Unity

Perhaps other people felt a sense of unity. As we sat in the sea of churchgoers, I was vaguely aware that these people still dressed as if their mothers came over in the morning to choose their outfits. It was Easter Sunday. A cold and possibly the most dreary Easter Sunday I have witnessed. Outside, the pink decorations looked serene in the disuse of this day. Either that or tacky, and this was how I was inclined to feel sitting in that pew drinking my coffee with people aspiring to pretend it was spring outside and staring eerily through the back of my head. (Particulary this one woman in a very thick white turtleneck.) I distinctly remember starting to feel creeped out and having to physically hold onto my mom to keep the idea at bay that this was some sort of a conspiracy church and the congregation was waiting to jump on me and brainwash me.

Eventually, I managed to relax with the notion that these people were harmless to me.

The premise of this church is that they had to acknowledge the "theatrics" of church, and so they let it be just that. However, when putting on a play every week, no week can be that extraordinary, and the result was a group of maybe 20 middle aged people, probably parents, who, while not altogether untalented came off as being stuck in high school and still wanting one last chance to be somebody.

I couldn't help but visualize practically all of the actors at home in front of their mirrors practicing their parts. Jesus, who was probably 55, extremely overweight and balding; the strangely sexual dancer who almost seemed to be coming onto Jesus in a very arcing movements kind of way; the overzealous minister's wife (one of those women who thinks long flowy skirts = creativity/divinity and who I am so glad is not my mother); Judas, whom you knew all the girls thought was so funny but whom I could only laugh at and not with; the nerdy overgrown kid who stands in the front row with constant fists at his side. Also the minister, who randomly stopped the show to call for collection time and the other random man with long curly hair who couldn't keep it out of his eyes--admittedly but decidedly pretty ringlets . There was not an ounce of professionalism, dedication or critical thought, even the brochures had been made in Print Shop Deluxe, the '98 edition, the alignment off, pinker text on a light pink background. I never understood why they had classes in these kinds of things, but now I do. Out front they had literature on helping various random people in random cultures, perhaps with a picture of a little Peruvian boy on it, or a girl wearing a veil whose eyes were just showing, as if the problems they alluded to were really as simple as hunger and a scarf.

I guess I just expected more of them. It was a kind of annoyance that they would take the time to get themselves up on the stage and then not have much to give except for a story that everyone already knows. What if this was all you knew? What if you grew up here? A real culture has a few people who you can look at as examples or the greats. Unity church seems not to.