The Perfect Sermon

I wasn't actually planning on making it to church this Sunday. I spent the weekend at an eco-community called Earthhaven working on a play and intended to spend Sunday morning helping take down the set and clean up. Earthhaven is about 45 minutes from Mill Spring if you're headed toward Black Mountain on Route 9 and is completely off the grid. They have solar power for heat, electricity, and hot water, use composting toilets instead of connecting to the sewer system, and require consensus of community membership to make any and all decisions. I had invited myself there once before to give feedback and be peripherally involved with an earlier performance. My hosts, Mike and Finn, who asked me to get involved with this second performance, live at Earthhaven without being members and are both interested in fostering the creative spirit within their community. Mike and I got together Friday afternoon to build the set and plan the skits that would be inserted between each of the acts the following night. We worked until delirium began to set in and after a Saturday full of last-minute changes and necessary improvisation, we put on a great show for a grateful audience that included my brother Dane, Lori, and her sister Melody. I felt especially thankful that the three of them were able to come share the experience with me and enjoy the fire-dancing, drumming, and other celebrations that followed. Sunday morning I was enticed by the opportunity to spend more quality time with Dane to attend a non-denominational church called Jubilee in Asheville. The sermons are interspersed with music and drumming, and it felt like a natural progression from the festivities of the night before. The minister reminded us that we are all servants to God and to each other, and that we are asked to decide each day "whom we will serve". On a morning where I had planned to help take down sets but was no longer needed for that task, it felt great to have spent that time with my brother, the person responsible for teaching me what it means to live a life of service to others. We leave this week for our mid-year retreat with the Brethren Volunteer Service, where I'm sure we will spend time talking about what our service has taught us these last six months. I hope Dane has learned that I am far from perfect, and that he will nonetheless aspire to be just like me.

A Peg to Stand On

Lori and I woke up just before sunrise on Sunday with Durham, North Carolina, as our spiritual destination, a total trip of about 215 miles. The plan was to eat breakfast along the way and make it to Duke University Chapel for the 11:00 service. As we departed Mill Spring, the sun decided to peek over the horizon. I have seen my share of beautiful sunsets, but for me, sunrises are a bit harder to come by. The morning mist hanging in the air appeared like a veil, allowing us to stare directly at the blinding beacon leading us East. By the time the sun had taken its rightful position among the patchy clouds, we were closing in on Greensboro. It was ten o'clock, which would have given us just enough time to make it to Duke, park, and seat ourselves in the back rows of the church had I stayed the course on I-85. But I misremembered the directions and before we knew it we were twenty miles north of anywhere on Highway 29 with signs telling us that Virginia was just up the road. So I broke out the Blackberry and re-charted our course through light rain and back toward civilization. We would be late and a little wet, but perhaps still make it for the closing hymn. I was mad at myself for the misstep and needed to stand up on the bike and stretch out my legs. As I did, something gave way and my right boot bounced on the pavement, throwing me off balance for a split second. I looked down and there was no foot peg...just a brake pedal! I tried to find an alternate place to rest my foot but to no avail, and about a mile down the road we pulled over at a service station. I determined that the one remaining passenger peg (I broke the other one off on a chain-link fence when I was living in LA) could be removed and substituted for the right front peg. Alas, I did not bring all my tools. It was then that good-samaritanism, not rain, came pouring down upon us. Matt, who lived nearby, came to the gas station to buy cigarettes and, realizing it was closed, offered to run back to his house and return with a socket wrench. I was able to get the rear peg off, but needed a different tool to remove the chain plate, so he ran back to the house again. In the meantime, a woman stopped and offered the services of her son, Scott, who was just getting out of church and liked to work on bikes in his spare time. When Matt returned, Lori did the Christian thing and bought him a 12-pack of Bud Light for his troubles. Scott then arrived and, after a brief trip home to pick up his tools, helped me remove the plate, screw in the peg, and replace the rear peg with a bolt that would allow Lori to rest her feet for the remainder of the ride. An hour later we were eating lunch with Lori's family and laughing about the whole debacle. No less than five people asked if we needed help or tools while we sat outside the service station, and though we never made it for the closing hymn, I felt as though we had been blessed by the kindness and generosity of the good-hearted people of the South.

Go Ahead, Jump...!

