I went to church today. Something quite rare for me. Not on purpose, that is I do not actively avoid churches. I find myself in them on occasion, a wedding or funeral mostly, sometimes sight-seeing in a new town, there are many famous churches and cathedrals I am fortunate to have experienced. But it's been some years since I found myself listening to a church service and interacting with the regularly attending congregation. 

I've never been an atheist. I saw no reasonable position in arguing against something with no evidence, while claiming your lack of evidence is superior to their lack of evidence. I found the writings on the matter by Saint Thomas Aquinas and Descartes infinitely more fascinating than anything produced by Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and the like. My view of current organized Christianity has been harsh at times due to the widespread, nearly total acceptance of the Second Vatican Council, and the rate at which secular-liberalism seems to have infected the non-Orthodox institutions. In the same sense, I am not against the idea of higher-education or academia, I'm against the modern version. All Western institutions have been infected. That’s no condemnation of Christianity to recognize it is one of the pillars under heavy assault. There is a more general discussion of the type of morality instilled, how that morality relates to the socio-cultural and political views I have, but broadly speaking, I've seen more of the good side as of late. Something I did not see before. Today is another such example of the trend. 

The circumstances were regretful. A very kind fellow in my town named Gary passed away recently. He had no immediate family, his parents and siblings had all passed on before him, he never had children. I received a phone call from an unfamiliar number this morning, usually, I do not bother to answer unless I know the person, something told me to pick up the line today. It was the pastor of the church Gary attended, he knew that I knew Gary and asked me to attend services this morning, as there would be part devoted to Gary’s life. Being familiar with the whereabouts of the church, I told him I would be there. I never did ask how the pastor came upon my number. I'm still unsure.

Arriving at the small church in the middle of what are ordinarily cornfields, I counted only five cars. Walking in I was greeted by the pastor, handed a hymn and a small order of service with a nice photo of Gary on the front. I sat in the back as the pianist played a hymn. The pastor had a short eulogy penned for Gary, talked about his life, and offered a couple of quotes from Tolkien's Middle-Earth epic that he felt embodied Gary, his life, and travels. This was all very much to my surprise and delight (one of the several connections I would notice this trip). Gary was a very adventurous man, you would never know it by his appearance, demeanor, or accent, but he was a world traveler. And not in the 20-year-old sorority-girl sense of the term "traveler", Gary had seen it all. 

I was invited to say a few words about the man I had come to know over the past ten years. Something that would have terrified me in my younger years, speaking in front of anybody, let alone perfect strangers. After many interviews and podcasts related to my writings and recently finishing law school, public speaking, especially without time to prepare, was something I have grown comfortable with. Although I wouldn't wish to be a public dissident or law school on anyone, looking back, I think both have made me a better man. 

I shared how Gary and I met, he was a regular at a hole-in-the-wall where I was the kitchen-manager through undergrad. Gary was one of the first customers upon the bar/restaurant’s opening, he always supported small and local businesses. Supporting small businesses was something that meant a lot to him, I'm not sure why, I wish I would have asked him. As always, I wrongfully assumed that I had more time. I spoke a bit about the great travel stories Gary would share with the staff, how much we all loved his beagle companion that went everywhere with him, and that I appreciated seeing him all those days at work. No matter how slow we were, or how inclement the weather may have been, you could count on Gary to be there with a smile, a great story, and his semi-famous goodbye wishes, "I'll be seein' ya".

Others said a few words about our friend as well, about all the great little restaurants and coffee shops Gary introduced them to, and a particularly heartfelt story from a very old girlfriend. She was now wheelchair-bound, but she came out in the bitter cold under a patchwork of suicide-gray skies to tell the small congregation about how Gary would work in the kitchen and help the janitors at their school when they were kids to make sure she could buy lunch because her family was so poor she was unable to buy lunch herself. 

Gary started working very young, from the time he was old enough to sweep floors and wash dishes. He would later get a CDL and drive trucks making deliveries around the nation. He always stayed kind and giving until he passed away in his sleep one November day. 

The pastor ended the service for Gary with another quote from Tolkien, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."  

There were other hymns and information about the clothing drive for the town's children, then service was concluded. 

The congregation was small, all older, and white. Eleven people were in attendance, twelve if you include the pastor, thirteen including myself. The youngest person besides myself was nearly sixty, I would learn. This church, a small, one-room church house has been standing for as long as I can remember, mostly plain, with the notable steeple and large stained-glass feature behind the pulpit. A very old piano, slightly out of tune, but beautiful all the same – perhaps all the more so this way. 

I met most of the members after the service, they thanked me for the kind words and the stories about Gary they had not heard before. I thanked them for having me. 

Over coffee the pastor wanted to chat, he had a few questions about religion and the law which he had long been curious. Something that is on our minds a lot, his questions amounted to, "how did this happen?" We talked about Supreme Court cases regarding prayer in schools, public displays of religion, the Lemon test, Mr. Engle of Engel v. Vitale (1962), and how the establishment clause and free exercise clause can spawn all of these cases and controversies when it makes up less than twenty words in the U.S. Constitution. The pastor lamented the liberal transformation his denomination has undergone and how he now has nothing in common with the church’s leadership. Something so familiar to people like us on this side of the political realm.

These were very normal but intelligent people that I met. They are the quintessential salt of the Earth old-stock Americans, and the average ones seem to have a better grasp of things that people in online circles might give them credit for. What might be considered "normies" in online circles, were people who fundamentally understood this nation has been subverted and continues to be subverted by hostile outside elements. 

Our conversation ended with a plan for it to continue over lunch on another date, I grabbed my coat and walked outside. Across the field I noticed a decrepit playground, a small wooden boat (Ark), that was rotting away. It's probably been decades since a child played on the structure, looking out of the portholes laughing, pretending to navigate the high seas with the now heavily weathered captain's wheel at the helm of the ship. There was a large cross where the swings were once held, based on the position of the remaining, quite rusted, eye bolts. The entire playground looked to be custom and hand built. It struck me that one of the old men I met, now using a walker or cane, in the church probably built the Ark and cross many years ago, when he was young and strong. Time seems to roll on in the most brutal way.

Perhaps it was the fact that this was the first time I've attended a church service in many years, perhaps it was the loss of a member of the community that I greatly appreciated, but walking to my car, passed the rotting playground, I could not help but feel something very uneasy and ominous. It had nothing to do with the service, the church itself, or the people I just met, that was all as wonderful as you could ask. It was something deeper. 

At some point, I don't know when, maybe in the past decade, maybe the one before, or even before still, this church would have had a filled parking lot on a Sunday morning. Every seat would have been filled, there would have been little children running around, probably a person who taught them a youth bible-study at one of the now falling-apart picnic tables. Now the population is aging, aging out, and dying. Myself, a mere guest at their church, was the youngest by several decades. The number of old stock Americans, these types of Americans, is fading, the hope for the future, the next generation, is as abandoned as the disintegrating playground. 

Leaving the long gravel driveway, I sipped the coffee one of the ladies had given me with a sense of despair. But I forced a smile and decided again, as I have a thousand times before, to keep on down this same old road. 

I was reminded that there are still kind and good people in this world who feel very lost and like a stranger in their homelands and towns. Some people will still be searching for a shimmer of light in the darkness and although the numbers may be dwindling and the firelight is dimming quickly as night draws near, there is still the chance that the embers can rage once more.

Thanks for reading. I'll be seein' ya around. 

always,

Rich