What Is Church For? (And Recovering Our Own Selves)

On the Sabbath Day, I was shuffling in my pew. We’d sung that chorus about how it’s “what's inside that counts for real” and it seemed a bit coincidental because I’d been on the radio, not saying we should be content with the wrinkles God had given us, but saying I couldn’t do anything about my height or my body shape, so I was going to do something about my aging face. And I was a bit like I don’t care what y’all think. But I did care. I didn’t want to be judged at church.

Then the minister shared how they used to tie up swings in the parks on Sundays because you weren’t allowed to do anything sacrilegious like whizz through the air and go higher and higher and squeal with joy and give your mum a bit of peace and it was as if he’d overheard the conversation I’d had with my husband. “Meatloaf,” he said, “like the singer?”. “Yes,” I said, “as opposed to the ground beef formed in the shape of a loaf”. I told him about the guy who in fear of eternal damnation, threw all his heavy metal albums in the bin and I’m not sure why because “you got the kind of legs that do more than walk”¹ is a great line. There was also this weird rumour about the devil and playing records backwards and it must have been a relief when we moved on to CDs and now no one has any idea how to play Apple Music in reverse.

I’d been sharing a list of things that were banned if you wanted to be considered a good Christian. There were the obvious ‘sins’ like smoking and tattoos and drinking and sex before marriage and pubs but also yoga and the cinema and mindfulness and someone got into huge trouble for taking the Girl Guides to the Bushmills Distillery. But some things were ok like puddings and intolerance and barn dances and then on top of all the disalloweds, there were the requirements – attending services twice on a Sunday plus the midweek, a daily ‘quiet time’, always saying DV² and never ever thinking you’d done anything in your own strength. It had been a blow to me, discovering all these additional rules because I lived in a home governed by them, and I’d been sent to church not because of Jesus but to ensure I complied.

But, back to the swings. Lots of people didn’t come to church now because of legalistic restrictions. The whole concept of Sabbath rest had been overturned in favour of football practice and birthday parties and eighteen holes on the golf course. “Permissiveness will no more lead to godliness than pharisaism,” said the minister. And I could feel a wave of exhaustion washing over me, because I’ve spent decades trying to figure out how to be godly and the parameters keep changing and instead of being measured on a whole set of external should-nots, it’s now internal should-bes, like spiritual character which involves a lot of discipline and might interfere with my personalities and I tried to read Dallas Willard once but got lost somewhere around the thigh bone being connected to the hip bone or maybe it was the mind to the heart.

And then I read what Aimee Byrd³ said…

“It can take a lifetime to recover our own selves”. It was a miracle I was still at church considering why I’d been sent there and the legacy I carried. They weren’t tying up the swings anymore but I’d heard a lot of sermons on how to outwardly behave - like beware of cosmetics and fashion but always recycle and never ever dispose of your 75” flatscreen tv at the dump where someone might spot you and engage in sport in a way that is worshipful which seemed to mean sitting quietly in the stands, wearing a huge poncho rather than yelling at the referee, and don’t go to the supermarket on Sundays when you could be hospitable instead. And there was a Sunday when the Clerk of Session and the Assistant Minister (and their better halves) came to our house for lunch and the Sainsburys van arrived just as they were leaving, and I thought what a solution online shopping is because it means you can do both. And I worry that the church could be full of repressed people who are obeying other people’s rules and holding themselves so tightly they might snap, and my Pilates instructor said I was like a wound-up spring, and I said it was because I was a Presbyterian. If God’s law was designed to liberate, I didn’t see many individuals exercising their right to be their own selves and I needed to be released because I was holding an awful lot of tension in my neck.

I’d finished reading The Mission House⁴. I’d been worried that Hilary, the librarian, might end up dead and I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but he may have sacrificed himself for someone else. When he decides he wants to marry the Padre’s daughter but knows the Padre would only want a good Christian husband for his “darling, darling girl”, he joins a Bible study. They’re doing Genesis.

No one seemed to mind Adam putting all the blame on Eve, except for Gerald Cameron, who rapped the ferrule of his walking stick on Frances’s wooden floor and stabbed the air shouting, ‘Shabby dog!’.

And Frances Moreland said to Hilary Byrd, ‘The Bible’s full of quite a few strange bits and pieces, isn’t it?’.   

And they laughed again, both doing their own imitation of Gerald’s outraged and really quite surprising, ‘Shabby dog!’. As their laughter petered out, Frances said, ‘I just do it for the company really, the whole church thing – for the companionship. There’s a lot to be said about that part of belonging to a church.’

My daughters had stopped going to church⁵ because maybe I’d been too permissive or maybe I hadn’t modelled the path to godliness or maybe I’d allowed them to be themselves and now they had started to come back, and I’d asked them why and they’d said because they enjoyed it. And I reckoned enjoyment wasn’t a bad place to start because it implies not only belonging, but also acceptance. “Maybe Howard already knows how easy it is to betray ourselves, and God, by finding a ‘noble way to live a life that is not our own’,” said Aimee Byrd, “striving for a version of a life that is suffocating the very distinctiveness of the vocations we are gifted”.  

And I wondered what is church for because often we’re afraid to ask that question or we try to give the right answer about why we go and is it to make us all the same, regulated, ready for eternity, passing through a correction facility where we learn how not to be our own selves or enjoy the distinctiveness of what we’ve been gifted or where we can’t go higher and higher and squeal with joy? When all we mainly want is to be accepted somewhere.

On the afternoon of the Sabbath Day, I gave my husband peace to finish tax returns and cook beef bourguignon and sort the grocery delivery, and as I was passing some swings which were blowing in the wind and blasting Bat Out of Hell and I’d got to the bit where he stands like a sinner at the gates of heaven, I bumped into a minister. I don’t know what I said to him, but he said that the Sabbath Day was to “pray and play” and each of us should find our own interpretation of that. And that didn’t sound like permissiveness. It sounded like permission. Aimee Byrd said if she was to look in the mirror at her ten-year-old self, she’d ask her what she thought of her aging face, and she’d explain the detour she took to becoming Aimee. Then she’d give young Aimee some advice. She’d tell her what Howard said.

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You can listen to me on the radio (from 35 minutes in).

As an extra treat, this week, I have also written this. It’s called…

1. Dead Ringer for Love

2. Deo Volente meaning God willing.

3. How Easy It Is To Betray Ourselves

4. By Carys Davies

5. My Children Have Stopped Going To Church