Church Thoughts......

I have often wondered and wondering now...whatever happened to church as I knew it?  I have come to the conclusion that people as they age want things to remain like they were...certain things at least.  The things that made them comfortable.  We are after all what we have lived....  as much as what we live.  When I was little I went to an old style country Methodist Church.  That "dinosaur" is a thing of the past.  That little church that served the members and the community as it faded away is a thing of the past.  The sixties came and they literally tore the building down and paved the lot for parking...  I miss that church.  After that, in the sixties, I attended a very "milk toast" church.  No spirit there at all...  Just folks coming in to do their time on Sunday morning.  The only real "spirit" in the sense of knowing God was there was in the heart of the organist/pianist and her family.  The rest were just well "doing their time".  Then came the seventies (have you guessed my age  yet?).  In the seventies the Nazarenes came to town.  The little church in Alfred Station with the poverty pitching preacher that bent over backwards hauling "sheep" in but did not know how to deal with them when they got there. His heart was in the right place as he did the best he knew how...which ended him up now in Florida I think.  :)  That church is gone.  But; I learned from that church what sticks with me today.  I learned that God was meant to be shared....  Don't hide the light under a bushel.  You should be out there sharing and inviting folks to share the "love" with you.  As I tell my granddaughter now all the time, she being six, if you hold anger in your heart you are taking up the space that "love" needs.  Afterall; hearts are for loving.  So while the drama of it all was intimidating and a big put off at the time; now I miss that.  I can't find it anywhere.  Where did "church" go.  If that is the church I seek, the church of my youth so to speak, where is it? 

After highschool I ended up back what was then the new Methodists....milk toast with sugar...  Folks who drank and partied on Saturday night and came in to do their very routine and "guessable" church on Sunday morning with the sermon from the barrel written years before...nothing spontaneous...    This compared to everything made up as it went along in High School's Nazarene Church.  That ended badly.  When the preacher's family disowned me as a friend the church literally drove me out.  Left a bad taste in my mouth to say the least and I did no church for many years.  Then; about eight years later I began looking again.  I tried again Nazarenes whose first impression was that my three little boys were going to you know where (before the age of five) if I did not "dedicate" them to the power of the church...  Sigh... again... I walked away....  Remembering I sought them. Noone ever reached out to me in adulthood for church purposes short of Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses going door to door.  I tried a few others spending a long time with the Continuing Congregationalists here in New England.  The key being again that "I" sought them out and had it pointed out to me regular initially that they did not know what to do with us because noone had ever sought them.  Again I ask....where is the religion of my youth?  What happened to sharing God and reaching out?  Well I fought to fit in that church for a good ten years with NEVER an invitation to join that church as a member.  I finally got my old Methodist membership of my own volition and transferred it to there...where it sits today.  I don't sit there however anymore.  I finally gave up.  Ten years of trying to feel at home finally ended...  Guess I am difficult? 

So that brings us to the present.  The present is where I sit.  I can honestly say that in 33 years in New England states, CT to be exact, the only "religions" that have reached out and solicited or shared God (their version granted) with me are as follows...  The Mormons (door to door) but they quit coming some years ago...  The Jehovah's Witnesses who have all but quit, and believe it or not the Catholics.  I forgot to mention that I had my boys in Parochial school for mega years without ever getting an invitation to be part of that church.  Now; my granddaughter is in parochial school in another town.  Believe it or not that "Father" is the first man of the cloth to reach out and offer to share his religion with open arms to my family in over thirty years.  Perhaps that is the direction I am meant to go.  You see I have looked....  and lookd...and tried and tried.  Obviously I have done something wrong ...my technique is lacking...my heart is deficient... I don't know.  But; well if it were a contest for the one branch that reached the furthest to try and fit us in a church family it would be the Catholics....  Thanks Father Tito.  Religion is alive and well in my part of CT in the heart of a Catholic Priest and a small group of Sisters.  Don't know what happend to religion in this state but it is well hidden....not like where I grew up....  Maybe it's afraid of the "son light"?

Melody