Tonight we’re trying something new here at American Pilgrimage. I spent the day with Mr. Nate Brown, who is simultaneously my friend and my best friend’s husband. We’re here in Madison, Wis., the heart of American Lutheranism, and Nate, who was raised Lutheran, accompanied me to church and to help the homeless in the evening. He’s not very religious (surprisingly, few of my friends are), so it was something he hadn’t done in a long while. But because he went with me, and he’s a writer, we’ll be writing this together. Thus, everything in normal text will be my writing, but everything in italics will be the work of Mr. Nate Brown.
We attended a service at Bethel Lutheran Church, which has thousands of members and offers six services every weekend, ranging from traditional to guitar-accompanied to services in Spanish for the Hispanic community. We, of course, chose the traditional 9:15 a.m. one.
I’ve been following Matt’s progress here at American Pilgrimage since he set out on his bike a couple of months ago. I probably wasn’t as concerned about Matt as many other people were when he first announced this ambitious trek. After all, this is the guy who, a couple of days after our college graduation, my wife and I watched bike his way out of Ithaca, New York, and into the wilds of eastern Canada. Then, as now, Matt was compelled to hit the road and see what there was to see. As you may have come to understand about him by reading this blog, Matt’s unwavering curiosity is only trumped by his incredibly hard head. As it turns out, that’s been a very helpful (perhaps even a vital) characteristic for one undertaking a project like American Pilgrimage.
I had left the room when he wrote that. Aww, I love it when people complement my stubbornness as one of my major positive traits.
All that said, watching Matt’s progress from the safety of my own couch is one thing; having him swing by our home in Madison to do a bit of religious research in the heart of Lutheran country is quite another. Because I was raised a Lutheran, I’ve had my own curiosities about the abundant Lutheran congregations here in Madison (and they are many). While I’m not a religious person today, my memories of services at my little, California Lutheran chapel are mostly positive. Even so, I’d not been to a service since I was 8 or 9 years old, and I had reservations about accompanying Matt to Bethel Lutheran. Part of me was curious to see the service and to tag along with Matt as he went about the business of researching upper-Midwestern Lutheranism. But the skeptic in me couldn’t help but see it as a bit of a burden, as well. After all, I’m not religious, so what would be the point of attending the service at Bethel? Wouldn’t my attendance be somewhat disrespectful to those who had come to worship?
I still don’t really get that logic. It’d be one thing if he were sitting in the back with a megaphone voicing his displeasure in grunts and chortles. But religious people are usually quite happy when anyone new shows up, for almost any reason. I think he was projecting his worry onto others.
Having not been to a Lutheran church in about 20 years, I was shocked to realize how familiar the sights and sounds (particularly the hymns) were to me. The call and response between the pastor and the congregation was precisely as I’d remembered it (I even found myself mouthing “And also with you”). Both the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed came right back to me. I’m not sure I’d call this any sort of religious awakening, but I do think it speaks to the power that religious training holds, particularly for the young.
This, of course, is double-edged sword. On the one hand, many of my first conscious considerations of morality were likely formed in Sunday school. Then again, because religious doctrine and dogma can be so grand as to be intimidating, it’s not hard to understand how religious bias and even extraordinary religious antipathy can be easily passed on to the young. But even as I considered those things after the service at Bethel, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the general good nature of the people who were there to worship. Their warmth and acceptance of were astounding.
Okay, Nate’s been talking for a while, so I’ll throw in a picture of the sanctuary:
Something I thought that was very funny about the service was how it fulfilled the stereotype of the Protestant service where it moves quickly, and as soon as it is over, everyone runs for the door. In fact, because so many cars had crammed into their parking lot, there was even an announcement that everyone was encouraged to leave immediately after the service so that the cars could escape!
While there were quite a few readings from the Bible, introduced as “lessons,” there wasn’t much explanation of what they meant. I don’t fault the church for that, though. In larger churches, I’ve seen that the deeper, more reflective Bible study often happens in smaller groups during the week, as it can be unwieldy when there are so many passing through on weekends.
The sermon was interesting, though. In a liberal town, it mixed faith and politics in the way you would normally expect in a conservative church, but without taking sides. The pastor simply brought up the presidential interviews with the Rev. Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church, and how refreshing it was to hear Obama and McCain discussing their greatest moral failures in a public forum. Not that she rejoices in failures, but when so much in this country’s political conversation focuses on amplifications of daily stresses, it was nice to see the candidates as people. Fallible, conflicted, religious people.
Anyhow, after service I volunteered to help Bethel’s monthly work at a local shelter for homeless men, and Nate, his wife, Thea, and I came back in the evening. On every fifth Thursday and Sunday, Bethel Lutheran participates in a city-wide outreach to benefit a string of shelters than provide food and beds to around 70 men per night in the summer, and more than 150 per night in the winter. Almost every church of every denomination has taken a day or two a month to prepare and serve food for these men, thus bridging the ecumenical divides and sharing the burdens and joys.
Tonight the men were getting lasagna, and while large sheets of pasta baked in the oven, Thea and I haphazardly sliced and buttered loaves of French bread. Nate, an eternal charmer, was busy telling a group of chatty Midwestern ladies about his lack of cooking abilities, gaining chuckles and praise.
When all was said and done, we loaded up the food and headed over to Grace Episcopal Church, a looming yellow-stone building overlooking Madison’s capitol square.
We didn’t take any pictures of the men there, as it would have been inappropriate, but here are the meager beds they sleep on:
And here we are, preparing to serve with the Midwestern ladies. (I was on dish detail):
I’ll let Nate explain the rest.
I was struck by two things almost immediately: 1) that area churches, regardless of faith or denomination, worked together to keep the shelter stocked with food and staffed with people to serve it and 2) that the volunteers from Bethel and the men at the shelter were all pretty high-spirited.
The men seemed happy for the meal, and without exception, were genuinely grateful in a way that I rarely am. It seems almost a platitude to say it, but watching a homeless man give you thanks for the warm meal you’ve just served certainly makes you reevaluate your priorities. I tend to complain with regularity: about politics, gas prices, bills, hot weather, cold weather, you name it. Seeing genuine gratitude is an all too rare thing, and seeing at the drop in center made me feel, well, grateful.
(Actually, I felt guilty at first for not being more generally grateful, and then I felt better for at least realizing that I’ve got it pretty darned good. I wouldn’t say it was an epiphany, but it was a firm reminder that we should not make our material wealth the sole measure of our capacity for gratitude).
Had Matt not strong-armed me into accompanying him to Bethel, it’s an experience I’d have missed. In that way, I suppose this is all a very long way of saying thank you to Matt, to my wife, to the volunteers from Bethel Lutheran and to the men at the drop in center for reminding me that people are, in my estimation, generally possessed of the capacity for incredible, even awe-inspiring good. Particularly in an election year when religion is at the very heart of the national conversation, it’s easy to forget that. Then again, if I can remember the lyrics to “Lord, Let My Heart Be Good Soil,” after 20 years, this is likely a lesson I can hang onto.
