inspector trucks must have taken the wrong road too and never made it up to this attraction).  If you are wondering how after 30 minutes we knew we had the incorrect road, it was because we came around a bend and faced a 70 degree climb up the dirt road.  Actually that is a lie, it was not the steep, pothole riddled death trial lined in 10,000ft drops into the canyon that forced us to turn around.  It was the fact that the Tiida wouldn’t make it up, we tried, twice.  With the assistance of some very broken driving directions, we came to a cute little town in the foothills of an active volcano with the church in the center of town.  It was Catholic so there was lots of sitting and kneeling followed by some standing and some more kneeling.  Something about Hey Zeus and the rest was in Spanish, or something to the effect.