1:13 p.m. - February 24, 2002
Don't bite on the wafer
Larked into a Catholic mass this morning in a predominately Hispanic area today. Larked because my intended destination was elsewhere (Lowe's) and thought I've Never Been Down This Way and off I went until I glimpsed the mission-style church and thought, In I'm Going.
Felt comfy in the old adobe building with real stained glass windows instead of the plastic-ersatz-that-fools-no-one-but-repels-rocks becoming more commonplace (You know, if you think about it, we're losing the sense of the real in the rush towards durability and cost-efficiency because someone's tricked us into thinking we don't want to expend the time and money involved in maintaining things like real stained glass which can be a headache because someone has to constantly resolder and reglaze yet we all derive satisfaction from its results. Or maybe we don't. I do at least) and wide-plank oak floors and uncomfortable pews that smelled of lemon polish.
I was the only person there for a while and immediately thought This Is The Way It Should Be, a church with open doors and enjoyed the solitude and quiet. Then people started trickling in and I wondered how well my Latino-inspired haircut would camouflage whitebread me should any wonder at my presence, but my attention focused instead on the priest who was near the altar in jeans and a t-shirt but who disappeared into a closet and emerged suppliced.
Not being Catholic except for the time I joined my renegade aunt Pam for some mass years ago and joined the communion line much to her displeasure I didn't know what to expect because the last time I'd participated in Catholicism was on Easter Sunday at Notre Dame in Paris several years ago and I hoped it wouldn't be similar. It wasn't. The mass was 40 minutes long before intermission hit and everybody left and nobody came back. Then I realized that was it.
Walked in the garden out back and nobody asked How Are You My Son but the priest did say Peace Be With You as he walked to what I assume was his car.
Kind of lonely in a way but satisfying in another. I wonder if that's why people return.
