making a return

Hi. It’s been a minute. A few months shy of two years, actually.

The bullet point recap is I’m working in theatre now, freelancing and living the dream I’ve had since high school, in many ways. I’m doing well; I’ve been in three states in the last six months, the kind of transient life I’ve been practicing for my whole life. My twenties are in full swing, and I’m figuring out who I want to be and how to be an adult amidst what feels like renegotiation of the fabric of our society because of, well, everything. 

When I can barely muster the words to journal, a blog feels dated, I guess. In a world of content creation and hot takes and viral sensationalism, this – me, writing to a small audience, with nothing to market or monetize – feels hokey. Dorky in a decidedly uncool way. I’m too young and too green and too unplatformed. This feels pointless. A little bit like screaming into the void, but being embarrassed when the void actually hears you. 

But I’m back, with a story from this fall, when I was working in Massachusetts. It’s stuck with me in a way I can’t help but write about, that revisiting has shaken loose the terrible combination of restlessness and malaise that wedged me into a kind of inertia. So I’m listening to that instinct in offering you this story.

I stopped going to church in the spring of 2020, much like most everyone did. I faithfully watched the livestream of my church (and sometimes other churches!) for several months, once participating in virtual communion with the closest approximations I had – a Cheez-It and my roommate’s white wine, which I poured into a shot glass (I think that particular choice was a little bit blasphemous and do feel a little bad about it). Somewhere down the line, I realized I wasn’t really paying attention anymore, that I was treating church like the TV shows I would throw on for background noise. That felt wrong, so I let myself stop. I’d listen to the audio-only podcasts the next day when they came up on my feed, sometimes. Or I wouldn’t. 

The habit has waxed and waned between a theatre-making schedule (Sunday matinees!), a pandemic, and healthy disillusionment with the capital-C Church. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to real, in-person church since March of 2020.

Until September of 2022, where our tale begins.

I’m in a tiny little town in the Berkshires with a thriving arts scene, working on a great little play attended mostly by locals who love theatre and the leaf-peepers, as they’re called, the corollary to snowbirds. I spend my time off at craft fairs and fall festivals and pumpkin patches, living my New England dreams. I drink warm cider from local orchards and wear sweaters and boots and Goodwill jackets, soaking in every gust of wind that makes leaves float to the ground and scrape on the pavement, going on hikes to see the rolling hills of fiery oranges and reds.

And, just up the hill from me, a ten-minute walk on a tree-lined street, is a church.

I went my first Sunday, antsy to explore, a little lonely, craving the familiar. 

It is a historical-looking building, built in the 1800s, complete with a bell tower. It’s made of stone and old wood and stained glass. It smells musty, with notes of lingering incense. Old pews, high support beams, a complicated-looking section at the front with gold plating. I am unused to high church. It is grand and cavernous, but not cold. It’s beautiful. It feels holy.

A woman with a maternal smile thrusts a bulletin into my hands and I take a seat in the second-to-last pew, just in front of an white-haired lady in her Sunday best. A single baby grand piano, tuned to perfection, plays a hymn. There are maybe 20 people, all masked, mostly elderly. Somehow, I don’t feel out of place.

This church is not of a tradition I know, the vernacular is foreign to me and most of the hymns are not ones that were in my rotation. I don’t know when to sit or stand. I trail a second or two behind, awkwardly mumble when I don’t know the rhythm of the liturgy, stumble through sight reading a hymn. But I am comforted by the smiles of the little old ladies and the nostalgic sound of the echo of a piano and off-key voices singing the fourth verse. 

That first Sunday, I cried during the prayers, for mercy and justice and peace. I cried while the parable of the lost sheep was read, sitting alone in a new place in a new church after the two years we’ve had.

When it was time for communion, I panicked, frantically trying to inconspicuously Google the rules for this tradition and if I need to cross myself, and how to do that, because I don’t know. People stand and proceed to the front as the pianist plays a hymn. The lady in the row behind me gestures for me to go first into the line that’s forming. I whisper, “I’ve never done this before.” She smiles, kindly. “Follow me.”

I do, and smile awkwardly at the deacons blessing me as I take my wafer and dip it into the wine. I eat as I walk around the outside of the pews back to my seat, struck by the blandness of the bread and the bitterness of the drink; stunned by how transformative the moment felt. It had been so long, and I felt small and humble. The old lady grins from behind her mask. “You did great.”

I cry again, silently, as we sing. It felt profoundly holy. I watch the priest drink the rest of the wine and carefully sweep the leftover wafers into a linen cloth and tuck it away. The grace of the Sacrament is fully present in the elements. The gifts of God for the people of God. 

I continued to cry singing the last hymn of the service. It was the only one I did know, though not well. I was surprised at how little I referenced the music crookedly printed into the bulletin.

In that hour, church became beautiful again. 

I went to the coffee fellowship time, in a side room, invited by the woman behind me. Everyone there went out of their way to speak to me. I was the last to leave.

 A week and a few days later I found myself at the home of the woman who handed me a bulletin that first week. She and her husband offered every kind of tea I could possibly want, cucumber sandwiches, grapes, cheese, and a glass of the rose they’d been saving for a special occasion. We talked about life and they told me about their children and showed me photos of their grandchildren. I told them about my time at boarding school and my job and what comes next. We talked about how faith informs art. I was sent home with cinnamon rolls and chocolate-covered almonds, a newspaper clipping of an article I might enjoy, and a promise that if I ever needed a quiet place to land, there was a spare bedroom in their loft.

