What a Surprise

            Pondering the day and what it has already brought. Wait, actually started last night.

            I went to my Course in Miracles class last night and told the story of my taking Anthony, my adorable 88-year-old neighbor, to a Baptist church on Sunday. I kept telling him I’d take him to church because he really wanted to go and he doesn’t drive anymore. Finally, I made a list of five churches we could attend – three Presbyterian and two Baptist – because he wanted the Baptist experience most of all. I could have left off going to church altogether except as a way to meet new people and maybe have people who’d visit me in the hospital when I go there.

            Anthony picked Calvary Baptist Church, of course – last on the list. At least all five of the churches had pipe organs and Calvary BC was upgrading its organ.

            I drive us to church on Sunday morning and the people there are really nice and friendly and not “come-to-Jesus” Southern Baptists (my grandfather was a Baptist preacher so I have some experience in this), and we feel really welcomed. Anthony wants to sit down front, so we do. I love to sit in the back, of course. The service starts and it’s moving along and all of a sudden I have this feeling like I’m in love or something. Really, like romantic love. And the pastor, a young woman in her 30s, talks about the pilgrimage of Jesus in the wilderness during Lent. Now I know it’s Lent. And she says it wasn’t a quest, because that has a goal, but this pilgrimage is where you ask to hear God’s will.

            Well, this is all very similar to A Course in Miracles where your job is to listen and do God’s will. Okay, I’ve had trouble with this all my life, since about age ten. But I’m also sitting there and this message is coming at me from all kinds of directions and I’m feeling like I’m in love.

            So, Tama, the Course in Miracles class leader, last night tells me I experienced a shift in perception, a miracle, because I was able to put aside my preconceived notions about Baptist churches and be open to what was really being said. I don’t know what else to say. Well, I do, but I’ll write about that tomorrow.