The possibility of rain made this Sunday's decision to ride ten minutes to the Mill Creek Church of the Brethren a no-brainer. Not only was it geographically close, but my parents, grandparents, and their grandparents before them were all raised in the Church of the Brethren so the spiritual roots run deep, and this visit was close to my heart. Both of my Dad's parents spent time in Puerto Rico serving as church volunteers in their early twenties, and their service inspired my brother and me to serve a year as part of the Brethren Volunteer Service (BVS) here in Mill Spring, NC. My grandfather also went to divinity school in Elgin, Illinois, to become a Brethren minister, and when I go to any Brethren service I always envision Pastor Donald Sollenberger delivering the sermon in the humble, thoughtful, methodical way that is so unique to his interactions in the time that I've been around. I would have liked to have seen him in his prime, when I imagine those qualities were accompanied by a focused energy and a wealth of knowledge unencumbered by the fuzziness of old age. Pastor Abe's delivery on Sunday was thoughtful and energetic, and his sermon was a call to arms, to keep working to bring Faith to those who do not believe in the divine ministry of Jesus. A vivid picture was painted of the empty churches and dark hearts in the present day United States, and we were told that not believing in Hell is like not believing in gravity; "Go ahead, jump off the roof and see what happens!" Here is where my understanding of religion takes a left turn. If I jump off the roof, I will surely die. If I do not believe in Hell, Satan, and pure Evil as the combatants of Divine Love I will still die, and not believing won't make me any worse off during my time on Earth. I am deeply touched by stories of Jesus' sacrifice and perfect Love, and these stories move me to make sacrifices of my own and to try to love in as pure a way as I know how. Why do I need the other stuff? The fire and brimstone? The fear of God? Those elements of religion pull me away from the potential for Goodness that I believe exists in all humankind. Call it empathy, call it Love, or call it the Holy Spirit, but that humble Goodness is the spiritual gift passed down to me from my Grandfather and the only call to arms I need to live a fulfilling, meaningful life. You, Sir, can jump. I'll stay here on the ground.

One Nation Under (One) God

I was awakened this Sunday morning by a phone call from my girlfriend, Lori, who reminded me that we were supposed to be leaving for church in a half-hour (I had slept through my alarm). The idea to visit different churches around the area on my motorcycle was born from a desire to explore southern religious beliefs (the Father), my own spirituality (the Son), and the beautiful countryside of Western Carolina (the Holy Spirit)--a Trinitarian sociology experiment of sorts. Fitting, then, that the first church on the docket was the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Hendersonville. We took 176 through Tryon and up the Saluda Grade (site of the steepest railway climb in the country), then continued on past Flat Rock to the town of Hendersonville. Growing up I attended the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Rochester, NY, from age 6 until some point in High School when smoking weed on Sunday mornings seemed like a better option than going to youth group. Maybe it was the teenage short term memory loss, but I learned more in one hour about the origin of the Unitarian Universalist faith this Sunday morning than I did in ten years of attending church as a kid. The term Unitarian originates from the Biblical interpretations of a man named Michael Servetus, a "heretic" who managed to piss off both the Protestants and Catholics during the Reformation with his penchant for exercising freedom of conscience. He was ultimately burned at the stake for his belief that there was one God, not three separate manifestations of God as put forth by the overwhelming Trinitarian majority of the time. Based on language alone, I like thinking of God as "unity" rather than "trinity". The congregation did not disappoint. Though we were two of only four individuals who weren't invited to Waffle House for the Senior Special after the service, we were welcomed with open arms and invited for coffee in the Fellowship Hall. One of the other younger attendees, Zach, is a theater teacher at East Henderson High, and we talked about theater around the area and the local professional theater in Flat Rock, where they are currently doing a production of Rent. Who knew the South had so many open-minded Christians! We stopped for brunch at Patty Cakes, a cute little cottage-style restaurant recommended to us by Don the Motorcycle-Riding Minister from Montana. I had the Shit on a Shingle (look it up!) and Lori ate a salad. Our return trip took us back through Saluda and down the BEAUTIFUL Greenville Watershed, where the overhanging trees and suicidal butterflies conjured up images of Peter Pan's Neverland. We continued through South Carolina on 11 West (sticking to the speed limit of course!) until we hit Route 9 and took it back up to Mill Spring where the bike, Lori, and I all rest our heads.