A Brief History of Faith

Good Friday steps carry memories of outdoor church.

It’s 5:30 a.m. on Good Friday. I stand at the base of the steps, the ones before the steps to Holy Cross-Immaculata Church in Cincinnati’s Mt. Adams, the ones not everyone knows how to find, though they’re not hidden behind a bush or anything. They’re in plain sight. I’m without my usual penance partner, Aunt Lynne, due to her back pain. My husband, Mark, is with me, my sometimes companion on this pilgrimage of tradition.

In the car, I had explained to Mark my prescribed practice. “The lower steps I mosey up, meditate, let my mind expand. Once I get to the upper steps and join up with the rest of the pilgrims heading toward the church, I fall in line with the others.”

And I fall out of my state of holiness.

I don’t know why I endure the crowds when (living nearby) I walk can this trail alone anytime. Though I don’t begrudge anyone who comes to partake in the immensity of this event. I just know myself. That time without people, when there’s more air to breathe? When no one else is around? That’s how I best practice my faith.

Since my youngest of days, I squirmed in the pews. I wasn’t opposed to going to church. Okay, that’s a lie. I just didn’t find the inspiration my soul needed to find salvation. As a college student at Akron U., I prayed to find St. Mary’s Church empty. Taking a bulletin, I sat down, rummaged for a pen in my purse or a pencil in the pew and wrote. This was long before I called myself a writer.

I wasn’t critiquing sermons. Words bounced off the stained-glass windows with their scenes of the Stations of the Cross. They echoed off green marble columns, knocked around in my head too. I tried to capture them all, keep them close to my heart.

As a thirty-year-old, I moved to Oregon. The outdoors became my religion. What more does one need than the yawning of the ocean at dawn, the shifting of the sands four times a day, the erasure of footsteps from only minutes ago, to contemplate how to live, how to interact with the rest of the world. The same as how I should interact with the natural world. Observe, do not disturb, I wrote once, in a poem about the seashore. A line I’ll never forget.

In 1999, as a five-month resident of Seattle, we lived in the First Hill Neighborhood, where St. John’s Cathedral spire rose higher than the hills. Every so often, to take in the harrowing process my first husband Devin underwent with a bone marrow transplant, I attended Mass at St. John’s. Crouching in the pews beneath the never-ending ceiling of the church, I felt like I’d been swallowed whole and landed in the belly of the whale. Instead, I often hiked a few miles north to a lovely little church of no denomination. Or went to the Seattle University chapel. Or the chapel in the hospital. God could find me more readily in the smaller spaces.

I veered from religion when the predictable rhythms of our lives were no longer so. But I never drove away from my faith in humanity, in the will to grow and change, and my belief that church was better outside. Why else do Catholics celebrate Easter Services outdoors at sunrise?

Finding my way through grief, I navigated through with the help of people, structure, food, and faith. Returning to the pews could not hold my attention long enough. You know what could? The woods. Despite enrolling my son in Christian education classes, we took our church outside. I didn’t want the opiate of the masses; I needed the drug of oxygen to calm me. To Davis, I called this “outdoor church.”

Then I met Mark, with three kids enrolled in Catholic schools. They too experienced life out of order, their mother’s death. Every once in a while, I brought them over to my side (there weren’t really sides) and do outdoor church, but they were reverent, devoted. It could be said their foundation was stronger than mine. But no one competed with my mother in the games of instilling Catholic guilt. Still, I practiced outdoor church when I could.

*

When initially exiting our car at the base of Mt. Adams, a man had stopped us to ask if he was in the right spot. “It’s my first time. My mom used to do this every year.”

“My mom did this every year” stuck with me. No sooner had I climbed a dozen steps from the base, and the tears of Easters past flowed freely. The joy that my mother was now free. Her memory could take her wherever she wanted to go now. The heartache over my father never walking these steps, but this is the kind of thing he got a kick out of. Of Devin, and that first time Aunt Lynne and I prayed the steps. Devin went golfing instead. Golf, as my son and every golfer will tell you, is its own kind of outdoor church.

And Aunt Lynne, who I left behind. She wanted to be here, but the timing of her pain worked against her.

As I climbed, birdsong awakening before the rush of cars pierced my heart. The breeze rushed and the wind picked up to bring in cold air that hadn’t been predicted that early in the morning. The darkness had a tinge of white to it, I felt swept away in Joni Mitchell’s lyrics, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.”

We had coached the first-timer on what little etiquette existed, other than don’t be that person in line behind us as we neared the church. The woman complained how she couldn’t find parking and maybe next year they should come for the vigil. I turned around and told her to quiet her voice. People were here for the silence.

She reminded me why I don’t like the crowds. But there were other reasons too.

Standing amidst the people on the steps leading to the church, I wanted to pray. The rosary perhaps. I knew it by heart. Then, the shoes of those stepping nearby aroused my interest. I spotted a pair Romeos, a brand Grandpa Wick introduced us to. Nikes? I immediately thought of the new movie, Air, about Nike signing Michael Jordan. And my own feet, their positioning. I tried to reposition them in invisible casts to realign my bow-legged legs with the rest of me. My mind rambled in this way the rest of the time.

*

At the top, the fresh air has made me hungry. After kneeling at the outdoor crucifix (for those of us who practice outdoor church, I’m convinced), we move through the new tent connecting steps to church, light a candle, and head to the door. I spot signage for a Continental Breakfast, and I am aghast. They are serving bagels. Where are the donuts? Surely that’s a misprint.

Later, I send Lynne a photo of the church, with the report that there were no donuts at the top. I repeat, there were no donuts this year. A volunteer confesses the “new sheriff in town” has declared Good Friday is also a time of abstinence from such decadence. Giving up sweets for Good Friday is one sack of sugar too far. Besides, they served bagels, which are only healthy in appearance. Ask our tablemate who slathered a few mini tubs of butter on his bagel before eating it all.

We all want some salvation while on this earth. The new priest was hoping to save a few waistlines and souls. And I still wanted donuts as a reward for the early morning climb, for the dedication to my contrition. Even if I only practiced my faith outdoors. Some traditions were worth holding on to.  

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When I’m not outdoors, here’s a sampling of where I’ll be:

• On April 18th, I’ll be participating in an AlzAuthors poetry reading, in honor of National Poetry Month and all those individuals who experience dementia and Alzheimer’s. Details Here.

• Pauletta Hansel and I are again offering FREE, virtual caregiver writing experiences through Giving Voice Foundation. Next up, May 16th from 1-3 p.m. Learn more or register here.

• Last week, a few writers in my circle read at Poetry Night at Sitwells, lead by my friends Ellen Austin-Li and Christine Wilson. A shout out to the brave young women and men, students in high school and college, who stepped to the mike and shared in poem, what their world is like now. Guns, sexual assault, abuse, gender identity. They’re not afraid of who they are. And they’re coming for the rest of us to figure that out too. Poetry nights continued the first Tuesday of every month. Follow Ellen here for reminders.