A couple weeks later, there were a lot of people and not enough bulletins to go around. The lady who sits in the row behind me offered hers up to someone who came in late, and I gestured my arm out to share (we’re friends now, she had seen the play I was working on the day before). She shook her head and whispered, “That’s okay, sweetheart, I don’t need it.” She was word-perfect for the entire service, head bowed with reverence. That is the week we sang “It is Well,” accompanied by the organ, all the verses, all vocal parts represented. It felt, with full sincerity, like a gift, just for me. 

The pastor (priest? reverend?) stands in the foyer after each service and greets his congregants by name with a warm handshake, wearing a mask. A couple weeks in, he asks me how the show is going, said he’d love to grab coffee if I’m around. He told me how much he loves Shakespeare, how he sees God in theatre, how much he admires people like me who do, too. He says he wants to make theatre people feel safe in churches. He quotes a play in his announcements the next week, with what I choose to believe was a quick and knowing glance at me.

On my final Sunday, mere hours before my show closed, and less than 24 hours before I would be on a plane leaving, the couple whose home I visited were there after a week away. The woman was a greeter again. “It’s so good to see yous!” and meaningful hugs were exchanged before I slid into my pew. As the service was beginning, the husband’s eyes light up as he walks over to me. We chat briefly, I tell him I’m leaving the next day. 

Without a word, he cups my face in his hand in the most gentle, paternal way and traces a cross on my forehead with his other thumb. He smiles softly, looks into my eyes for a moment, and walks away silently. 

I cry. 

I cry when the homily is about the relentless grace of Jesus, who pursues us and calls us to walk in freedom and wholeness. I cry when the closing music is Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, played on the organ at the heart of this lovely old church. It is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. I cry on the walk back to the theater under the now almost dead trees because of how deeply loved and seen and cared for I have felt here. I loved a lot about that job – I liked the area, the theater, the play, the people – but I will remember it because of the church.

I haven’t been to church since then. My schedule hasn’t allowed for it, or there hasn’t been one in a reasonable distance, or the pandemic of it all has gotten in the way. I miss it, as I have for years. I intend to find another church when I can. I think, though, a little part of me knows that it will be hard for another church to capture that same feeling. The deep, soul-stirring hope of it all. The heavy weight in my chest that comes when I am overwhelmed by a kind of cosmic goodness. Reminded of all of it, all at once, after so long.

I kept my bulletin from that first week there. It’s traveled with me to two new jobs in two different states, tucked in the pocket of a suitcase. Even though I proceeded to pray those same prayers in that church for some six weeks after, I reread it occasionally, still floored by some of the prayers, still learning from the notes I scribbled in the margins, still noticing my tear stains. It is, in the churchiest language, an Ebenezer. One that I still hold tightly – a photo I took of the steeple of that church framed in autumn-colored trees is the wallpaper on my phone to this day, and a piece of liturgy set to music snuck its way into my top ten songs of 2022. 

To be clear, even when I wasn’t going to church, my faith, fundamentally, never faltered. If anything, I’ve never been more sure of the things at the core of it all. I could write a whole other essay about my frustration and anger and disillusionment and the pain I’ve felt with regards to the institution of religion in the last several years, but that did not come at the cost of what I knew. What I know. So what a joy it was to suddenly and unexpectedly find so much tangible evidence, from the creeds and the hymns and the stained glass to the insistence of the priest that the body of believers should lift one another up and a man my grandfather’s age offering me more tea while his best friend, who is a rabbi, tells me to follow my dreams and not settle. This is the pursuit of good, lovely, and beautiful things wrapped in grace and overflowing with forgiveness and hope, and it is delightful.

I am not writing this to evangelize. You don’t need to go to church or find God or weep openly in public spaces in front of the same strangers for consecutive weeks (though, full disclosure, all three of those things have done wonders for my life). Faith and church and religion are complicated – trust me, I get it. I don’t want you to feel scammed into an altar call here. That’s not what this is.

This is just a story about my fall, in the mountains of Massachusetts. It feels apt that this is the first post of the year, and also my first post in a long time. It is the story of the prodigal son and of the lost sheep, a story of return and restoration. It’s rebuilding a strained relationship and remembering why I love something and why it matters to me. It is new in some ways, but also rich and storied, bursting with things to explore. It’s a celebration of the past and expectant of what’s to come. 

And it happens to be the time of year where we all set new intentions, so let me say this: I hope, if you ever feel the urge to walk to an unfamiliar church in an unfamiliar place, I hope you go (metaphorical or literal). I hope you pay attention to the restlessness in your soul and nurture the things that are truly lifegiving. I hope you find community that welcomes you fully, and that you find space to feel cared for and grow. I hope traditions that were once foreign become comforting. I hope you are reminded in a hundred gentle ways that you matter and that you are cared for in ways you didn’t know you needed. I hope you remember why you love the things you do, the things you always have, and run after them wholeheartedly. I hope you find that there is so much more to love about them than you even knew. And then go back again.