Leaving Church - Barbara Brown Taylor [45]
Abandoning them at last gave me a great sense of relief. I kept New Hymns, Blessing of Animals, and the sermons. I also took a few note cards with Julian of Norwich’s famous benediction on them. And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Then I slid the bottom drawer shut and heard it click for the last time.
During these last weeks at church, I received an invitation from a couple of church members to attend an annual pool party at their home. The party was legendary, involving live Maine lobsters and kegs of imported beer. I did not remember ever having been invited before, perhaps because everyone knew I spent Saturday nights at home, but this time I was eager to go.
When I arrived, the veranda of the old Victorian cottage was packed with people, only the nearest of whom greeted me as I climbed the wide wooden steps. Instead of working the crowd, I accepted a cold cup of beer from the keg and sat down on the porch swing to talk with a layman whom I knew well. We did not talk church business, for once, and since I no longer had any power to wield for good or for ill, our conversation was missing the usual deference and discretion. We talked about how his garden was doing and what I was going to do with my couple of months off. Why hadn’t I realized before how likable he was?
After I left him in search of food, I wound up with a couple I had always thought I would enjoy but whom I never really got to know since they did not serve on any committees and were never, as far as I knew, in crisis. We sat down in adjacent rocking chairs with plates full of lobster and corn balanced on our laps, laughing so much that I spit food clear across the porch. I did not wonder why I had not sought them out earlier because I already knew the answer. By my rules, caring for troubled people always took precedence over enjoying delightful people, and the line of troubled people never ended. Sitting there with corn stuck between my teeth, I wondered why I had not changed that rule sooner.
After my supper had settled I wandered down to the pool, where I watched swimming children splitting beams of underwater light with their bodies. I had baptized many of them, and I loved seeing them all shrieking and paddling around together in that one big pool. Suddenly to my right there was a deeper yell, the sound of scrabbling feet on cement, and then a large plop as a fully clothed adult landed in the water.
I stood back and watched the mayhem that ensued. All around me, people were grabbing people and wrestling them toward the water. The dark night air was full of pool spray and laughter. The kids were going crazy. Several people hunting for potential victims turned toward me, their faces lit with smiles. When they saw who I was they turned away again so that I felt sad instead of glad. Whatever changes were occurring inside of me, I still looked waterproof to them. Like the sick man in John’s gospel, who lay by the healing pool of Beth-zatha for thirty-eight years because he had no one to put him in when the water was stirred up, I watched others plunging in ahead of me. Then two strong hands grabbed my upper arms from behind, and before I knew it I was in the water, fully immersed and swimming in light.
I never found out who my savior was, but when I broke the surface, I looked around at all of those shining people with makeup running down their cheeks, with hair plastered to their heads, and I was so happy to be one of them. If being ordained meant being set apart from them, then I did not want to be ordained anymore. I wanted to be human. I wanted to spit food and let snot run down my chin. I wanted to confess being as lost and found as anyone else without caring that my underwear showed through my wet clothes. Bobbing in that healing pool with all those other flawed beings of light, I looked around and saw them as I had never seen them before, while some of them looked at me the same way.