The Impatient Parishioner

I'll be honest.  Church annoyed me today. 

I do not say that with any pride, mind you.  In fact, it's kind of embarrassing to admit that I would have preferred to clean the bathroom than to have sat through a worship service at a church that I happen to like very much.

But, today, for whatever reason, we were incommunicado. 

And I was such an impatient grouch that, when the little girl standing in the pew in front of me waved her chubby little fingers my way, I might have actually sneered at her.  For some reason, I was a babe magnet today, flanked by two other kids--a talkative tot sitting directly behind me that burbled and babbled her way through the service and her cry-baby baby brother who broke into teary spasms halfway through the service.

Sweet Jesus,  I had to sit on my hands at one point and practice some faintly-recalled Lamaze breathing techniques just so I wouldn't turn around and make a fool of myself.

What is it that harshed my otherwise churchy mellow this morning? 

I mean I had been in a fine mood up until the service began.  Heck, I'd happily wandered around the church courtyard just minutes before the service, saying hello and handing out hugs like the loving child of God that I was.

And just yesterday, I'd spent several fine hours with a few dozen women from my church, getting in touch with the great outdoors and feeling chock full of love by the time we'd left Spring Creek prairie. 

Maybe I had overdone "church" this weekend, then. Was that what it was?

Frankly, it would be very hard to overdo First-Plymouth, what with its awesome, smart, funny staff and all the great folks I've met there over the years.  I've never been happier--or more involved--at a church than I am right now.

After the retreat yesterday, my friend Jen was talking about the "thinness" of Lincoln, the palpable transparency between the physical and the spiritual that she believes exists in this town and its surrounding prairie. 

Applying a completely backwards interpretation of Jen's thoughts, maybe I was a bit too thin this morning, and I lacked the armor that would've helped me ignore the babies, the babbling, the slightly too-long sermon.  Or maybe I was simply a middle-aged, warts-and-all woman with a suddenly restless mind and a temporary aversion to cute children who was looking for a pause or a reset button while battling a case of her own humanity.

All I know is that, in the end, no children were harmed in the making of this experience.  And that, I suppose, is good enough for today.