Some years ago, living in Greensboro, North Carolina, I was running with my dog, Luke, a
big blonde mutt, and I tripped on some uneven pavement, fell, hit my head, and
knocked myself unconscious. Kind strangers moved me from the road into a nearby yard
and called for help. When I came to, there was an ambulance, a lot of people, and good
old protective Luke the dog keeping them all at bay as he walked a ferocious semi-circle
around me, back and forth, growling and ready to kill someone if they touched me.
Some kind of primal instinct had ignited in him. When I woke, I coaxed him over and he
lay beside me— still wary, but much less threatening. Eventually, they loaded me into
the ambulance but not without Luke, who refused to let them lift me until they offered
him a ride too. Writing this story, I was reminded of that saying you might have heard:
“our hearts are wild creatures / it’s why our ribs are cages.”
Anyway, I broke my jaw, sprained both wrists, had a concussion, and was generally a
wreck of a person for a while. I lived alone and it was a miserable recovery. The worst
symptom I had was ceaseless nausea and I remember when I could finally read again
without feeling sick, I picked up Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm and felt I had been born
again. Sometimes I consider that whole catastrophe and recovery my first real religious
experience, my first real miracle.
Another miracle happened here at Saint Stephens. When I first visited this church
almost three years ago I lived in Cumberland County, just past the Powhatan line and I
liked driving the hour into town mostly to get away from what was a pretty
dysfunctional domestic situation with a boyfriend who is now long gone. The first
Sunday I walked in, I was first overwhelmed by the beauty of the place, and then a little
embarrassed: I was underdressed, I was tardy, and then I wept, sort of inexplicably,
throughout the sermon. I was generally baffled by the entire experience, wondering
what people were talking about and how they had all known to memorize the things
and still I could not seem to pull myself together and stop crying. I was a mess. Even
now, I admit there are times when things still feel really confusing and fancy and
serious. And there are times still I weep without explanation. I came to 10 services
before I received communion because even though I was hearing that I was invited, I
had not been baptized and I just felt too self-conscious and too much like an outsider
and an amateur.
This is still a whole new world for me and there is a lot I do not understand.
It’s been only a couple years since I was baptized and confirmed as an Episcopalian and
never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would one day be working here! But
as of a month ago, I am Saint Stephen’s newest staff member. My new title is Associate
for Religion and the Arts and we’re all waiting to see what exactly it means. Who knows
what is to come; I am filled with joy and thanksgiving.
Though I’m still an amateur, this place feels very much like home to me. I feel really safe
here, like these walls are the ribs around my wild creature of a heart. In fact, I feel so
safe that I sometimes lay down in the pew after the service and avoid the coffee hour
where I am sure to fumble and be nervous and weird.
But here is one thing I have come to believe: I tell myself that love of God is greater than
knowledge about God, that love of church is greater than knowledge about church.
Surely God does not care too much that I don’t know all the words, am bad at small talk,
and have a lot of questions. Luke is now almost five years dead but I still think about
that dog often as well as that surreal day when I was saved by strangers. I think of him
especially when I am walking with (not running!) a new dog, Saint Thomas, through a
different neighborhood, in a different city, years and years later. God is real and God is
near and my love of God out-weighs, out-shines my knowledge about God and, amateur
or not (because we are all amateurs I guess and I will probably always be a little bit of a
wreck), it is a miracle indeed.