In Which Our Heroine Opts Not to Become a Lutheran
I am surrounded by avid Lutherans. Not that I'd consider the breed a particularly evangelical bunch, but my roommate is a Lutheran, her mother is a "good little Lutheran" and our friend Graham is a Lutheran who as soon as he gets his act in gear (which may be sooner now that he has successfully acheived the banning of smoking throughout large portions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is heading to Divinity School to become the first Lutheran Pope. Rita and Graham go to the same church here in Cambridge, and hardly suprisingly it is a Lutheran Church. Yesterday was "Friendship Sunday" which is basically where you bring your friends to church. I was willing to go, Lutheranism not being so far from Anglicanism, and once Graham offered to take me to lunch afterwards, I found I was more than willing to worship for food. (Does this tie in with my food and faith paper? Hmmmmmmmmm, maybe.) So with less than an hour to go, I bounded into Rita's room, woke her up and informed her we had to go worship. She was less than enthused, which was a little suprising seeing as she was co-chair of Friendship Sunday, but I did wake her up, so maybe it wasn't quite so suprising. Rita takes a bit to get going in the morning. But once she was up, she was adamant we had to go because "It isn't like Greek orthodox. These Germans need to be on *time.*" So sprinting out of the house, we got there just in the nick of time, whapped Graham in the back of his head to get his attention and make him come sit with us, and I rapidly discovered that friendship Sunday was to be all about ......
Death.

Yes, death. Turns out these Lutherans are a morbid breed. Or more accurately, it turns out that in a bit of a scheduling mixup, Friendship Sunday was scheduled for All Saints Day, which is a popular time to talk about death. Those who had gone before, etc etc. Before the service, there was an announcement about death, the hymns were perky little numbers about the afterlife, and during the service we had to write down the names of someone who had died and then go up on the altar, hand in our card, light a candle and then stick it in some sand pots. This proved to be quite problematic for me as it raised all sorts of implications. First, did the person I named have to be Lutheran? Did they have to have died in the last year? What if I didn't know if they were Lutheran? What if God didn't like them? What if it was a year and a day ago that they died? And besides, it seemed so wrong to be writing things in church - I felt as though I was supposed to be paying attention to something, not writing stuff down. But Rita named her grandfather, who passed away recently, and who was a good Lutheran, so I went with that. Went up, turned in my card, lit my candle, stuck it in the sand, and felt a bit awkward about the whole thing really. The candles were a little tricky too - since there were pots of them filled and I was near the end of the line, it was difficult to put it in and manage not to get your clothing caught on fire. But I pulled it off somehow. I really do feel that there was a potentially very beautiful and symbolic moment in there just waiting to get out, but not quite making it. Went back, sat down, and waited for the peace bit, during which all I wanted to do was grab ahold of Rita and Graham, hold them very tightly and order them not to die. Rita then *left* because she had to go to work. I opted out of communion as I didn't really feel up to it, and then made it through the service and off to the promised lunch bit. That was good, but we went with lots of people from church, and I got stuck at the end of the table with Graham, who is one of hte funniest people I know, and some people who weren't that funny. This inluded the guy who thought reading anything but the Wall Street Journal was a waste of his time as he had other things to do. All in all, I don't think I'm about to convert to Lutheranism. Although Graham says that now that the chip has been implanted in my brain, I'll start to feel a lot less pain and start to think that those Lutherans really have the right idea. Time will tell, I suppose!
love, and wishing you all don't die,
Anne