Home Church

The reasons we chose the church weren’t particularly flattering. It was close, under five minutes from our house if traffic was favorable. They had a pretty thin looking praise team, so if they’d have us, we would both be able to play. The pastor seemed nice and the sermons didn’t strain my liberal sensitivities too hard. And it was relatively anonymous, so we didn’t feel the scarlet A’s branding us every time we entered the sanctuary.

We were married now, but that hadn’t always been the case. We had attended church together for five years, but in the before days, we had been married to other people, and lots of people in the church community of our town knew it.

countrychurchIn my previous life, when I had changed churches, I always knew immediately when I found my new church home. In those instances, there was a simple feeling of belonging. Even if it hadn’t made sense to me why I felt that way, I could tell when a new congregation was home.

But I didn’t have that feeling here.

I told my husband I’d probably feel more at home when I started serving in the congregation. I told him that when I was giving something of myself to the church, I would get that feeling of belonging. It wouldn’t just be the church that I went to, but it would become my church.

We never wanted our past to come to the surface and catch the leadership of the church unawares, so we had lunch with the pastors, one of us gripping the leg of the other who was telling their part of the story, trying to send strength to each other through leg compressions. Grace was extended, and we were invited to join the team of musicians. We had our first rehearsal with the team. We played our first Sunday, almost a year to the day from the last time we had played together, and it was a joy-filled experience. Everything was coming together in the best possible way.

And still the feeling of “home” evaded me.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. What was holding me back from experiencing that sense of belonging in this place where we had been shown so much grace and love? Why couldn’t I feel at home when I was being embraced by those I worshiped with each week?

I turned these questions over in my mind and realized that the only thing holding me back was me. I didn’t feel at home because I wasn’t allowing myself to feel at home.

In my mind, I heard the voices that had told me I wasn’t welcome in church any more. Heard the voices that told me that I was a distraction. Heard the voices that told me that I didn’t belong.

Instead of seeing the ways we were being accepted, I kept expecting rejection. I waited for the shame I felt to be reflected back in the words or actions of others. I listened to the voices in my head instead of the voices of those right in front of me.

I wanted to feel at home, so I made a different choice.

When the voices in my head started telling me that I didn’t belong, I started looking for the ways that my church was helping me to belong. I thought about parking lot conversations after services. I thought about late night dinners at Burger King. I thought about hugs offered when we explained why the baby dedication service was too painful for us to attend. I thought of all of the ways that the church I was attending was becoming my church.

And it finally felt like home.

 *   *   *   *   *

424033_10151308414006236_662319879_n (1)“Home Church” was written by Alise Chaffins. Alise is a wife, a mother, an eater of soup, and a lover of Oxford commas. You can generally find her sitting behind a keyboard of some kind: playing or teaching the piano, writing at her laptop, or texting her friends a random movie quote. Alise lives in West Virginia and blogs at knittingsoul.com

Walking While White

Trembling, I stood up in church on a sweaty summer morning. It was prayer time, and the requests and testimonies had been weighty thus far. There were loved ones awaiting parole hearings, babies in the NICU, and the ever-present lure of the streets growing in intensity as the weather warmed. I looked at the worn faces of grandmothers who had been praying for decades, and my own request seemed trivial. They waited, nodding encouragement and softly chorusing “Help her, Lord.”

The Lord helped, and I spoke. “I would like to ask for courage so that I could walk in my neighborhood this summer. I’m not afraid for my safety, not physically, but I just get so tired of being ignored when I say hello to someone. The angry glares are hard for me. And it’s hard, well, to stand out all the time. Please pray that God would help me. Thank you.”

I sat down quickly and wished that I could sink into the pew. Really, did I just ask a congregation of African-Americans to pray for a poor little white girl because she couldn’t handle a little unfriendliness? Did I just complain about standing out to a group of people who had experienced prejudice since their births? Did I really just say all that?

Staring hard at the songbook in front of me, I heard the murmuring begin again. “Oh yes, Lord.” “Thank you, Jesus.” “Help her.” Someone squeezed my shoulder, and my husband covered my hand with his. The murmuring grew, and a middle-aged black man in a crisp white shirt stood on the other side of the church.

“Thank you for sharing,” he said. “And I would like to say something. I also take walks, and I understand what you mean. But here is what the Lord helps me to do: I always say hello and smile. If the person says hello in return, I thank God for that person.

“But,” he looked at me, “if they are rude, I know God has given me a special job. He has given me the job to forgive them and to pray for them. And so that’s what I do. That’s why I haven’t stopped walking. They need my prayers.”

He nodded for emphasis and sat down.

There was a communal breath of silence before everyone began clapping. It was if a door had opened and we all felt the breeze.

