Crowds

Sunday morning arrived, and hot on its heels were Bishop Joseph, a priest, four deacons in addition to our own, a sub deacon, and a deacon-to-be who was ordained to the diaconate during Divine Liturgy. The visiting clergy also brought families, or, as Bishop Joseph put it, the whole tribe. Our nave is not large, and it can be crowded with just us. It was absolutely bursting at the seams on Sunday.

In retrospect, we should have had chairs in the back and maybe along the wall and moved the rest out. It would have been less closed in that way.

Closed in, you say? Why, yes. Yes, it was. I was standing against the wall near the chanters with my feet rooted to the floor, because it was pretty much all I could do to stay in the room. Too many people! And half of them were strangers! I know it's something that I need to face from time to time. I won't complain that they were there. But boy was it hard. After liturgy, the coffee hour area and the kitchen were so packed I had to get outside, so I hid on the back steps for a few minutes. A few minutes later, I was sitting in the crowded room again. I figured as long as I had the chair to hang on to, I'd be ok. Of course, as soon as those words left my mouth, I was scooted off so the guests could have the chairs. By then, the breathing had long been difficult. I tried very hard to keep myself afloat, and mostly I did, but it was exhausting, and I think it was obvious that I was not ok.

I was not so far gone, though, that I missed what followed. There was a small gathering of familiar faces in another room, and I found a space there. After I had calmed down a bit, I ventured back toward the swarm, and Valerie stopped me on the way there. She had seen me before I hid on the back steps, and I guess I didn't look any better.

Are you ok?

Getting there.

Go sit in there. (Pointing to the empty nave)

But I'm looking for Pam.

I'll get her. You sit.

Ok. No big deal, really. Except if you happen to be the one who spent several years hiding on the floor in the back of another church during panic far worse than this, or for any one of a hundred other reasons. If you happen to be that person, you may have also noticed that you generally either get pulled into forced society or become entirely invisible. Such was not the case on Sunday.

You might also think that what Fr. Patrick said later on was no big deal. He commented on the fact that I had stayed in the overcrowded nave through the entire service. I pointed out that that had been a stretch, and that I had hid outside afterward. "Good for you!" I... huh? My brain was scrambling at that point. You mean I can do that? And maybe that conversation was no big deal, except that he knows me well enough to know that the crowd was a real problem for me. That is worth noting.

One particularly funny part of the day was when Professor sat his ten-year-old son down to tell me about his new experiences with cable tv. This was his bizarre attempt to get me breathing and a little less tense. This kid is Calvin (as in & Hobbes) come to life, so it worked.

So, yeah, it was a rough morning, but it was also a really good morning. Old thought patterns are getting challenged, and maybe even replaced. Yay!