Crazy in Love

I was just about 12 or 13 when I got up the nerve to tell my mother I wasn’t going back to her church anymore.

At the time, I didn’t actually try to explain that decision. I just lied. I told her I’d found another church I liked better.

It wasn’t a total lie. There were lots of churches I liked better, but mostly because they had killer choirs. You know, those big ones lots of Black churches have, that really rock.

But the real reason was a wee bit difficult for a kid my age to explain. Still is, to be honest. Perhaps this video clip might be a good way to broach the subject:

Now, I’m pretty fond of old Jim Casy, truth be told. He’s honest at least. And his take on the Holy Spirit being love and all sounds a lot like what I recently learned in my RCIA class.

But back when I was a kid, it seemed to me that almost anyone who could afford to rent a storefront or some other space on the Southside of Chicago where I grew up could call himself a “preacher” and gather up a “flock” of some kind.

There were legit Baptist, Methodist and other churches in our neighborhood, to be sure. But there were others, “non-denominational” they usually called them, that seemed a little bit questionable to me.

Some of them, like my mother’s, grew into real congregations and built real churches from the ground up later and did great work within the community. Others moved from space to space for a few years and then just…vanished.

Sometimes the money being raised to build a real brick and mortar building vanished, too. And it seemed as if those ones always had the poorest “sheep,” who couldn’t afford to be cheated that way. And that riled me up a bit. I began to see religion as a “racket.”

Of course, it’s not fair to berate all religions based on the transgressions of a few, but I was a kid, remember? Kids generalize. As I’m sure you know all too well.

Now that I’m soooo much older and wiser, I’ve chosen a faith that has been through a rather serious scandal, too. There’s no getting around that. But I chose Catholicism, in part, because of its “pedigree.” We know its origins. We can trace them all the way back to The Man Himself, so to speak.

And you can’t just up and become a preacher one day. There are rules and protocols. Even parishioners have to jump through a few hoops to join.

It doesn’t “rock” as a rule, my Church. I think some Catholic churches tried that back in the 60s and 70s, but that didn’t last long. My parish church has amazing music, though. Friends who visit are deeply impressed. So am I.

The only thing missing is…a little dash of Jim Casy crazy now and then.

Yes, I said it.

I don’t want “screaming the Scriptures from the roof” crazy. I definitely don’t want that speaking in tongues thing that some of my friends used to do. Totally freaked me out, when they did that.

But that “Holy Ghost party” feeling some of those churches had, when Spirit sort of swooped down and spun you around–I actually kind of miss that.

Yes, I know Catholics do that. My namesake, Saint Teresa, was famous for it. But it’s sort of different. Or it seems to be.

It’s like those hoops we have to jump to join. And the things we have to do to get God’s attention, according to all the official books and things I’ve read, and most long time Catholics I meet.

I’m learning how to do them. I like doing them. I believe in doing The Work. I believe we need to do The Work. No pain, no gain, right? And there are times when rituals rock. Saying the words over and over again, touching the beads, lighting the candle, breathing the incense—it transports you. Opens a “door.”

But there are times when I just want to look up at the sky, open my arms real wide and say, “Here I am, Lord! Let’s dance!”

So I go gaze upon the Blessed Sacrament for a little while, to get up close and personal, RC style.

My friends think that’s Jim Casy crazy. And I tell them they’re right.

I’m crazy in love.

Old Jim Casy would approve.

Photo credit: By Nheyob – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34226009