“Yes, Lord! Thank you, Lord!” We weren’t murmuring anymore.

***

Earlier that week, my two blonde preschoolers were running down the sidewalk with total abandon, excited to spend their quarters on candy at the corner store. As we passed a block of row houses, there were voices from a porch, and I saw a group of five or six teenage girls staring as we passed. They were whispering, but not very quietly.

“I mean, isn’t this a black street?” one girl said, a little too loudly for her friends’ comfort, and they shushed her.

“Crackers!” another called, and they all broke into nervous laughter, shocked at her audacity. I was walking as fast as possible, face burning, but still I heard one more thing.

“Why are they even here?”

This is a good question. As my children were contemplating their candy purchases, I thought about my city. Pittsburgh has the dubious distinction of being one of the most segregated cities in America, and because we also have an unusually low Latino population, the city is largely divided into “black neighborhoods” and “white neighborhoods.”  The convenience store where I stood was smack dab in the middle of a black neighborhood, and the teenager on the porch was right—I did not belong there.

My neighborhood came to me by way of marriage. My husband, a Scandinavian from Los Angeles, bought his house two years before we met in the fall of 2004, and I fell in love with his commitment to his urban neighborhood even as I fell in love with his ability to cook. But though we appear to be similar, at least in terms of race, our experience of life as a minority is vastly different.

My husband has never had the experience of “blending in.” His area and his schools had always been predominately Asian and Latino. In contrast, my high school in rural Western Pennsylvania was 99% white, with a graduating class of eight hundred. I can still remember the name of the one African-American boy who was in my honors-level classes.

Now I wonder what high school was like for him.

***

Here is something I’ve learned in the past decade: When you are a part of the majority race in a particular place, you don’t really think about your race much. When you are a minority, you think about it a lot, and particularly in situations where you are vulnerable.

For me, walking is a vulnerable situation. Although most people are too preoccupied with the details of their own lives to care if I am white, black, or purple, I become an instant target to anyone with baggage or prejudice. While walking, I am on display for anyone who thinks I don’t belong in their neighborhood, and I am immediately subject to their reactions. It is at these moments that I return to the question asked by the teenager on the porch: Why are we even here?

There is no simple answer to this question, but my husband and I are grieved by the ignorance and mistrust resulting from our racial divisions. We also sense a call to serve our particular church, and can do so more credibly as members of the community. Ten years ago, these would be all the reasons I could offer, but recently another has risen to the surface.

Why are we there? We are there to walk. While white.

Whether I like it or not, my identity as an educated white woman in America yields a certain amount of power and privilege, intrinsic to my appearance, speech, and culture. In order to love my neighbors, who are not educated white women, there are times when I must use this power for their sake. For example, when a member of my community is unjustly imprisoned, my presence at a rally or my carefully composed letter may help to bring attention to the case. I am not “the answer” or (God forbid!) “the savior,” but the God who can use unjust realities to bring about justice may choose to use me.

Most of the time, however, I am not engaged in the use of power, but in its surrender. Walking while white has become something of a spiritual discipline for me, a discipline of chosen vulnerability. In the midst of a larger world where I don’t often think about my race, I walk to be reminded of it. I walk even though—and especially because—I can’t blend in.

And I also walk because on those days when I smile and say hello, someone may just smile and say hello in return.  And if they don’t—if they glare—then this is a part of my education too. It may even be the most critical piece.

****

Again, I am out walking with my two excitable children. This time we are heading to church, and they run ahead of me up the hill. A group of black teenage boys are stomping down the hill toward us, laughing loudly. My mind calculates their age, demeanor, and sagging clothes; I swallow the urge to call my children back to me.

“Jen, stop it,” I scold myself internally, “They’re just teenagers, being loud.” Still, they are so very loud, and they are approaching my daughters. Without noticing, I’ve quickened my pace.

And then suddenly, drastically, everything changes.

I recognize one of the boys. He had been a counselor at our church’s summer camp. He recognizes me too, “Miss Jen! What’s up?” He greets my older daughter and she gives him a big hug. I ask about school, and his friends stand around, looking amused at our interaction. We finish our conversation, hug, and continue on our way.

“Mama, that was my counselor!” my daughter announces, now skipping up the hill with glee. I think about how quickly how the nameless ‘black teenager’ became ‘my counselor,’ and I smile at her. “Yes sweetie,” I confess, “I know him too.”

And in my confession, I confess something larger: I walk because I have a long way to go.

 

Monogram

Fifteen years ago, I remember my mother-in-law, a lady from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, saying to my husband Tom and me: “I want to start giving you the family things so you can enjoy them, and the children can grow up with them.”

