The gift of welcome

Morning at Mem Church: sunlight filtering through the clouds or gleaming between the changing leaves outside the windows above the high altar. Depending on where I sit, sometimes it shines directly into my face, and I close my eyes and receive it like a blessing.

The electric candles are lit, but they’re more for effect than illumination. We file in quietly, in ones and twos, choosing our familiar places in the carved wooden pews.

I glance at the week’s printed list of speakers and anthems, my eyes occasionally lighting on a hymn I know. Some parts of the service are as familiar as breath: the responsive verse-by-verse reading of a psalm, the quiet unison of the Lord’s Prayer. The phrases have held me all my life: Hallowed be thy name. Forgive us our trespasses. For thine is the kingdom.

Other parts I still stumble through: most of these Episcopalian hymns are not mine, but I relish the chance to lift my voice and sing, however imperfectly.

Most of us regulars know one another’s faces, even if we never speak or learn one another’s names. I greet the seminarians, nod at the music professor with perpetually tousled hair, smile at the student I came to know slightly last year, wave at my friend Ellen if I can catch her eye. There’s a loosely knit comfort in being together, all turning toward the light in this place.

The talks are varied, sometimes uneven: they draw in speakers from across the university and beyond. People speak out of their Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Jewish faiths, or no faith at all. Sometimes they are students, earnest and hesitant; sometimes professors, more polished, but less certain that they have all the answers. Sometimes a sentence arrows straight into my heart. On occasion, my eyes prick with sudden tears.

I like it best when there are a few new faces in the pews, come to support a friend or hear a professor speak. They shuffle in shyly, unsure of where to sit, when to stand and when to be seated. They fumble with the black-covered psalters, the crimson hymnals. It’s all right, I want to say to them. You are welcome here.

There’s a deep longing in all of us for community, for belonging, for a place to lay our burdens down and know that we are safe, welcome, loved. Most of those places eventually ask something of us, as they should. We who belong to communities must share the work of building and caring for them.

But for me, Mem Church has been a simpler gift: all it asks, most days, is that I show up.

On any weekday morning, I can walk down the long center aisle, or slip in the side door if I’m running late. All that’s asked of me is to be there, to sit and listen, to receive the gift of this time and place. I often add my voice to the prayers and the singing, but sometimes, I stay silent and let the community hold me.

In every faith community I’ve belonged to, I have heard words of welcome and grace. Sometimes we struggle to live those words out: it’s part of the challenge that comes with being human. But sometimes, for a few minutes, our words and our actions match up, and we are able to welcome one another. It is always a gift. And I’m grateful.