I’m meeting a real, live mystic today!” I exclaimed to Trent over breakfast. He raised his brows.
“Aren’t you a real, live mystic—you know, since you saw God?”
“One Divine Disco Ball does not a mystic make. I think I’m more on the mystical track, like climbing the corporate ladder to heaven.”
“Just so long as you don’t slip; I can’t break your fall from that height.”
I made a goofy face. “That’s good to know.”
“So, who is this mystic you’re meeting?”
“Rabbi Bondi at the Kabbalah Centre,” I enthused. It had taken four months just to get an appointment, so I was thrilled the day had finally arrived. I imagined our meeting would be the mystical version of a sleepover: We’d become insta-BFFs by swapping stories about our Divine Encounters. I’d tell him about the Disco Ball, and he’d unlock the mysteries of the Godiverse with ancient wisdom. Together we would study Kabbalah’s ancient text, the Zohar, and braid each other’s hair.
“Kabbalah . . . isn’t that the trendy religion? The one all those Hollywood people are into?”
I counted them off. “It’s not quite as trendy as Scientology, but Madonna, Britney Spears, and Mick Jagger are supposedly Kabbalists.”
Alluring and mysterious, Kabbalah intrigued me. If religions were people, I imagined Kabbalah as a veiled belly dancer with an exotic name, beckoning me with an enigmatic finger, at once summoning and pushing away. Even after a month of steady Googling and library research, I couldn’t figure out precisely what Kabbalah was: Religion? Way of life? Guide to understanding the Torah? Ancient technology for understanding life? All of the above? I was at once bewitched by the promise of Kabbalah and failing her multiple-choice exam.
“Hey, didn’t your stepmom go to high school with Madonna in Michigan? Maybe she could hook you up with a celebri-rabbi.”
I tried to imagine my dad’s sweet Christian wife Edie making a call to Madonna on my behalf. “She did. But I think this rabbi will be just fine.”
OH, HOW WRONG I was.
Feeling more prepared for this visit than any of my others, I swished into the Kabbalah Centre with one notebook, two books on Kabbalah, and a list of questions that filled two pages. I’m really getting the hang of this Thirty by Thirty thing, I congratulated myself while waiting for the rabbi. Thirty minutes after our appointment was scheduled to begin, his secretary acknowledged me for the first time.
“The rabbi will see you now,” she said, her expression implying I was making the acquaintance of the Pope.
I excused the wait, thinking: Hey, he’s a busy guy! He’s got the Kabbalah Centre to run!
I excused his aloof greeting, thinking: Maybe rabbis just don’t look women in the eyes?
I excused the fact that he alternated speaking to me with yelling to his secretary, checking e-mail, and typing, thinking: This is one bad case of ADD.
Trying to capture his attention, I outlined my project. I wasn’t even sure he was listening until I asked a question.
“What would be the best way to experience Kabbalah?”
Rabbi Bondi peered over his spectacles at me, his manner less that of a spiritual teacher and more like an angry high school principal. “You can no more experience Kabbalah than you can paint your face black and experience being black!” he roared from behind his heavy oak desk, thumping a hand on a stack of books for emphasis.
The books quaked along with my resolve to keep my cool. The rabbi’s thunderous answer offended on so many levels that I couldn’t even process his words.
“And this ‘journey’ of yours sounds shallow, transient, and unable to offer any insight of lasting value. I’d be surprised if you learned anything from being a ‘religious tourist.’ ”
He spat the words with such authority and disdain that I shrank into my chair, a kid accused of smoking dope behind a Dumpster. The mental free fall was dizzying: I needed a drink of water; I needed to get out of there. I recognized this feeling: spiritual shame. Part of me wanted to stomp over the rabbi’s plush carpeting and knock every self-important book from his overstuffed shelves. But, no; destroying a rabbi’s office wouldn’t exactly showcase maturity.
