“We are all just walking each other home.” –Ram Das
“All who wander are not lost.” – J.R.R Tolkien
“Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18:20
The last time I felt comfortable in a church was over forty years ago. Now in my seventy-sixth year, something new is beginning to emerge.
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My son’s family started attending First Baptist Church on the corner of Park Ave and Salisbury Street in Worcester. The Church had flown a Pride Flag outside for a while until stolen twice and since replaced more securely. My son and family reported a positive experience. But as much as I love and respect them, I did not trust their reports. After all, it was a Baptist Church which are like Nazareth, and what good ever comes from Nazareth? (John 1:46) They may not be a ‘den of inequity,’ but I expected a Cathedral of Evangelicalism.
But the church is actually scheduled to celebrate Pride Day on September 10th, 2023. I was quite anxious and suspicious yet determined to support something so courageous. So, I rose out of decades of Sunday morning lethargy and followed my son’s family to 10:00 church.
I’ve been there almost every Sunday since.
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We celebrate the presence of the Divine every week in all of her genders, as he, she, them, they, brother, sister, father, son, daughter, and everything in between. The Ultimate Mystery cannot be confined to any human category.
After all these years, I have found a safe haven where I, too, am welcomed, included, and received as my own brand of straight, privileged, old, white guy.
And, in this home, I can still cherish the spiritual oases I spent so much time in, which kept my soul alive during my forty-year sojourn outside the church. I find this new place, a Baptist church, where I feel God’s presence blossoming as I worship.
I’m like a vulnerable flower blossom just opening to the sunlight as a gentle spring rain responds to how dehydrated I feel. I soak it in while staying alert to possible dust storms.
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My practice is to arrive a half hour before the service begins. After greeting a few people, I am coming to know and look forward to seeing, I sit, meditating in one of the cushioned pews. Even the pews are comfortable here. Simply following the breath in and out, my heart widens with each breath. I can do this because I feel safe. No Bible thumper is going to clonk me on the head, accusing me of heresy or being a pagan. After forty years wandering the desert, I have found a promised land. I sink deeper into my breath and the cushion as my shoulders relax. The sun flows through a window, warming my face. I feel my feet on the floor, grateful for the pew since my days of sitting cross-legged on the floor are long gone.
As I meditate, the choir is squeezing in a rehearsal, and I breathe in their aliveness, especially if the music is of the dynamic hand-clapping sort. Makes me want to dance, sing, and shout AMEN. Or better yet, yell, SING IT AGAIN. But I am not yet that brave. And if I am especially fortunate, Wesley, the minister of music and art, practices with the morning soloist. One Sunday, I had a head cold and could not hear the actual words, yet her voice resonated, reverberated with, and stroked the strings of my soul. Many churches have beautiful music, but this is the first one that has affected me this way. And during the service, as the same solo was sung, I thought I would just float away. Without being able to hear the words, it evoked neurochemicals not only of happiness but of awe and presence.
As we worship, some mornings, I experience that my entire upper body empties out, and my inner space is filled not with void but with luminous Wonder. There is even a sense of having a chill run through me. It is as though the Ultimate is right here, wrapped around me. At first, it scared me, but I just breathed as my soul whispered, “Stay right here. Stay open. Stay in your heart.” And I realized I was right where I was supposed to be. That this is the same feeling I have in the deep forest only now it is a blessing to be among people.
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The amazing thing is I am awe-filled, and it is me, Graham Campbell, sitting right here among these people, for God’s sake, in a BAPTIST church feeling the arms of the Divine, actually feeling these things as I felt them as a nature mystic for many years in the forest and wading through a river. This is happening to me and with me, in the presence of a community I just met. I have what I’ve been looking for, a path beyond the wilderness.
The church isn’t perfect. New homes and churches never are. And, of course, neither were old homes and churches. But it is a place intent on being an inclusive, authentic beacon of the Gospel. Many of us are delightfully quirky. Others wonderfully ‘normal.’ And to loosely paraphrase folk singer Bill Stains, “All God’s children got a place in the choir. Some folks sing low, some sing higher.”
Each Sunday includes a “Moment of Wonder” (in other churches, referred to by the boring title of children’s sermon). Children often come forward running or skipping to sit in the front with Associate Pastor Katherine, who lovingly welcomes them in their adorable cuteness and humorous comments. The joy in the little ones reflects the authentic inclusiveness for all of God’s children, those of that age and those now mostly young in spirit. Sometimes, even a few physically older people join them with their giggles, almost skipping to get there.
Senior Pastor Brent has been on sabbatical for these months, so Pastor Katherine has led worship, shared Scripture, and wondered about its meaning with us. She often takes on difficult, uncomfortable passages about people behaving unexpectedly, which are treated naturally and welcomed as anything else. Pastor Kathrine crosses formerly vast chasms of separation while embodying faithful inclusivity.
Next, in the service, people engage in what is now a familiar ritual of greeting each other. As I am coming out of my transcendent buzz, the Spirit pulls me into its immanent presence. That God loves these people is the well-known miracle; that’s a given. The immediate miracle is that in these moments, I love each of them. My strong introverted tendencies dissolve in the midst of this miracle. I mostly seek people I don’t know to greet, needing to restrain my desire to hug each one.
The senior pastor returned from his time away in December and, much to my amazement, assisted in the service rather than taking the lead. It was a quiet message that the community process is essential.
With the return of Senior Pastor Brent, I was puzzled. The ‘big dog’ was back, but not acting at all like it. After a couple of weeks, I began to see and hear him as clearly a very intelligent man, even edging toward wisdom, and a gentle soul, but not being ‘the big dog.’
(Now a brief side light: early in the sixties, a feminist leader said any time a woman experienced being treated disrespectfully, a CLICK should go off in her brain.)
At this point, in this male brain, Click, Click, Click started sounding. This male was looking for an alpha male but saw a partner on the path.
I got it as I entered the sanctuary a few weeks after his return. As a genuine example of the Sacred Masculine working with so much Divine Feminine, he did not have to be a dominant ‘big’ anything. Even if he wanted to, in this place and time with so much Divine Feminine in the staff and pews, it would not work well. This Sacred Masculine seems to be present as a spiritual partner, associate, and companion with other staff and the entire congregation as we travel through the promised land.
As the service concludes, the final hymn is not the end of church service. The recessional is like the recess bell in grammar school when we meet upstairs; it is a sort of playground for a social gathering, sitting around tables talking mostly about the typical things of life.
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In these later years of my life, I am guided to this home where the Ultimate Presence blossoms. I have found a home base from which I wander through the world, hoping to aid in creating safe havens for and with all of God’s children.
Your sharing is deeply appreciated! Thank you immensely!
Thank you, Gordon, for your kind words.