on dreams and memories

The oddest thing happened a few weeks ago: my church fell down.

A security camera on a nearby building caught the collapse, and I watched it over and over again – the steeple just… falling. (You can see that clip in the video above.) It was so surreal.

It was also a bit of a miracle, the way it fell. Just backwards into the sanctuary. All that remained standing were the stairwells, one of the walls, and the back wall of the altar.

And no one was hurt.

I’ve been thinking about it for days – how odd it will be to go home someday and have it simply not be there anymore. Or weirder, something else in its place. I spent literally hundreds of hours in that sanctuary – hanging from the bell rope on the days I was allowed to ring it (and sometimes on the days I wasn’t), sitting on the bellows in the pipe organ while my dad tuned it, curling up on the plush but un-comfy sofa in the bride’s room (the warmest room in the building), running up and down the spiral wooden staircases (trying not to trip on my choir robe), sneaking into the pews in the balcony (where I wasn’t supposed to be because the floors were so old), kicking my feet against the old wooden pews on the main floor as I studied the stained glass windows and the cross, and wondered why (more than once) anyone thought that sky blue was the right color for that altar.

There were so many memories within those walls – baptisms, choir practice, Christmas pageants, parties. The year the apple cider at the fall harvest party fermented and the entire Sunday school got a little bit tipsy. High school students telling ghost stories and freaking us out by playing the pipe organ in the dark. Little kids chasing each other around the altar during cherub choir practice – and performances. The sacred duty of walking down the carpeted aisle of an old stone church full of wood and fabric with a lit taper for the altar candles, determined not to trip.

First crushes. First heartbreaks.

Music. Laughter.

Wonder. Mystery.

I had my first real grown-up conversations about faith in that building, invited into dialogue at Lenten Suppers. I learned compassion for those less fortunate, washing fine china plates and cups by hand as we served lunch to the homeless in our community – the china was one small way we could give them some dignity. I played in the nursery, and learned how to sing – and later, I rocked babies in that nursery, and taught them how to sing.

Christmases were magical. The men tromped out to a forest somewhere and came back with a twenty-foot tree and more evergreen branches than we knew what to do with. Women of all ages gathered in the hall and made wreaths to take home, while the kids helped drape the balconies with evergreen boughs and decorated the tree. Christmas Eve was always filled with music and story – one year, as we caroled on the flagstones outside the sanctuary, it started to snow. Candlelight gleamed against polished wood, and the hush at the end of Silent Night breathed peace into our souls. Time stood still for a moment that day, and every year. And for a moment, everything was perfect.

I grew up in that building, and I will miss having a place to go back to, to remember. But still, I will remember.

I’ll remember the people who were my parents’ chosen family for awhile, and who therefore became mine. I’ll remember what it felt like, the carpet warm beneath my feet in the bride’s room, as I dreamed about someday getting married in that beautiful, historic sanctuary, about dancing in the ballroom at Leamy Hall for my wedding reception to live music from The Moon Spinners. Those are dreams that didn’t come true – and can’t now – but I’m grateful for a community of people who created a safe place for me to learn how to dream; who modeled kindness, even in their bickering; who taught me that fine china has value and that a locked room full of books and beauty can be unlocked and enjoyed (with the respect it deserves and some lock-picking skills).

I’m grateful for a community that modeled what it is to live a life of faith, however imperfectly, and taught me that it’s okay to ask questions; who (mostly) believed that women could preach; who made space for me to learn early lessons in leadership; who gave me permission not just to have a voice, but to use it.

Yes, the building fell down – but my memories will always stand strong.

First Church of Christ Congregational – New London, CT
image credit: https://www.fccnl.org/