Instead, I pursed my lips so tightly I thought they might bleed. How can he fail to see that places in my heart that were ripped inside-out have been repaired visit by visit, stitch by stitch? That the Godiverse used the needle of my project to sew me up, making me better than new?
I attempted to interject the story of my thirty-day fast. I thought the whole month-without-food thing might showcase the depth of my commitment.
Wait . . . what do I have to prove? My internal question stung even more than the rabbi’s accusations. It is not my job to convince this man, or anyone for that matter, of anything. My only job is to walk my path.
I imagined this rabbi occupying a space on the other side of the Divine Disco Ball, serving a purpose greater than I could fathom. He could reach people I couldn’t, in ways I couldn’t.
I smiled genuinely, mentally forgiving the angry rabbi and blessing him for giving me the gift of disillusionment. Not everyone I met would understand or appreciate my journey, and that was okay. There stretched a great freedom in acknowledging this fact.
But that didn’t mean I had to stay. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I appreciate your time, but I need to leave now.”
To his credit, the rabbi walked over and offered me a book about Kabbalah. “Keep learning,” he said gruffly, making me wonder if he thought I’d learned something after all.
Taking the book, I leveled my gaze with his. “I will,” I promised.
TWO WEEKS LATER, I strolled past a two-story brick loft a block from our house, stopping to admire its glass facade that rounded toward the street corner. The space—by turns a gallery and photo studio—was always filled with paintings or photographs illuminated by the natural light that streamed in from dawn to dusk.
Looking through the windows, I was surprised to see bare walls this time. A small sign hung on the door, the only clue to what had changed. STONE VILLAGE CHURCH, it stated, with a phone number.
Stone Village . . . Stone Village . . . the name meant something, but I couldn’t place it for a second. Then I remembered: People wearing “Stone Village Church” T-shirts had marched in the Gay Pride parade right behind King Avenue Methodist. Suddenly, inexplicably, I felt compelled to go to this church. Right then. Yesterday if possible. Not for the project, but for me. Even though I knew next to nothing about this place, I sensed it could be somewhere I might belong.
Belong. A sudden yearning for community disoriented me, as when hanging upside down and coming up too quickly. Joining a faith community wasn’t even on my radar; Thirty by Thirty was about healing and believing, not belonging. I was totally fine with playing the field of religion; I didn’t need to settle down. My plan was to flit gently among lots of faiths, sprinkling around goodwill like Tinkerbell’s magic dust.
But I knew better than to ignore this magnetic pull, so I dialed the number on the sign—anticipating what, exactly? These people could be snake handlers for all I knew.
I heard three rings: “You’ve reached Pastor John. Please leave a message.”
I felt disappointed no one had answered, but spit out: “This is Reba Riley. Please call me back! Just as soon as you get this! I’ll be waiting to hear from you!”
When Pastor John got the message, he thought I sounded like the Energizer Bunny on crack. “I really wasn’t sure if I should call you back,” he told me much later, laughing. “We weren’t even a congregation; I was barely a pastor, and we’d never had a service. Plus, you sounded a little crazy.”
Whether prompted by God or duty, John did call me back that afternoon while the Sickness had forced me into a six-hour “nap.” He left a message.
“Reba? This is Pastor John from Stone Village. We’re not officially open yet, but we’re having a practice service tonight at five for everyone who has helped get the church off the ground. You’re more than welcome to join us.”
I fell back asleep until 4:50, struggled out of bed, threw on clothes, and—joints aching—walked the hundred paces to church.
John stood just outside the door, waiting in welcome. With a marathon runner’s build and a smile that lit up his whole face, he looked around my age. “You must be Reba. Welcome!”
I took a seat in one of the two rows of folding chairs arranged in a half-moon around the altar—a minimalist metal table bearing a simple cross. Looking around, I realized the table fit the overall feel of the space; these walls were empty by design, a blank canvas for a young church to grow into.
