Lordy Mercy!

 When I began writing this column nineteen years ago, I wished to write about the spiritual side of the spiritual smart aleck; that is, my faith (Christian) and my church (Episcopal). I knew that Vashon has a lot of churches, but also a lot of agnostics and atheists who would be more likely to read the Loop than some of the churchgoers.

I was afraid I might get some hostility from anti-religion people, but by that time, I figured that if I was going to be a Christian, I was not going to apologize for it. If anyone was offended by my Christian writings, they never told me.

My adult conversion began in my mid-30s, a time of life during which many people discover a more thoughtful and perhaps spiritual angle to their lives. Some come to a faith or practice for the first time. Some delve deeper into the faith that has been part of them since childhood. Some find new life in a faith from which they had walked away. Some become Baha’i, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or Muslim. Some think they would rather be a secular humanist, thanks. Some dig in and say it’s all a crock.

My attitude after all these years is, “Whatever floats your boat.”

That would not fly in the Baptist Church in which I was raised. We were supposed to get out there and save souls so they could spend eternity in heaven, and every soul we missed would burn in the fires of hell.

As a child I wondered, what about all the people who were born before Christianity? Were they all sizzling away?

It is good to remember that Jesus was not a Christian. He was a Jew, probably a member of the Pharisees, a large sect of Judaism in those days. The Pharisees he denounced were leaders who did not act like true people of faith. They were in it for the money and power.

Sound familiar?

After the American Revolution England was so mad at the former American colonies that they would not allow a Church of England bishop come over to ordain priests in the American church, but the Church of Scotland obliged, and once priests were ordained here, they could ordain others because they were part of the Apostolic Succession.

What in the heck is the Apostolic Succession?

To the best of my understanding the Apostolic Succession means that you have hands laid on you by someone who had hands laid on them, who had hands laid on them, and so on, in an unbroken chain of laying on of hands that goes back to Jesus’ Apostles, who did the original laying on of hands in first century Palestine.

You are now asking, “Who kept track?” Good question, and I do not have an answer. Those of you who are learned Christian theologians could explain Apostolic Succession more accurately.

In the 1970s when women began to demand to be ordained as priests in the Anglican and Episcopal churches, it was the belief of many in the church that when the Apostolic Succession reached a woman, it dropped dead: “Okay, missy, maybe you have been blessed by this ancient rite, but you cannot pass it on to anyone else because you have the wrong chromosomes.”

To which women priests said, “Hah.”

Women continue, in all things, not just religion, to struggle to get men’s feet off our necks. It never ends.

Well, anyway, I felt called and I became an Episcopalian around 1986. I love the liturgy, the music, the expectation that you will use the brain God gave you, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Episcopalians. And singing in the choir, which we all hope will happen again someday.

That initial rush of conversion calmed down long ago, and life has smacked me around some, but having a firm faith has been, well, everything. How do you get a firm faith? Same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

Then there are lame Bible jokes:

Q: What kind of car does God have? A: A Plymouth. He drove Adam and Eve out of the garden in a Fury.

Q: What kind of car did the Apostles have? A: A Honda. The Apostles were all in one Accord.

I will give you a little time to recover from your groans.

Ready?

Over the years I have been a lot more smart aleck than spiritual in this column. Whatever you believe, or do not believe, I hope the column has given you some smiles and laughs and even some comfort. After all, what’s a spiritual smart aleck for?

My mother told me many times when she thought I was being sassy, “Nobody likes a smart aleck.”

She was wrong. People love smart alecks.