So this morning, I went to church.
This was a usual undertaking unusually performed, in several senses. First, I did it earlier than I normally do, specifically at eight o' clock am. This was practical necessity, my usual schedule being a casualty of the impending finals. Since I stayed up all night last night (and am indeed going to bed after I post this, only to awaken for food and friends in the mid-to-late evening), my feeling was that my normal approach--go to the ten-thirty service, stay for tea and chitchat afterwards--was useless here. And indeed, right now I'd certainly be too tired to go, going by my current feeling. And I had tea.
Unfortunately, as superficially good an idea as this was, there were two problems with it. First, I live a little over a mile from my church. Getting there entails passing the Baptist church, the woodcutter with the dog who lives near the Baptist church, the Korean community centre, Kendrick Park, the high-end clothing store with worryingly sexless underwear models in the windows, the workers'-run socialist book collective, the Bank of America, and about half of the green. So usually I take the bus.
The Sunday buses don't start until ten. The service was at eight. I finished getting dressed at seven-forty-nine.
The second problem, which compounded the first, was one of the weather. Those of you who don't live in Massachusetts may not be aware of the phenomenon of freezing rain. This differs from frozEN rain (hail) in that it falls in perfectly normal, if cold, liquid form and hits the ground and splashes like any other rain. But then, because the ground is colder than the air in these conditions, it freezes, which results in a thin patina of ice that covers basically all open land area, often invisibly and thus dangerously. I had to walk through this for a mile in fancy shoes if I was to go to church. And I'm a good little Episcopalian (for whatever that's worth), so not going to church during Advent was NOT an option that I was willing to entertain.
So I embarked.
Upon reaching the home of the woodcutter with the dog who lives near the Baptist church, I found the first significant patch of mud of my journey. Mud was good because it is relatively immune to the slippy slidey ice world treatment but bad because it got on the fancy shoes. Also the woodcutter's dog doesn't like me and started woofing and wouldn't stop until I had passed.
Upon reaching Kendrick Park I gave some change to a bum so he could catch a bus to Northampton in two hours' time. I'm still scratching my head on that one, but he was obviously sober and he needed it more than I did.
Upon reaching the workers'-run socialist book collective, I encountered an enormous patch of ice that was impassible except for literally skating across it. The good news is that this cleaned the fancy shoes pretty well. The bad news is that I fell down two times.
Finally, I got to church and took my seat, already halfway through the Nicene Creed. I joined in somewhere around 'was crucified, dead, and buried'. It was at this time that I realised that I had the profound need to record my morning for posterity, for the good of the Church and the World.
Prepare the way, O Zion! Your actual snow is drawing near.
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