Church

Several weeks ago I went to church. Not too surprisingly, the over 100 churches dominate camp life, and it’s more of a question of where than if you go to church. All the veteran volunteers recommend going, even just once to get more of a flavor of life here and an insight to peoples lives, and it is never hard to find an invitation to someone’s church. Plus, churches are generally of the energetic Pentecostal variety, and services promise at least good show of music and dancing.

I went with Joyce, my 14 year-old neighbor, who was only too excited to bring me. As I sat waiting for the service to begin, feeling a bit conspicuous being the only white face and feeling a bit of an imposter being certainly the only Jew, a little boy (about 12 years old) came and sat next to me. He seemed to be on his own and was dressed neatly in a button down shirt and tie and wore an almost euphoric smile. He sat there looking at me with that smile. I smiled back at him and he replied with complete sincerity and a hint of sagely confidence “God bless you sister” That was my initiation to church. Everything else is swirl of images and sounds.

I remember feeling like a bit of a fraud when Joyce asked me to raise my hands to the sky and “receive the lord”, but it would have been weirder if I didn’t do it. I remember making the conscious decision to just give thanks to the music gods, in place of Jesus, so that I could feel more authentic. I was really loving the music (every church has at least one drum kit) and feeling joy from that so, I decided to tap into those sincere emotions and dance and pray with the others while secretly being thankful for such inspiring music instead of Jesus. It was my way of acting appropriately, but not in a way that would not scandalize my Jewish mother.

There was kind of a tag team approach to preaching, and I couldn’t quite figure out who was the main preacher, if there was one. At any moment, there were quite a few people pacing, gesticulating and muttering to themselves. They would usually have one hand to their ear as they paced, which gave the bizarre impression that they were having a heated cell phone call. With God.

Not only was I standing for pretty much the entire service, but I was actually dancing most of the time. It would have been hard not to. The music was infectious and the whole congregation was moving so that it would have almost been conspicuous had I not been moving too. At one point I, as an obvious new member, was invited up to the front to dance along with two other newbies. The church hierarchy all shimmied up to welcome us and shake our hands.

I remember being astounded by the apparent elation the church-goers exhibited at the service. Shouting, “thank you Jesus”, shaking their heads, dancing, smiling, hugging one another, and even falling to their knees if the “spirit” so moved them. Maybe it’s posturing. Maybe it’s just how you are expected to behave. Even if those displays of euphoria are disingenuous, there seemed to be something therapeutic about it. I remember in a university psychology class learning about this idea – something like the “facial feedback hypothesis” – that we are happy because we smile not the other way around. Sounded like a lot of nonsense at the time, but maybe there is something to it.