Riverside Baptist, Halleluah!

I was stunned by the sheer size of it. Oh sure, the Catholic cathedral was immense, too, but it had the good grace to stand empty. The Baptists still fill their church; nearly every seat was occupied. The balconies ringing the ground floor seating weren't open today, but after seeing how full it was on this ordinary Sunday, when the minister was preaching about that most alienating concept of tithing, I am absolutely certain the balconies, come Easter, would be sagging under the weight of so many exalting believers.

In this church, they get right down to it. The congregation is instructed to meet and greet each other before the preaching even begins, ensuring I would feel fully uncomfortable for the rest of the service. Touch is a big part of this church. They lay their hands on. The penitent, the holy, the seeker and the sought approach the stage humbly and place their hands on each other as with bowed heads they praise Jesus. I could not help but reflect how much my own Dad would like this, as it is only with the blessing of the church he feels free to transcend the cold teachings of his stolid Germanic nature.

This Baptist church service is very much "I'm a Believer: The Musical." They have no liturgy but song. The lyrics roll by on teleprompters to each side of the stage, and no one needs to worry about reading music; the choir is intended to lead the congregation's voices. The choir is right up on stage. The choir master is also the cantor is also the acolyte. He is apparently getting some sort of cosmic revenge on the Lord and his individual fate for not letting him win the audition for a role in "Rent" when he was young and attempting to achieve stardom on Broadway. Now he contents himself with reaching for the stars of a bright, lovely, and altogether certain Heaven. The choir, incidentally, was horrible, off-key and incoherent. No amount of hand waving or occasionally strewn "Amens!" can make up for a choir that sings off-key. And that brings us around to the hand waving.

A fluttering of hands here, another there. Apparently, the spirit of white Baptists has been taught moderation. I was disappointed, I have to admit, at the lack of spirit, along with the lack of African Americans. For this was not lily-white Boulder, after all; this was the center of Denver. Apparently, the African Americans have another Baptist church. I would rather have been there. I distrust the friendliness of any church in the middle of a poor neighborhood whose residents are mostly minorities if those minorities are not evident in the congregation. The only Hispanic we notice has a whole different posture and demeanor than that of the straight and holy white worshippers. He and his wife shuffle to the altar, their shoulders bowed with sorrow and/or hard labor, looking for all the world like they are not so much part of this well-heeled congregation as perhaps its custodians, looking to keep their jobs secure. Is it only me who thinks it significant that he is called to the front in recognition of his work with men incarcerated in Colorado prisons?

Here, as in every other residence of American Protestantism I've known, money's the thing. Tithing. Giving the Lord the (minimum) ten percent of one's gross income not because the Church needs it, but because "God deserves it." In this church, where every Sunday an average of over 1,000 souls and a few well-placed heathens gather, money is the issue. The pastor was sure to point out that tithing, while mandated only in the Old Testament along with discarded notions like shunning pork or working on the Sabbath, was certainly not intended to be repudiated by the fulfillment of the Law, with Jesus's birth and death and resurrection, although somehow all the other admonitions of the Old Testament were nicely discarded. And that brings me to something I find far more interesting--the recent discovery of bones in a cave that are purportedly those of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and some small boy: their only begotten son, to be sure. Bones are effectively the end of the resurrection myth. No wonder we haven't been reading much about this discovery since the first stories. Hush hush sweet Charlotte; Charlotte, don't you cry...

In this Baptist church, there is no ornamentation on the stage, nor even an altar. There are no thrones for the priests, no robes or neck stoles, either. There are no servants or small boys for the priest. He wears a simple gray suit. His haircut is as plain and all-American as his square-ish jawline. He quotes himself as an authority to back up the "facts" of what he posits as the truth about tithing, and to make his words more authoritative, has them broadcast on the enormous AV screens mounted high to the left and right of the staging area, like a rock n roll concert. I am struck by the amount of preparation and staging that must go into each Sunday's production. A cameraman sits high above the congregation in the centermost aisle, filming it all on a camera a network news crew would envy. These people need to tithe. Not be cause the church needs it, but because Jesus deserves it. Wow.

I recognize only one of the many songs of their service, so I sing it extra loudly. Ben is with us this week, and the three of us enter into the spirit of the service with far more energy than the small contingent of Jews in the back row, made obvious only in part by the yamulka on the man's head. We do our best not to gawk or giggle, and that is the best we can do. What are these people doing here? What ecstatic union are they seeking? Why don't they just go home and have really good sex with the person they love instead of wasting it on the plain, pasty, square jawed man with the bad haircut who reminds them that Jesus is the one who deserves it.

After the service, the minister hopes to lure the misbegotten to the path of righteousness by the sugary path of doughnuts--"Take the doors to the right and be saved"--and Mady and Ben insist we must have our share, so we go the path of the godly, but the minister is waiting there, right beside the doughnuts, all carefully roped off lest the undeserving apply. Will you choose the lion or the lady and, really, which side ARE you on?

