[image from St. Paul's Akron website] I had sometimes thought of myself as one of God's unfunny jokes--let's gift this person for ministry, but put her in a church that didn't allow women to use those particular gifts. My final summer of library school, God sent another joke. Because my home church was fighting, considering yet anther split, I couldn't go watch. I'd had some disappointing things occur in the church I belonged to during the school year, too. So I checked the newspaper every week, looking for what I called the best show in town. Independence Day weekend featured the Akron Bagpipers at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I thought that would be a hoot, and so I drove across town to be amused, but the joke was on me. I'd been told that mainline churches were "cold, dead, liberal," but no one told me about the music. The music director then at St. Paul's was the head of the Royal School of Church Music in America. Their men and boys choir was magnificent, the sermon was quite good, and someone came to welcome me. I walked out thinking, What else have they lied to me about? I went back every Sunday, newly in love with liturgy and taken by the courtesy of it all: "The Lord be with you." "And also with you." I went back to my job at the end of the summer, thinking this new love was like infatuation or the flu--I'd get over it. And God laughed.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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