20150601.0718

Yesterday, the Mrs. and I attended church services, something we have been doing in large part to make sure that Ms. 8 is exposed to and gets to interact with people other than us at least a little bit each week. She seems to enjoy the experience, and I have to think that the socialization is good for her. The Mrs. reports also that she benefits from the experience, and I am invested in ensuring that both she and our daughter are enriched. I do try to be a good husband and father, after all, even if what being "good" in either role means is uncertain.

The Scripture reading and sermon focused on the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13:6-9. I was put in mind of something I wrote some time ago, linking the reading to Puritan poetry (despite the poet's yoking of the specific poem to John 6:51). I am not going to re-hash the explication of that particular connection; I think I did well enough with it in 2013 to leave it alone at present. (Exodus 33:23 comes to mind, though, God promising to show Moses what sounds much like the Divine Ass. There seems to be a scatological pattern, but I am not so skilled an exegete to pull it out more fully.) Instead, I will take the opportunity, prompted by the content of the sermon, to reflect on a comment made in the earlier discussion: "It is a message more common in the churches where I grew up than in the one I attend, admittedly, but it is present--and applicable." For the content of the sermon did put me in mind of the church I attended as a child, that in which my brother was baptized (an event I recall dimly) and one of my aunts got married (which I do not recall), and it was not entirely comfortable.

Those who have known me know that I spent a long time protesting against faith. Even now, after having been a reasonably active member of a Christian church (and in New York City, no less), I find that I am not at ease identifying as a member of that faith tradition, of aligning with it or embracing it. It means something different here than in The City--but that different meaning is much like that at work in the town where I grew up. (Much like, but not the same; it has not got quite the same social cachet where I live now as it did where I lived then.) Coupled with my being busier here than in The City--or feeling like it, somehow--it disinclines me to open myself more fully. That certain other needs of mine are also not being met, or have not yet been met, where the Mrs. and I have been sitting in the pews is also unhelpful.

Again, though, I am not going so much for me as for the Mrs. and Ms. 8. And perhaps I can, in pooh-poohing the experience, can help it bear fruit for my wife and child.