NEW EXPERIENCES TERESA WALLACE said goodbye to organised church life, only to find her true church in the oddest places: a cancer ward, an Edinburgh flat full of Brahms — and her own bathroom On finding a New Church kindly Episcopalian rector some years ago. From vestry member, to editing the church magazine, to reading lessons, I was slotted into a weekly regime that left me feeling dutiful but dull of mind. The scepticism born of a fairly liberal church upbringing was threatening to overwhelm me, as I found myself more and more dissociated from what was going on around me each Sunday.
Wrangles over whether the altar should or should not be brought into the centre of the church made me yawn and I could no longer muster up any zeal for the eternal round of jumble sales, silent auctions, Victorian evenings, sales of work and all the rest of the paraphernalia that was part and parcel of keeping the show on the road and the roof on the church. The only thing that was keeping me in the pew was my friendship with some of the members of the congregation.
From way back I had always thought that the first two commandments were the wrong way round. How could you possibly take on loving a God who was of doubtful provenance when there were real live flesh-and-blood people to practise on? As the years went by, the truth (well, my truth) of these instincts took root: any sense of God-ness, or of the numinous, as I now prefer to call it, seemed to manifest itself through quiet contemplation and experiences of being with people. I started wondering if I couldn’t serve my neighbour just as well outside the Church.
The Rector listened to my story and said “fine”: he was a good liberal - in principle, anyway.
It took a little time to shed the guilt. I shocked myself at how little I missed the regime - indeed how little I missed any of it. Then came the guilt about not feeling guilty... But, as Karen Armstrong so wisely says in The Gospel According to Women, “guilt makes the self far too important”, and five years on, I reckon need a year out”, I said to m é ‘TI y i “I don’t miss the Church...but I’d love to see churches reborn as places of natural refreshment” I’ve finally allowed myself to put that peculiarly non-creative and stifling human emotion to rest - at least insofar as the Church is concerned. Jumping into the Sea of Faith, of course, had a bit to do with it.
It was Stephen Mitchell’s article in the winter edition of last year’s Sea of Faith that finally caused me to shake off my diffidence in writing for this journal. His plea for “lots and lots of stories” to live by and inspire our imaginations, for “lots and lots of forums” and “tasks” to get involved in, caused me to think about my own life over these past five years. For it’s had its fair share of stories, discussions and tasks, and they’ve not felt of any less value in being pursued outside the framework of a church setting. The old Bible stories will always be there for us to delve into, but shouldn’t we also regard the current stories in our lives as worthy of exploration and meaning?
It seems to me that the patient building of a community around us and the attention we give to the stories we live in, invite us to do exactly what Stephen calls for - faith: faith in the people, in the shape and the dance of the stories, in throwing oneself into the flux (such a Don-ish word), to “go solar”. My church gets created as I go along nowadays, and it turns up in some very strange places.
The cancer ward So here we were, my much-loved niece and I, looking at each other in some amazement as the chemicals seeped into her arm. Around us, the mundane hum of the ward couldn’t mask the fact that in each bed there was a person whose story was being lived at who-knows-what level of fear and despair. But somehow the combination of looking the tiger in the eye and calling his bluff allowed us both to jump into another dimension and, clever artist that she is, we were able to create some sort of private space where we prowled around the host of experiences we had shared over the years. We found you can laugh as well as weep in a cancer ward.
The bathroom Today I’m stretched out, water to my neck, resting aching limbs in the late afternoon after a heavy task. In the mirror ahead I see reflected the big slategrey gesso ammonite, made for me by my son’s partner for my birthday.
Shining on the cupboard door is the reflection of a piece of stained glass, made by our daughter for my husband.
On the wall are two wood engravings of fish by my niece, and on the window-sill a little pottery man sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, made by my then eightyear old son. I find these symbols of time, light, sustenance and rest wonderful to ponder on; yes, you can have a church in a bathroom.
Brahms in A flat Patti Whaley’s life-affirming presentation to last year’s New Zealand SoF conference, “Thoughts on Reality and Meaning in Absolute Music”, made me aware of how much I owe Frank, a friend of mine whose starry career as Professor of Radiology in a big London hospital was ended by a severe stroke. He has little speech, limited mobility, and an iron will. He also loves Brahms. Invariably the welcoming “Herrow Rereeza” is followed by some Brahms, and over the years the whole repertoire has been spread before me. How could I, I ask myself now, have had such a sketchy knowledge of such a profound composer? The almost wordless conversations I have had with Frank, over nearly 10 years now, have acquired a depth of meaning, which might, I suppose, confound some of the more wordy Softies. Nevertheless, such conversations form another aspect of the church I am creating - and find myself created by.
I've dropped into my church unawares sometimes - when the grey Edinburgh roofs are slick with rain, when the blue poppies are out in the Botanical Gardens, when our table is surrounded by friends or family. And I’m there when I sigh over the SoF email discussion group (where I’m still a bashful “lurker” ) - and suddenly the flash of a real person (yes, real) comes through the torrents of words.
I don’t miss The Church, but I'd love to think the churches - how blessed you are in England to have all those glorious buildings - could be reborn so that they were regarded as natural places of refreshment. Then I could say, when at a party with some young people as I was the other day, “Why not have a look in at St. James at lunch-time. You can just walk in; there may be some music, an exhibition, a talk, perhaps nothing special. But it’s a peaceful place, and although there’s usually someone around you won't be waylaid by a ‘skinny hand’ at the door, or looked over as potential pew fodder. You'll find out lots of information about what’s going on locally, as well as matters of concern further afield”.
And I’m two-faced enough myself still to yearn for an occasional lungful of that essence of ancient building that rushes me back to my childhood in rural England, and — like Larkin, “once I’m sure there’s nothing going on” — to step across a church threshold, just to get a hold on the smell and the feel and the light of a “serious house on serious earth”, And if I catch the tail-end of Evensong, I'll probably bend my ear, and know I shall weep when I hear the prayer about the “shades lengthening, the busy world hushed, the fever of life over”, as those familiar words echo down the years @ Teresa Wallace is a member of the SoF steering committee and of the Network’s Edinburgh group. She edited the SoF anthology “This is my Story”, and is an amateur musician.