Since the time she entrusted us with the family heirlooms, I have endeavored to give them meticulous care without creating a museum-like atmosphere in our home. Our children have learned to appreciate their heritage because of the stories told by their grandmother, ones in which they are related to the settlers of Jamestown, U.S. Presidents, scalawags, crazy aunts, and sturdy women who saved the family furniture during hard times. The silver, china, books, and furniture handed down to us are not “just things,” but they reflect the lives of those whose faces speak from their portraits on our walls.

*****

My favorite part of preparing for Thanksgiving is when I hide in the silver closet like a Confederate hiding from the Yankees. I pull out silver place-settings, serving pieces, bowls, trays, goblets, and napkin rings. The late nineteenth century Haviland Limoges china, delicate, but durable, is arranged in my china cabinet. I hold my breath and move in slow motion as I retrieve dinner plates, bread plates, butter pats, serving bowls, and meat platters from the shelves.

Everything is carried to the dining room, and I begin to dress the table based on the number of guests I will feed, and the dishes I will serve. I think to myself: Will I use napkin rings or tuck the napkins under the plates? Tablecloth or place-mats? Iced teaspoons?

I fuss over the details of creating an inviting table, not one that is high-brow, (dinner attire is flannel and denim), but a table-scape of respect and gratitude for the women of past generations who set this family table for Thanksgiving.

photo(32)A cooking marathon begins in my kitchen on Thanksgiving morning and by dusk, the turkey is resting plump and tender on the Haviland platter. It is time to dim the lamps, light the candles, and call our dear ones to the table. Tom usually interrupts the loud, pre-dinner banter, but sometimes our son will play the antique tabletop chimes to announce that dinner is served. A blessing of praise and gratitude is prayed. When the eating begins, the room grows quiet except for the “mmms” heard as we taste the richness of the food. Hearty appetites satisfied give way to hearty laughter, and everyone pushes back from the table and begs off dessert until later.

I am weary, but satisfied, content to linger at the table. I think about the father-in-law I never knew who, forty years ago, sat at the head of this  table and buttered his bread and stirred his iced tea with the silverware that bears his monogram. My husband and children have the same monogram engraved into their DNA, and with His gracious pen, God has written me into the same story.

photo(33)

Where I Came From: Lost in a Small Town

I can drive, with moderate success, in most major American cities.

The D.C. beltway? No problem. I even go the right direction, most of the time. Los Angeles to Ventura on the 101? Done it with (extra points!) a puking child in the backseat. Chicago? Boston? Philadelphia? Check, check, check, though I always wonder why the Philly drivers are so mean.

However.

There is one city, one very small city, in which I consistently drive the wrong way down one-way streets, miss stop signs, and drive slower than the speed limit, trying to find my way. And that would be:

Butler, Pennsylvania. Population 13.757.butler

My hometown.

I noticed this strange phenomenon a few years ago. One day, after driving the wrong way on a street near my former elementary school, I pulled over, berating myself and thanking God that no one had been coming the other way. How could I be so lost in a place that was so familiar? And that’s when I realized my problem.

I knew how to walk these streets, not drive them.

You see, I was one of those people who wanted one thing from adulthood: to get out of my hometown . It was too small. Too ingrown. Too boring. And so, as soon as I could, I left. In my small gold Nissan I began racking up the miles. College was a three hour drive. North Carolina, where I worked one summer, was nine hours.  I did not drive to Northern England, but I lived there for a year, wearing out my EuroRail pass along with my big green backpack.

After college I surprised myself by returning to Western Pennsylvania, but it was Pittsburgh, not Butler, where I found my first job and my first post-college apartment. Pittsburgh is only an hour drive from Butler, but it seems much further. There are ethnic restaurants other than the americanized chinese buffet, people who aren’t white, and community events that don’t involve gun raffles or high school sports teams.

I’ve been in Pittsburgh for fifteen years now, and it can be easy to roll my eyes at my hometown.

But that wouldn’t be fair.

That day in the car, when I realized that I knew how to walk but not drive in my hometown, I also realized that I have never lived as a grown-up in Butler, Pennsylvania. Could it be that my experience there seems limited because I was, um, ten? Could it be that I still feel ambivalent and awkward because my culminating experience was in high school? These were not my easiest years.

And what is beginning to open up in me is not a desire to return to my hometown (no, I like my Indian food too much), but a sense of grace and openness to a place that was once too familiar. I can take my kids to the Butler Farm Show. I can enjoy local marching bands at the Christmas parade, send my husband to hunting camp, and read the local newspaper without mocking it (much).

Because when it comes down to it, I just don’t have as much to prove as when I was fifteen.

high school photo

And I don’t use nearly as much hairspray either.