Remember that wonderful Sunday a few weeks back? Where I got to cry tears of joy, watching my little boy?
THIS last Sunday, we got to experience the flip side of that sweet little attitude.
It all started when I took Gregory outside for being loud. I asked him what he’d done, and he admitted to the usual stuff, ie., trying to push mama down, slapping Anthony, flopping on the ground and groaning.
Then I asked if he was willing to make good choices.
He said no. “No good choices”, were his exact words.
Wow. Okay, I thought, so this isn’t a misunderstanding. Good to know.
I said that he was going to have to think about this for a little, so I walked a few steps away and gave him some space. After a few minutes, I asked if he was ready to behave and make good choices.
He yelled back, “No!”
I was stunned. “Well, well,” I stuttered. “You canNOT go back into church until you learn to make good choices!”
And then my statement hit me. Darn it, parenting. It always makes you question EVERYTHING about what you thought you believed and makes you doubt even the most innocuous of statements.
Essentially, what I had just told G was that people cannot go to church until they learn to make good choices. But that’s so wrong! The church is a hospital, where we drag ourselves after a long week in order to heal and get our medicine! How are we supposed to learn HOW to make good choices without being cured first?
Darn it, parenting.
It got worse. When I was able to carry G back into church, having guiltily convinced myself to bring him in, regardless of his mental state, he flat out refused to go up for communion. Stubborn and defiant as I’ve ever seen him, he said no. Both of us were tired of fighting with him, and there’s a limit to what we can force, so he went and stood beside his Auntie Em. He plastered on this fake sort of, “Whatever. It’s fine.” look that I really hoped I didn’t have to see for 10 more years.
The moment the chalice went back into the altar, he burst into tears and started begging for communion. He was so inconsolable, we had to take him outside yet again because he sounded like his little heart was going to break from grief.
Naturally, this incident. sparked much discussion at coffee hour. Everyone had seen what transpired, (oh, the joys of a small church!), and they were very sympathetic. Our English Teacher friend said that he felt for Gregory, because that’s his problem every week. He only goes up for communion a few times a YEAR, because he never feels ready, never feels worthy. He has a story about how one priest was so tired of him being afraid, he brought the chalice to HIM in the back of the church!
Christianity is such an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, there HAS to be a personal choice that occurs, each and every day, to love the things that are true and to love our Creator. On the OTHER hand, we are so ill, so stuck in our own selfish self-reliance, we don’t even have what it takes to choose Him. If we wait until we’ve got things together and we can “make good choices”, we’ll never come at all.
Our priest said the same thing in his homily. He reminded us that we do NOT come to church to feed some sort of status symbol. We do NOT go to church because it’s what “good people do on Sundays”. We do it because we want to feel better. If church doesn’t heal us, we are going to the wrong church.
Some people may feel that they are “above” church and that they don’t need it.
My parenting foibles are proof enough. I am not above church. I need it.
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