Church

I went to church this morning, in the car on the way to work. No, I don’t mean I drove to a church, I mean I went to church in the car. See, flipping around radio stations, I landed on the local classic rock station playing the Doobie Brothers, “Jesus is Just All Right With Me.” And that, friends and neighbors, is going to church…

See, I was raised Catholic, and at the time it worked out pretty well for me. I got the religious education; I got the good schooling through the Catholic school system (and even came out of that relatively unscathed). Then I discovered that organized religion didn’t work real well for me, and so for several years I was agnostic. I always believed in God, and in fact always had some pretty strong feelings about who He was and what He’s all about. (See my previous post, “Our Father Who Art in California.”) But as for religion, that just doesn’t work too well for me. I’ve tried attending church in another faith or three, and it’s always nice enough at first – the routine of a weekly service, the feeling of awe and reverence at being in a house of worship. Still, that quickly fades, replaced by my indignance at being told exactly what I should believe, particularly if it conflicts with my experience and/or rational thought. There’s faith (very, very good) and then there’s blind faith (God gave us brains, why wouldn’t he expect us to use them?) and in my opinion, far too many denominations expect blind faith.

Well, somewhere during one of my agnostic periods, when I worked most every Sunday morning at the grocery store, I noticed that song playing fairly frequently on Sundays. It struck me one day, then, that that was my church for the time being. A relatively quiet place, where I could be by myself, just me and my thoughts and my Father and my faith. And after all, one of the integral parts of church, to me, has always been the music. Even in the Bible – songs as praise, singing a new song unto the Lord. He loves music – He must love music, why else would he have called Jimi and Jim and Janis and Stevie Ray and so many others, up there so early? So yes, it’s a little odd, a little unconventional, a little spirit-not-letter-of-the-law, but as far as I’m concerned, me and my car and the Doobie Brothers and God and Jesus… well, that’s just all right with me.