I went to seminary to learn how to do church “right”. Seriously. That’s what I thought. I thought that going to seminary was about learning the methods, the practices. How to hold your hands and how to stand.

One of my favorite moments from the end of the first year, when a few of us went out for drinks after the last day of class, we met up with some third-years and we talked about church and my buddy, Chris and I were so gung ho, we were ready to serve Christ with great dignity with the crisp, pious actions of a dutiful regiment.

And I still remember the look those third-years gave. It was the “Oh, honey! You poor thing!” of seminary looks.

You’ll get there

they told us.

You’ll get it. After you take liturgics, you’ll get it.

—

At clergy conference last week, I was looking around at all of these clergy, all these people trained to do church “right”. Everybody crossing themselves at the blessings and bowing during the incarnation and thumb crossing at the gospel and I was watching these hands and bodies dance in the ritualistic incantations of personal piety, of publicly displayed piety, like the orchestrated movements of a secret society in which only insiders know the secret handshakes, only there’s dozens of them and they are used at two dozen points in the service.

And I thought to myself

I quit.

Whatever this is. Call it Anglo-Catholic or expressions of personal piety, whatever it is, I’m done with it.

These don’t bring me more closeness to GOD. Prayer and scripture and worship and eating together and serving people bring me closer. I’m reminded of GOD when I take time to pray. I express my commitment to GOD by trying to pray every day. I do church “right” when I show up with something to offer: my guilt, my anxiety, my hope, my thankfulness, my honesty.

—

Eventually I took that liturgics class. Jay, my professor taught me a ton, but the two things I have used the most are these:

1. Know why you do something. If you don’t know why, don’t do it. If you do it, then be able to defend why.
2. The presider presides rather than participates. You needn’t worry about piety. Don’t bow in the orans pose or do a half-orans while you cross yourself. If you’re all about the piety, leave the orans to do it. But the priest doesn’t need to worry about personal piety while presiding.

It was like sweet music to my deconstructionist ears, breaking the logjam of orderliness and rule-obsessing I had grown into in the church. I immediately started to move away from piety.

This was tough in the congregation, however, where a certain expectation was to be maintained. They were used to it. They wanted it from me. And I was trying to learn it, so that I could teach it to those who need it.

Not me, not anymore. I didn’t need it. But others do. I wanted to accommodate them.

And when I’d go to clergy conference, I would always compare myself to the others, seeing how I stacked up. In that space, I’d get all Anglo-Catholic on the place and my hand would go flying about my chest at warp speed or I could slow it down, like a slow groove and poke into my chest with a deep rhythm

…one….two…three…four…one

and I would want to be there but I couldn’t because I was too busy looking at other people’s hands and what they were doing and when they would do it.

—

What took me the decade to realize is that there isn’t a “right”. I knew it intellectually. I got it at that level. What I didn’t get, with all my obsessing about what others were doing and what they might think of me is that that isn’t right. That obsession. Perfection, certainty, being right. That isn’t getting it.

I do believe that personal piety helps some people. And I will certainly defend people for their piety. I will continue to teach it and describe it and name it for people so that they can choose whether or not they are into crossing themselves and bowing.

But otherwise I’m done with it. It no longer works for me. And, to be honest, I don’t think it ever did.

I also don’t think I was ever in the Anglo-Catholic theology camp, particularly around the Holy Spirit.

Which pretty much leaves the atmospherics, and I can take or leave half of that stuff.

So, it’s probably safe to say I’m not an Anglo-Catholic. I just dig on incense and Sanctus bells; and I do love to spike it up. But that could also just be because Boomers hate that stuff.