Rocking on 42nd street

Yes it's true there is a church on Broadway and 42nd street right smack dab in the middle of Manhattan! Last Friday a friend,( who may be my third husband) invited me there. I have experienced anything like this before. I was used to the sparse meditative services at the Church of the Epiphany. This was the total opposite. The main room which used to be the stage for the musical Jesus Christ Superstar was fully packed. So the ushers ushered us up to another floor with at huge conference room.

Here I was on a Friday night in Manhattan, in a church on 42nd street that was so crowded there was standing room only. My friend and I grabbed two of the last seats available.
In front of me were ten huge television screens that showed the action taking place in the main room. And action is a mild word. I starred ahead at footage of a huge choir, the words of the songs flashed on the screen encouraging people to sing along. I turned and looked around me. People were on their feet, clapping singing, hand raised to the Lord, hands raised in prayer. It was like being at a rock concert. I got into it for a moment and then my head began to ache. I much prefer a quieter more meditative worship style.

After about a half hour of singing the crowd settled in to listen to a middle aged African American man. He was here as part of the bible study program that drew me here in the first place. Being Easter weekend he picked the passage in the Bible that discussed the Last Supper. He began to speak about an emotion that was all to familiar to me. He began to speak of fear. There was fear at this last supper. Jesus was not dining at Les Hales. This was a military time a time when anyone could barge through the door and torture and maim and kill. This was a somber supper, a supper filled with fear.

I was taken aback for a moment. It's a funny thing when I hear someone say something that I've never considered before and at the same time it rings true deep inside my soul. Of course, there must have been a lot of fear around that dinner table. Why had I never considered this?

For me that is a sign of a great priest, preacher, rabbi, teacher, someone who points out a truth that I never considered before and imparts that knowledge unselfishly to others.
That's one reason I never went into teaching. I figured I'd learned all this stuff the hard way and had no intention of passing it along without a fight.

Anyway the idea of fear stuck with me and I sadly realized that my entire life was filled with fear. I feared my parents, and brothers and I wore that fear like a badge in my adult life. Most of my decisions were made in fear, out of fear, fearing fear. And quite honestly, most of my adult decisions turned out badly. How could I expect anything less? My motivating factor was an emotion so myopic for self preservation it led to excessive poor judgement.

Yes I understood a little of the fear involved in the last supper. I knew fear... too well. But what was I supposed to do with this fact? I was aware it existed within myself, but I just couldn't wish it away. It was stuck to my ribs like greasy chicken and no Palmolive in the word could break that mess down.

Then this preacher or teacher said something that opened a door for me and my fear. He said that when good things happen we thank God. We should tell God how much we love him and we praise him. But when bad things happen we turn from God. We beg him to make things better and we wonder what we did to deserve such punishment.

I nodded my head in agreement with the other of hundreds of people in attendance. Yep,that was about right. And then he turned this around. Instead of blaming God for our misfortune we should thank him. That's right. We should thank God when things go wrong, because God doesn't make mistakes. He hold all planets in the solar system and hasn't dropped one yet and he won't drop us.

It struck me that idea- thanking God for the bad stuff in my life. I decided that I would experiment with this. For the rest of the week I went around thanking God when Peter and I had a fight- thanking god when I pricked my finger on a rose, thanking God for my fear, and the most difficult of all, thanking God for my horrible excuse for a family. I thanked God for everything that I'd previously begged him to expunge from my life. And then a strange feeling overcame me. I felt relaxed, peaceful. I felt it was not me against the world and I realized I really realized that God had no made no mistakes in my life otherwise I wouldn't be writing this words right now.

Because I couldn't see past my nose I was creating anxiety and fear and making desperate attempts to control everything around me. But no more, thanking God somehow released me from myself thanking God and allowing God to make decisions for in my in my life somehow liberated me and literally washed away that fear that had been plaguing me for years.

That night I prayed. Thanks the for the fear God... it lead me straight to you. Amen.

Love Kay