We are clearly the undeserving and the markedly unholy, so we leave it all to Jesus and run for our sweet lives. Out in the parking lot, we feel like we've escaped, and we grin like the fools that we are happy and grateful to be.

RIVERSIDE BAPTIST 2007!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are times when you are blown away by the bizarreness of an experience and don't even know how to start processing it. A physical discription could be helpful.

The Riverside Baptist Church is a new arena shaped monument visible from over a mile away on I-25 going into Denver. There are two 15 ft screens on either side of the pulpit/stage which is decorated somewhat like the set of Oprah, except with a gospel choir. There are three cameras with accompanying camera men on platforms throughout the audience. The service is broadcast on the screens, making hymn books obsolete and providing the answers to the fill in the blank questions which appear in the bulletin. For example: Jesus __________ the practice of tithing when He had a perfect opportunity to _________. (Matthew. 5:17; 23:23)

There were three times when I almost lost it and laughed out loud, and my laugh has been compared to a wide range of sounds from seals to broken power tools. This is not the sort of thing you want when trying to be discrete. The first time was during a hymn.

First off, the choir was horrendous. I don't think half of them were singing, and I can't stress enough to you the need for a conductor. They were so bad that at times I thought I was singing the wrong thing because the confusion within the choir made it so muddled that the song had become indistinguishable. Anyway, it was time for a duet and so a man and woman came out front and started singing about the lord's grace and what not, while different members of the partially restarted choir lifted up their hands in silent exclamations of AMEN with a timing that had you wondering if you missed something.

My brother, whose name is Ben, but I call Kerms, came with us this time and was sitting next to me. The woman fared decently with her part. She seemed to be able to "throw her weight around" pretty well (appropriate in more than one sense), however the man had more trouble. His part grew to peak on the word God. Unfortunately for him he was more than a little flat and Kerms, upon hearing the note, somewhat hopefully grimaced the word, "Close." to me. It was too much.

A second part is a matter of mathematical reasoning. The sermon was over the matter of tithing and the preacher spent a long winded half an hour explaining the bizarre timing that God had bestowed upon us. Apparently his omniscience had provided so that the preacher's biblical readings talked about tithing at the uncannily same time the church budget came out! The preacher was explaining how we could all see God's glory and power in sermon attendance. He powerpointed the attendance numbers for the last 4 Sundays; they were something like: 957 , 959, 952, 965. He then highlighted the general increasing trend in attendance, (except for that third Sunday). I'm no statistician but a fluctuation of 13 people over a 4 week period of any voluntarily attending population of near 1000 is more of a sign of God's divinity than it is a sign of a general increasing trend. That would in no way be called a significant result. If just 2 families have a sick child you've essentially reached that fluctuation. Yet some how this became an increasing trend demonstrative of God's greatness.

And then he referenced, to prove his own statements, who else but himself. I'll be honest I didn't really laugh at this, but I did feel mildly naseous. (That could also have been the perfume on the lady next to me.)

The other time that seemed straight out of television was when he (the preacher), as a closing thought,asked for God's blessing on various things, including, this......our beloved.......... CORPORATION. After that everything seemed slightly ludicrous.

People had said verbal and mental halleluah's in their head to his statement. I felt like I was in a futuristic novel telling about the dangers of future societies gone awry.

Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temple

Sunday, February 25, 2007

I usually have negative connotations associated with American Buddhism. They are very different from my Christian connotations or my generalized religion connotations. It is not one of pure estranged awe bordering on disgust, but that of yuppy snobs. I have spent practically the entirety of my life surrounded by a culture of these people, and I feel that I know them closely enough to really despise their existence.

These are the kind of people who believe yoga is a secondary form of Buddhism. Which, hell, as the sensei said in temple, your practice should be whatever floats your boat, but I'm talking about the kind of yogi who spends 400$ on a new meditation cushion or yoga mat and another 1,500 dollars on their yoga clothes. The kind who has designated hiking shorts. They can't just wear normal shorts when it comes to the specific purpose of walking.

The kind of person who buys all their groceries at Whole Foods and looks at you with disgrace when you don't buy Fair Trade coffee, which costs around 12$ for a bag compared to my apparently socially bankrupt coffee at $5.99. I've taken to calling FMV brand reservation food to pay my respect to the severe snobbery of these people. Somehow they think of themselves as the pinnacle of social consciousness as they get into their SUV hybrid and head up to the mountains to buy a piece of nature and apparently according to them inner peace during a ski weekend/meditation retreat in Aspen.

When these people tell you they are Buddhist, it makes you just want to squish a bug in front of them and watch as they don't notice.

The thing about the Jodo Shinshu service that made me doubt its validity as a religion (it often seemed too based on an actual philosophy that acknowledged its' flaws and invited questioning and thought to be a religion) was the negation of this culture.

