At a recent Notre Dame football game, I learned that before they run out onto the field, the players recite the Lord’s Prayer. They say it fast. It’s not like a congregational prayer in church. Nobody’s trudging carefully through this, articulating every word. This is more like a chant one might spit out before walking on hot coals, or jumping out of an airplane.
I’ve said this prayer almost every Sunday in church most of my life, and each time I stumble on a part of it. “Thy kingdom come,” but not before I have my first kiss. “Thy kingdom come,” but not before I get to go to PROM. “Thy kingdom come,” but not before I have children. “Thy kingdom come,” but not before I win the Newbery. That’s when I’m paying attention. Sometimes my stomach is growling, sometimes I’m trying not to fall asleep, sometimes Hadley and Harper are fooling around, sometimes I’m looking at my shoes and wondering what I was thinking purchasing such a high heel. Though some may argue that the players said the words because they have no choice, and just want to get it over with so they can go play, I wondered as I listened to them, what the prayer would do if I recited it as the football players did: fast, urgently, and seconds before I was about to give my all to something without knowing what the outcome would be. And even if we do rush through the words so we can get to whatever else is next, even if we speak what we don’t understand, do the words make a difference?
The day after the football game, the four of us go to church to take a communion class. This is not the communion class of my childhood Catholic friends, who for a year spent their Tuesday nights in “CCD” class, studying scripture and whatever else it took to put on that beautiful white tulle dress. Nor is it like the class I took in 8th grade at the Presbyterian church my family went to. I had to write an essay (the horror!) on what it was I believed and why I believed it, and present it to the deacons. Or, maybe it was the elders. Maybe it was both. I’ve never understood the difference.
Presbyterians girls don’t wear white tulle dresses for communion, but I did get to wear a red Laura Ashley dress with green and pink flowers, and a giant bow that tied in the back. I took my first communion in that dress, and about ten days later, wore it again to my 8th grade graduation dance where I danced to “The Humpty Dance” by Digital Underground, my favorite song at the time. I still need the church bulletin to guide me through the Apostle’s Creed, but I know exactly what to say next when Shock G says, “Alright stop what you’re doin’, cuz I’m about to ruin, the image and the style that you’re used to.”
The class we were taking Hadley and Harper to, would take about an hour. After that, the girls would be free to take communion anytime it was offered at church.
We haven’t been going to this church long, but I love it. It’s ethereally nostalgic. I love the old creaky pews, the scent of melted wax and flame, the stained-glass windows and the organ music. Every Sunday I walk in, I remember my childhood. Or maybe I become a child again. Because just as palpable as the sounds and sights and smells, are my childhood memories of going to a church like this: scaling the walls with Lauren and Maren during the ice-cream social, our knees bloody from scratching them along the brick outside, and our fingers blistery from clutching the cement so we wouldn’t fall; talking about which movie was better – Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, or Return of the Jedi – with Jon and Andrew after having Passover Feast, the bitter taste of parsley dipped in salted water still on my tongue; walking alone into an empty sanctuary and singing “Respect” because I liked to pretend I was Aretha Franklin, and then singing “Peace Like a River,” because the song made me so sad I could only sing it alone. It felt too intimate to declare, “It is well with my soul,” when, even as a kid, I wasn’t sure it was.
Now, sitting in a chapel facing floor to ceiling windows that look out at stark woods and part of U of M’s Greek row, I don’t know if we are doing this right. Maybe Hadley and Harper should’ve been in Sunday school longer. Perhaps there are some books Jesse and I can read to the girls that explain communion. We should probably all be reading the Bible at dinner instead of playing Settlers of Catan.
An older couple walks carefully outside along the path toward the church’s doors. Behind them, a group of what looks like college kids walk easier, less carefully. Some of them frolic in trees whose leaves dropped and seem to be waiting for snow. One girl links her arm around a tree trunk and do-si-does with it. Both groups climb the stairs to the entrance of the church, and the older gentleman holds the doors for everyone to enter.
“Every time you take communion,” one of the pastors explains, “a different part of you will be ready for it.” She continues to tell the children that they might not understand everything about the story, but that each time they take it, they might understand a bit more.
“Nobody ever understands all of it, “ another pastor says. “You’re stepping into a mystery and you’re standing there for a while.”
Soon, the bread and grape juice are passed, and Jesse and I share a small, mysterious meal with Hadley and Harper. Hadley sits up straight, hands folded, and watches the pastors carefully and seriously for cues to pray or sing or whatever comes next. Harper twirls her hair and swings her feet, then leans over to me and whispers, “Can I have more?”
A few weeks later, the children’s choir is practicing, “Now Thank We All Our God,” at the front of the sanctuary a few minutes before the service begins. So far, the kids have practiced the hymn without the adult choir, which is now standing behind the children, ready to join in and sing. The director explains that when the adults begin to sing, they’ll hear the song differently. It’ll be louder and stronger, she tells the kids, who are dressed in deep red choir robes just like the ones I used to wear when I was in the church choir. Some of the kids stare at her in an effort to understand, others look at the ceiling, their parents, their shoes.
Hadley’s standing in the back row with the other fifth graders. They’re closest to the adult choir, and when they begin to sing, both Hadley and the girl standing next to her raise their eyebrows in shock. The two girls look at each other and begin to laugh. The choir director was right – the hymn sounds much different when sung with older generations behind them.
I know the girls’ laughter might be interpreted as disrespect, but I don’t think they’re making fun of what they hear, I think Hadley and her buddy are in awe of it, and I think being in awe brought them joy, and joy manifested itself in giggles.
I watch these two girls, front and center of the congregation, look at each other and laugh as they try to sing along, and I am thankful. I’m thankful for what I hope is a budding friendship. I’m thankful for a faith that doesn’t ask to understand but hopes for things unseen: like the words from the Lord’s Prayer taking flight after being uttered by football players ready to storm the field. “Give us this day,” they boldly ask as the football is thrown and caught, and taken towards the end zone. “Deliver us from evil,” they plead and shoot up like firecrackers spreading over all of us. We are unaware and perhaps even unconcerned of their power; focused solely on the game, the chill off Lake Michigan pulsing through our winter jackets and boots, the clock’s diminishing time, and the setting sun. “On earth as it is in Heaven,” they land on our hands and arms and shoulders as we spread them to embrace strangers and sing Notre Dame’s Alma Mater together. This is my favorite part of the football game, when for a few minutes, we all hold on to each other and sing – swaying to a melody so strong and beautiful, we all bear it together.
This piece was first published on Hello There, Friend. Thank you to Lindsay Crandall for permission to reprint, but also for your editing skills. “You have some decisions to make,” is what I remember the most after you read the beginning drafts of this. It was a hefty statement that only a wise editor with a keen eye for stories would say.
Leave a Reply