Lore and Legend
These Shoals are my Church
I find that when I’m asked to which church I am affiliated, I have no real answer. I still believe myself spiritual, at least as much as when I attended church on every Sunday as a child. I have come to realize that this island is now my Parish. I take communion lying in the sun on the front lawn among the bocce balls and Frisbees. The congregation, my congregation, is made up of moms knitting in rockers on the front porch, napping artists who’ve fallen asleep without finishing their portrait of the chapel, children shrieking and laughing while they slay a dragon grown up miraculously from old discarded tires. These shoals are my church.
In my church, the pews rock gently back and forth while we read books that we’ve always wanted to finish, until the view in the harbor is just too distracting to ignore. The smell of salt air and cut grass finds its way to our senses when, as if by providence a random softball game breaks out enveloping those fortunate enough to still have ambition. Others will wander by with lime drinks and try to officiate from a distance. Baptisms in my church are done at six in the morning, in the unforgiving Atlantic Ocean. The hymns are sung by gulls to the sounds of fog horns and ropes slapping against metal flagpoles. Lanterns light the way along paths that every parishioner could close their eyes and follow with their hearts. These shoals are my church.
I am, as is true of all sinners, unworthy of my church. But, I know I will be unanimously welcomed every time I come home. Every time we come back, it has been way too long. Every time we see the jagged rocks catching waves tossed at them from across the ocean, we realize that we arrived at just the right time in our lives. We go away, just strong enough to endure another fifty-one weeks with those unconverted. We quote stories from legends who walked the same tall grass as we do now, men and women who had no idea how many lives they would enrich. Men and women completely convinced of their own inconsequence. These men and women journeyed without any sense of how wrong they were, how their legends would live on, how they would effect those who would never see their faces. They were the deacons of our youth. Is it our turn now? These shoals are my church.
In my church, we find solace carrying a stick over our heads. A seat tilted forward is really a sign saying “Saved for a friend for life.” Our congregation grows when those who meet in an instant stay together for a lifetime, when their children brought before they can object, meet someone in an instant, stay together for a lifetime and they bring their children before they can object… Sermons don’t end with “amen.” They end with “you will come back,” so that no matter where you travel, you’ll know how to get back home, “you will come back,” so that no matter how tired, weary or sick you may be, you won’t give up, “you will come back,” because you are missed. You can always expect a chair tilted forward for you, because these shoals are your church.
Taken with permission from a worship never given, August 2005. Name withheld by request.
Our Universe
As I quickly approach, and pass, middle age, I find myself contemplating the universe. Not just the universe, but THE UNIVERSE! My lack of understanding of where we, as a solar system, come from, is in spite of the best efforts of Al Doolittle, the patriarch of Shoals astronomy. I confess to those who know me, that I cannot find the “Big Dipper,” which brings out immediate corrections from friends who start vaguely pointing in casual gestures up to where you follow the handle to the “cup” and that’s the big dipper. But, let’s be honest, for those with an imagination out of control, THEY ALL LOOK LIKE THE BIG DIPPER! So I usually nod in acceptance, pretending I see it, knowing that it’s a celestial ink blot test and no matter what the guidance counselor says, it doesn’t look like two kittens wrestling with a ball of yarn, “can I please go back to algebra now?!”
Maybe it’s a yearning for where we come from or the quest to understand where we are going, but I am fascinated with the concept of the “Big Bang.” Now those of you who believe in creationism, should probably not read further. For those of us who have a larger thirst for knowledge, the idea of one huge event which started the ball rolling for total creation of all stellar existence, pushes our notions of our own importance to the breaking point. In case you have been living in a science vacuum for the past couple of decades and in an effort to show off to all my friends who think my lack of ability to find the big dipper makes me barely able to function in society, the big bang theory is the idea that billions of years ago, the entire multi trillion light year universe was compressed into an area smaller than our little solar system. Trapped in a ball of unimaginable heat, density and magnetism, held together by crushing gravity, the universe waited. Then, the gravity unraveled and in an event beyond enormous, an explosion, sent the debris that would become the universe out into the empty void at twice the speed of light. Yes Al, I was listening.
Now I won’t go into the intense heat that caused the hydrogen atoms to fuse and form helium, carbon and eventually on some lucky planets, water, because trying to figure that out, my brain will explode. If you have a creationist in the room, you can console them with the thought that, as impressive as the theory of six days is, how impressive is creation in the wink of an eye?! Feels an awful lot like the work of a supreme being to me. But, I digress.
Beliefs about the stars, are as old as humankind. Maybe, we plan our day around the stellar activity by looking up our astrology on page twenty-two of the newspaper. Perhaps, we use the stars to guide us across the seas like the ancient Norsemen who roamed fearlessly through the Isles of Shoals, which we travel to every summer. My favorite is the belief of western Africans that the stars represent those elders who have passed to the other side. Oddly enough, the universe adds, perhaps millions of stars every year as it continues to renew itself during a daily expansion. So, next time you’re on Star Island, take a look up at Taurus Major, just a little to the left, there’s Al. It seems someone built us a telescope, in case you’re having trouble finding it.