It’s definitely not just another ho-hum weekend, because the amazing discovery of the Trappist-1 cluster — a bunch of new planets circling a kind of sun, out there just a hop, skip and a jump away from us– means we are now on alert for possible news of life elsewhere in the universe. This is big, possibly mind-blowing. Depending on how the story unfolds, we could have some major adjusting to do about our human identity, our various belief systems, and what’s what in general.
But for now, I’ll go back to last weekend and report on an experience that was just mildly unusual, very much on the earth, and actually both grounding and uplifting at the same time.
The media tells us that our culture is seeing a decline in organized religion, but have you noticed how church pops up in the darnedest places these days?
Over the years, I’ve attended a lot of services where my husband was presiding, but never before one where the congregants all wore ski boots. This definitely gave a new twist, or perhaps we should say “clomp,” to the whole experience.
Rob went as a kind of fill-in guy, and while I don’t usually attend Sunday morning services with him, this one was particularly appealing for both of us, as a kind of date even, because it got us out on a New Hampshire mountain on a sunny day after a week of multiple snowfalls. Where else better to be?
Jay MacLeod, rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New London, and an innovative thinker as well as a past ski-jumper, some years ago started an unusual kind of Saturday afternoon gathering. Called “Skiiers’ Communion,” it takes place on the 2nd floor of the lodge right next to the lift drop-off area on the top of Mt. Sunapee.
I can’t say whether the same individuals come each week, but there was a healthy (in both senses) group present last Saturday, and about half of the people were under 20—definitely not the norm for most “regular” church services these days.
Some of the kids, I learned later, race on Sunday mornings so this time slot provided a nice option. They seemed fully engaged and attentive for the half hour or so that we were together.
Downstairs, people were buying waffles, bowls of chili and other snacks; some families were having quality time, dining outside on the picnic tables; the clean-up crew was moving furniture and mopping up the floors, with music on the radio, before closing time, when they all needed to get a ride down before the lift stopped.
In other words, there were many signs of just regular life when you happen to find yourself on top of a mountain in February. And as you can see from this calendar, there’s lots going on here.
By total coincidence, one of the readings for the day was Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, in the Book of Matthew. I kid you not. Along with the Beatitudes, of course, there’s the topic of seeking spiritual “perfection.” A tall order, in any age, in any location — especially if you think of it in the conventional way of reaching the top level of something, being the best, winning as opposed to losing. On this particular day, when I was trying to re-gain my confidence (no skiing at all last winter, and a year older, plus a pulled muscle) on the slopes just in a physical way, the idea of perfection seemed particularly elusive.
Fortunately, though, Rob talked a bit about what it’s like learning to ski, how when we’re on the lift we naturally watch the other skiiers, wanting to emulate the best of them. This is fine and good, for the most part, and is fact often how we learn, so long as at the end of the day we can also be content with however we actually did and not feel that we’ve fallen way short of our goals. And in fact, as he said, we will likely do plenty of actual falling, even sometimes really wiping out, as well as sometimes helping others to get up, and this is in fact what it is to be fully human. Jesus knew.
As it turned out, I was proud of my husband for presenting a service that was so in keeping with the surroundings, for demonstrating really solid telemark skiing skills (mostly self-taught), and—not least — for being a supportive companion to me as I voiced my preference for wide open, mostly mogul free trails. It was, in many ways, just an ordinary day really.
Ever since Martin Luther King’s spine-tingling last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” it seems right to be very careful not to confuse real mountaintops with metaphorical ones, so I won’t. Certainly, King’s vision of the pinnacle provided people with the courage they needed to get through the low, dark places. The striving continues. On our snow-covered mountaintop last weekend, we were at least managing to combine the thrill, and challenge, of a downhill run with some reflection about the panorama of life beyond the slopes.
So whatever movement might be afoot to broaden the idea of what and where church actually is, it makes sense to me.