A Stranger In A Strange Land

Here I go again, my annoyance directed at the Christians. Or should I say, "Christians." This is becoming a recurring theme for me. But lest ye judge before ye have heard the latest turn of events, read on. Then, judge if ye must.

Last week my son was playing cello in a youth orchestra that was invited to perform during services for a local presbyterian church, one that recently left the Presbyterian Church (USA) to join the theologically more conservative (read: no gays) Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I didn't care what church it was. For me, son performing cello with orchestra=good, so I chose to attend the service, even though I am of a different religious persuasion.

It was a sunny if freezing cold day here in Suburbia as I dropped said son off at the door with his instrument, and pulled into a parking spot somewhere in the middle of the vast lot. There had to be several hundred cars there already, a half-hour before the service was to begin. I locked the car and proceeded into the church.

Without commenting on the service itself, I'll just give a little recap. When the pastor ascended the "altar"---if you could call it that, for it was really nothing more than a stage. I don't know if that's the normal presbyterian set-up but there it was---he began a quick dialogue with his flock that went something like this:

Pastor: "God is good!"

Congregation: "God is good!"

Pastor: "All the time?"

Congregation: "All the time!"

Pastor: "Especially today?"

Congregation: "Especially today!"

"This should be entertaining," thought I, an estranged Catholic who currently resides in the House of Judah. Entertaining was not the word. More like fascinating, in a weird scientific sort of way. I felt like an anthropologist observing an alien culture deep in the heart of darkness.

There was no ritual to speak of. The service consisted of congregants standing before the crowd, giving what I suppose to be their testimony. Person one, a nice middle-aged lady who had designed the day's booklet, talked about her "service", which consisted of using her art to spread her religion. Not very inspiring, but harmless and kind of sweet.

Person two spoke of a fellow congregant, a 97-year old widow who wrote weekly notes for 20 years to a neighbor who was incarcerated for murder. Her correspondence consisted largely of a card with the word "Jesus" written on it, which the neighbor kept under his pillow. Inspiring. One might ask where Jesus was when the neighbor went on a bender that ended in him shooting another man to death, thus leaving his own 12 children to fend for themselves while he was serving time.

Person three was a middle-aged man who had lost his job after 29 years, who talked about what a blessing it was to have had and lost his job, which he didn't appreciate until he was in the unemployment line. I didn't really get the part about how getting fired from a job you like was a blessing. It felt a little more like an AA meeting: "Hello, my name is Bob, and I got fired." "Hello Bob."

Person four was an older man, mid-sixties maybe, who talked about losing his first wife to cancer ("We walked into the valley together, and I came out alone" is how he described it), and then was blessed to meet his second wife, to whom he's been married for 14 years. And wouldn't you know it, wife number two now has cancer, and he's in the valley again with her and he's pretty sure he's coming out alone again. The blessing part is that the church has provided a huge community that holds them and prays for them. That, I get. It is certainly a blessing to have people care for you in times of need.

I picked up a little book sitting in the pew in front of me called "The Story of God's Glory", on the front of which "Jesus is Lord" was written in a variety of languages, including Arabic. I wondered how the Arabs would feel about that. I noted that Hebrew was not among the languages, and concluded, with some relief, that the Jews were apparently not the intended targets of their evangelism.

I paged through the day's announcements set forth in a little pamphlet, which began "We welcome those of you who are visiting [our] church for the first time. We pray that you will be blessed by your time among us and that you'll come again." It even said visitors should stop by the Welcome Center after the service for a special gift! (exclamation point included).

After each speaker, the pastor said a few words, and repeatedly spoke of how God has poured his spirit onto the people. The money basket was sent around. The orchestra played, though they were frequently drowned out by the organist. The choir sang, and that was that. I touched base with my son, who asked me to pick him up after a church luncheon.

I left the church thinking that they seemed like a nice group of people and it was a shame I could not identify with their message. But being perfectly content with my own religious community, I did not dwell on it.

As I approached my car, I noticed the window looked strange. At first I thought I had the wrong car, and looked in the windshield for my son's fuzzy purple dice hanging from the rear view mirror. The dice were there as usual, right next to his high school parking permit. I looked at the window again. It was not my imagination. The driver window was smashed. Completely. The glass was still in the frame, but was so shattered you couldn't see inside the car.

People began to gather around me. I opened the door and the glass collapsed into little green pieces all over the driver seat, the floor of the car, and the parking lot, like so much glistening confetti.

"What happened?" people asked, shock in their voices.

"Someone smashed the window," someone replied.

"Well this is a nice first-time welcome to the church," I said under my breath, but audibly.

"Oh and she's never been here before."

"Oh, isn't that terrible!"

"This isn't the first time this has happened," someone else said.

"I never trusted those apartments," another person answered, evidently referring to a row of apartments that bordered the parking lot. Apartments in Suburbia, but still, you never know what kind of riff-raff might be lurking around.

A variety of people hugged me and said they were so sorry. After a while I felt like I was receiving condolences on the loss of a loved one, and began saying "It's just a car, we'll get it fixed."

The janitor came out and waited with me for the police and AAA to arrive. The policewoman made a report. The towtruck came (I wasn't going to drive a car filled with glass and no window on a 15 degree day) and the janitor swept up the parking lot.

I called my insurance company and learned that I had a $500 deductible. I made a few other calls and learned that the repair was going to be in the neighborhood of $400. I wondered if I should call the church to ask them to pay for it, or at least to kick in half. My thinking was that they must have insurance to protect against property damage.

I called the church the next day and left a message, asking if they had a mechanism for submitting a vandalism claim to their insurance company. And guess what? They did not return my call. I called again, a week later, and spoke to a woman whom I presume was a secretary.

"Oh, I forwarded your message to the pastor."

"Well, it's been a week and he hasn't called me back."

"I'm not sure what you want him to do," she replied, most unhelpfully.

"I'd like to find out if your insurance company can take care of this," I said.

"I don't know why we should take care of that," she answered, in a snitty voice.

"My car was vandalized while it was parked on your property," I said. "It's likely that your insurance covers this."

"Oh I don't think so," she said. "But I'll give you the pastor's voice mail."

I left another message for the good reverand. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, given the insensitivity I've experienced at the hands of other good Christians, but he still has not returned my call.

Aside from the whole "what would Jesus do" credo these people allegedly live by, whatever happened to common courtesy? What kind of community invites a person into their midst, then snubs them when the going gets tough?

To be truthful, I don't know if the church has any legal liability for what happened on their property. My legal training tells me that they may have been negligent in not posting signs warning people to "Park at Your Own Risk", since there have been known acts of vandalism in their parking lot. But at a minimum, a simple return call expressing regret that someone would commit vandalism against one of their guests, and offering to at least check with their insurance company, would have gone a long way in placating my anger and increasing cynicism toward this community.

I have been a stranger in a strange land, and evidently, the stranger is not welcomed at this particular church. I know I don't feel "blessed" by my time among them, except of course for the pleasure of hearing my son play the cello. I read in the paper that they paid Presbyterian Church (USA) six figures to keep the name and property when they broke off. So I guess they can't spare even a little to make nice with a heathen such as myself. Maybe if I make like Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, and accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior and renounce my wicked ways, they would be more willing to pony up. Or at least to return my phone call.