Personal Narrative: My Experience At A Baptist Church

I was four years old in 1964, and had grown accustomed to my weekly childhood routine. Like any day in church, I situated myself in, the warmth of the sunlight streaming from the stained glass window, at the end of our habitual pew. Then, on the morning of the First Sunday of Advent, something jarring happened at the moment the mass began. On any other Sunday in the past, the priest and altar boys would enter the rear of the church in silence, but now the whole church was singing verses of a processional hymn. Nothing prepared me for what came next; Monsieur faced the crowd and spoke in English for the first time and said “The Lord be with you”, and expected us all to respond, “And also with you”. The scriptural passages for the day were

Adding to my exasperation was the requirement during the eight grammar school years of a daily mass, with sanctions lifted to just holy day of obligation, while attending a parochial high school. A Catholic growing up in a small town in the 1960 and 70’s, had very little exposure to other religions, beyond witnessing a highly spirited memorial service for Dr. King at a Baptist Church. I am conscious that playing a bearded villager in an all girls’ Catholic Academy production of, Fiddler on the Roof does not constitute being exposed to Judaism. Early on, I once confessed to my mother the suspicion I had coming from the preached pulpit, she said to listen for the symbolism in the scriptures and follow their path; I spent the rest of my life in that quest. Following the advice of the Buddha “To forget the self is to be awakened by all things”, I tried to open my mind to experience the forthcoming event through the eyes of my four year old self. Before my awakening at the Zendo (“mediation hall”), my niece and her husband were the only contact I had with Zen Buddhism, but I burn with shame at the confession of not showing them much interest on the subject. As an insider I have always been aware of the comparison of a big tent