Warm-up notes from the three-instrument band—keyboard, guitar, and drum—echoed from the polished concrete floor, ricocheting off a yellow metal staircase and back to the two-story rounded window walls. Though I didn’t know it then, every person there except me had been working toward this day for two years, and the congregation of fifteen rustled with collective anticipation as they found their seats.
“I’d ask if it’s your first time here,” said my neighbor to the left, “but it’s everyone’s first time. I’m Easton.” A handsome fellow in his twenties, he sported dark hair, a beard, and a smile that suggested he laughed easily. We shook hands and chatted, finding common ground from the moment I mentioned Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.
“I really can’t believe I’m sitting here,” he marveled, brown eyes sparkling. “I never thought I’d belong to a church again.”
“I know what you mean. I still don’t know if Christianity wants me.”
“Listen, if I can belong, you can belong. I’m gay, but I went to Nazarene Bible College. I realized I was ready to stop fighting my feelings in my junior year, but I would have been expelled, so I hid who I was until graduation.”
I grimaced on his behalf.
“I know, right?” he responded to the look on my face. “Anyway, until I found King Avenue Methodist . . .”
“King Avenue?” My ears perked up at the name of an earlier Thirty by Thirty visit.
“Yep, King Avenue is the parent church of Stone Village. Until I found that place, I was majorly suffering from PTCS.”
We looked at each other and, recognizing fellow convalescents, grasped hands for Stone Village’s inaugural prayer. At the opening song, a praise ballad I knew from back when, an overwhelming feeling of rightness bowled me over. Easton and I harmonized; he had the perfect baritone to my soprano, and we sang our hearts out together in the second row. I had a flash of déjà-forward, knowing before knowing that I was among friends.
WHEN THE TIME CAME for communion, I knew before approaching the altar that tinges of unforgiveness lingered in my heart. Any communion chalice raised to my face would have reflected the ugly judgment I still passed on Christians, especially those of the hellfire variety.
I knew I didn’t have to take communion. In my heart, Christianity’s rites no longer had a corner on forgiveness, because the bread and the cup were no longer my only spiritual symbols for grace.
But on this day, for me, there was really no other way; communion had to be transformed to symbolize my transformation. The communion table was the final sacrament to be redeemed.
If I could not approach the table with the same grace that had been extended to me, if I could not share this bread, representing all forgiveness, with anyone, anyone—Christian or not—any enlightenment I experienced would fade to darkness. If I could not share this cup freely, without malice or bitterness, my new faith was meaningless.
“All are welcome at this table,” Pastor John stated. “Would those who are taking communion please stand?”
I felt time slow as he lifted the bread and the cup from the altar and went from person to person, offering the elements.
As he neared me, I rose on shaky feet.
“The body of Christ broken for you, Reba.”
Solemnly, I took the bread. To those whom I have judged, I offer acceptance; to those I have cursed, I offer blessing.
“The blood of Christ spilled for you, Reba.”
I dipped the bread in the wine. To those who have caused me pain, I offer forgiveness. To those I have hated, I offer love.
Blinking through tears I wiped haphazardly on my sleeve, I saw the believers surrounding me and realized I was united with them, and not only them—but all the believers and nonbelievers beyond these walls, every single one, by the power of forgiveness.
And love, great torrents of love, cascaded through me with impossible force.
WE CELEBRATED THE FIRST service with burritos on the patio of a local Mexican joint.
“Pass that pitcher of sangria over here,” said Pastor John, raising his glass in a toast. “To Stone Village!”
“To Stone Village!” we echoed. Easton sat to my right and John to my left. I suddenly remembered the Pride parade, which felt so long ago. I’d been right: There were “saints who drank sangria.”
I told them about my project and what it meant for me to take communion. Pastor John asked, “So, after all those religions, what did you choose?”
“That’s what everyone always wants to know, and there’s no easy answer,” I replied.
“Why do you have to pick?” he reasoned. “Can’t you just choose to be a person of faith?”
“Yes,” I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. “I believe I can.”