Notes from the Pew

As a Unitarian Universalist Buddhist with a UU Buddhist minister, you would think that I would not have the super-ego voice in my head that tells me skipping church is a sin. You would not have gone to church with my grandmother during the formative years. It is her voice in my head I had a dialogue with this morning:

"Gran-Gran, soccer season has started and Saturdays are completely booked...not only that, but Brimfield is in town and Sunday is the only day I can go...I need to get special presents for people, like the ones you used to make...I need to go. I think I can even talk my non-church going husband to bring the kids, which is really the important part.

"KK, you know the right thing to do."

"He needs to be part of their spiritual upbringing, it is not going to kill him to take them without me."

"So you go to church for the sake of your children's spiritual needs?"

"No, but now that I'm back at work and school has started, it is all about balancing everyone's needs"

"KK, you know the right thing to do."

Although soft, I couldn't shake the sound of it, the steel tone of it, the memory of every Sunday, Sunday evening and Wednesdays (we sinned more in Texas so we had to go to church a lot), of youth ministry, of puppet ministry, of being washed in the blood of the lamb (I think I'm going to teach my UU colleagues that song).

I went with my family to church this morning (thank you love for coming with us), and Reverend Judith read this poem by Langston Hughes:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Thank you Reverend Judith, and thank you Gran-gran, for that soft voice in my head that asks me to remember.