The sensei seemed real, honest, intelligent and content. It did not bother him that the folding chairs were only 1/5th full. I got the sense that he might actually have some inner peace. And that could be because he didn't tell me he had attained inner peace. He didn't have instructions on how to attain it. Yes, there were rituals and old Asian artifacts, a chant, and meditation. However, he explained that his practice, the Jodo Shinshu practice, was the living practice. It does not need any of those components to be a good practice. The ego (a strangely western term I think for an eastern practice, which brings thoughts of Freud into a place I don't think he belongs, oh well) has no overarching reliance upon these practices and an expensive retreat will likely not help you with anything but fueling the economy.

I could have kissed him when he said that.

Emphasis on could have.......

Buddha in the House

The world is not what it appears to be. The sensei said it so simply, like it's self-evident. I blinked, once, twice, thrice and cast a sideways glance to my right side to see if Mady was similarly blindsided by plainspoken esoterica. She, of course, was not. She swims more steadily in the currents of philosophic oceans than I.

I had never been to a Buddhist religious service, indeed, wasn't sure Buddhists actually had hours of worship on Sunday mornings. But they do, at least in the U.S., where there is little else to do on Sunday mornings before shops open and professional sports teams begin their jostlings for more money and muscle and more muscle for the money. Me, I prefer going to museums early on Sundays. There are never crowds and the smatterings of other pagans is so soothing.

But I wander, as always. Back in the Jodo Shinsu Buddhist Temple, aka for some reason "sig," the sensei is speaking calmly and clearly and utterly without pretension about the unity of thought and feeling in the everyday world, the harkening of dharma in the mundane. This, he says, is the work of the ego, to obliterate itself in what we experience in our living rooms, our streets, our work places and our relationships with family, friends, and strangers.

Actually, he says none of this and maybe all of this. He does not use the word "obliterate." He does not mention our living rooms or streets or work places. He does mention that he can't go on a retreat because he doesn't have enough money. He mentions his home life, his own family. Before the service, I spot him outside the temple, enjoying the final drags off a cigarette before stubbing it out in the sand-filled urn. Enjoying the mundane, perhaps obliterating his ego in the tendrils of smoke that waft into the sullen Denver sky on a brisk gray morning in February. He has no acolytes trailing behind him as the Catholic priests did, but he does hold aloft a large book similarly, paying tribute, I suspect, to the collected wisdom of the Buddha within.

The world, he repeats, is not what it appears to be. Again, I glance sideways. This time Mady meets my look. She looks comfortable with the wisdom. I thrash in the shallows beside her. Whatever helps you to situate your ego in the material and the immaterial world, he suggests, is good. Maybe you chant. Maybe you meditate. Maybe you serve on the Board of your temple. You find some way to escape the limitations of your own ego. To become the Buddha, you see, is to lose your ego, as the Buddha did. I am reminded of my painful adolescent years, when I was utterly distraught with fear because somehow my faith, my Christianity, had fled my soul. And I would not be able to sleep, the little death of sleep, and so I would meditate upon the Greek sign for infinity as if I might transcend the shape to find some sort of understanding that would offer me solace and hope, maybe even save me from eternal damnation and hellfire if only I could grasp the essence of the shape, the sign, the symbol. And then the startling revelation, such as it came to my 14-year-old mind, that if ever I did manage to comprehend eternity I would disappear into it, become one with it.

But this Buddhism, this Jodo Shinsu Buddhism at least, is enmeshed and integrated with the concrete, the everyday, everywhere. The ego is in the world. The President is in the house. We transcend our ego by manifesting our ego, passing to the realm of pure consciousness by travelling the necessary path of self-consciousness, the small and rock strewn path gingerly picked over by the barefooted steps, mindfulness, awareness. Breathe deeply and keep your eyes not on the path but on the breath. The feet will find their placement. As Joyce unforgettably put it, "the ineluctable modality of the universe." Daedalus is also in the house, and the ego is in the world, and the world is not, I repeat, not, what it appears to be.

Then what is it. It is all around, ineluctably. The temple is not full, but it does have a full sense of welcome, and the people are so much friendlier and helpful than the Catholics of the great cathedral were. The sounds of children laughing float into the worship room from an adjoining space, where they are readying a feast for us, to be purchased after the service with the profits benefiting a charity of the children's choice. I am grateful that no one turns to me or shares the peace with me. I am left to determine my own place and peace and place of peace and my own ego in the world. I like that.

I could come again here. I could come again here for the thoughtfulness of it and maybe to learn what all the ornate features of the altar area are for. In some regards it is so similar: the written record of the revered one, the differentiation of congregational space and the priest's space, the plain versus the elaborate, the holy and the everyday, the singing and the incense. But here, following the sensei's talk, he opens for discussion and questions. No one speaks. I would like to know if anyone ever does. Or are these people, these congregants, just as passive as the Catholics, waiting for the truth to be told to them, waiting for deliverance, waiting for salvation, waiting for the end of the world...

No. We are waiting in line for the goodies the children in the next room have prepared. Waiting for joy and laughing in line as we do.