Birdhouse of Worship

I spent the morning at churches, three of them. It was a church sandwich, a traditional structure pressed between ether.

In the middle was the church to which my daughter’s parish school is attached. I learned that my painfully shy child would be whistling in class mass. And so I made my way there after the park, after my first temple visit, where I worshipped at the alter of the great swamp oak, at the base of tree, at the mouth of river. My husband took a moment from his class to join me in the pew, row 14 on the aisle.

At once, the music teacher’s guitar strumming began, and so did my daughter. The pastor stopped them, startled that there was whistling. The music teacher explained, and they began again. It was so beautiful I thought the room had filled with hundreds of angels. I cried. I had to turn my back on her; I was making sounds, squeaks of weeping, all of it joyful, I think, but it felt like pain! My beautiful daughter! Her talents are too good for this world!

I guess this is the natural pride that comes from parenting. A few of the kids in Serena’s class read passages from the Bible, and their parents, I’m certain, were beaming.

The sermon today was about a gardener with an aging fig tree that no longer produced fruit. The gardener wanted to cut it down, but Jesus told him to surround it with manure and wait. If it failed to bear figs the following year, the gardener could cut it down.

This was followed by some prayers. The pastor asked us to let religion bring about peace. Hardly a war has been waged in the name of other than God or God’s many other names. Religion is responsible for war; how can it bring us peace?

The Church is a dark place, and though I sometimes hear joy in the songs, it is mostly solemn and dark and quiet. I don’t hear a lot of rejoicing going on in there. Houses of worship are the same—lots of asking for religion to undo what it, alone, has done, not to mention the standing and the sitting and the kneeling and the praying and the rocking.

The pastor came down to speak to the kids and ask them why the story of the fig tree is significant. I thought about it myself, decided that it meant we all deserved a second chance to thrive, with help. But are we entitled to a second chance only ? Not a third or fourth? Because once the fig tree is nurtured, it has a single year in which to prove itself worthy of life.

One of the third graders said the story represented Jesus’s love for all things, and the pastor said she was correct. “We are all special,” he said.

We are not all special; if we all are, then no one is. People who teach hatred and intolerance are not special. People who do no good deeds are not special. People who don’t touch the hearts or minds or souls of others are just people, and they can be good people, yes, but what makes them special? Last night, at Ikea, an older woman was wrapping a dozen plates by herself. We were the only ones in line behind her. My sister barged right in there and said, “Here, let me help you!” The woman apologized for holding us up, and my sister said she wasn’t at all. She then wrapped nearly every plate, the woman saying, “You’re doing it all! Thank you!” She couldn’t fathom why my sister would be helping her when we were all finished and ready to leave. But she was grateful. They are special—those who help, those who receive help graciously.

Little girls who whistle up to heaven and bring the angels to their knees are special.

After witnessing the always-bizarre eating of the “body” and “blood” of Christ, I kissed my daughter goodbye and drove home, where I disturbed all manner of bird. The house finches pecked at holes in the concrete, the starlings dotted the phone lines, a cardinal sat alone on the garage, two blue jays—their bright blue always as pleasant a surprise as their metallic call—flew into the pine, and the robins and crows and catbirds milled about in various trees.

I stalked them with my camera for twenty minutes, including the time spent, by invitation, in a neighbor’s yard, where the robins plucked and ate holly berries and the red-headed woodpecker waited for me to go.

And so here am I, at my throne in front of endless blank screens, summoning whatever strength I’ve gathered from my church of the swamp oak and church of the bird, churches that bring no harm, churches around which no wars have begun. And I pray that the earth and the sky bestow upon me some special words, something worthy of them, something that someday may make my daughter beam with pride.