Kumbaya in the Episcopal Church?

Yesterday, the kids and I drove to Stone Mountain State Park.  The drive was a bit longer than I’d expected (and I only missed one turn), but it was lovely.  I’m pretty sure this is peak weekend for the leaves—they are incredible!  We walked from the parking lot up a dirt road (which handicapped people are allowed to drive up), all the way to the requisite preserved pioneer home site.  The kids, rugged little athletes that they are, were complaining of exhaustion by the time we got to “the top,” but they were interested in seeing the crazy climbers going up the enormous rock that the park is named for.  Actually, T. didn’t believe me at first when I told him that the colored specks were climbers, but when he did, he was properly impressed.  K. was very disappointed when she learned that she wasn’t going to be rappelling up the cliff face.  Maybe next time Ed will come, and then we can drive to the home site, and then manage a short “hike” from there (but not up the rock).

T. and I went to church alone this morning, as Ed wasn’t feeling up to it and K. wanted to stay home and take care of Daddy, and I experienced my first service ever with guitar music.  The vicar is out of town again at another family funeral, and I had known it would be a Morning Prayer service, but I had no idea of what an unusual service it was going to be.  Guitar music and folksy ditties about Jesus?  I kept expecting someone to start a campfire in the middle of the chapel and bring out the marshmallows.  As if this hadn’t been enough shock to my system, after the service but before the final blessing, a member of the congregation stood up to talk about her experience at a recent conference on racism which she and some other congregants had attended.  Not only did we get a report, but we also got a test, taken right there in the pews, with test papers and pens we were handed, to demonstrate how fortunate we were to be white (everyone in this congregation of thirty or so is white).  And then, to top off the morning, various people told stories about how they had experienced being discriminated against!  This is not what I expect when I go to church!  I’m all in favor of everyone being treated fairly and equally, of course, and I’d even be perfectly amenable, most of the time, if someone said “We are having a discussion during the coffee hour about the recent conference on racism which some members of our congregation attended.”  I object strongly, however, to being subjected to testing and the sob stories of the victims of minor slights during a church service, and particularly so when I am out of sorts because a hash was made of a perfectly good service which did not require any creative tinkering.

Ed and I raked leaves this afternoon.  We have high hopes of a lovely lawn next spring, now that some sunlight is actually reaching the ground.  I had planned to carve our three pumpkins today, but it will have to be tomorrow.