102. Me vs Church, Part II: Gerontophobia

At 18, I was again curious about church, even with my family having been flat-out not wired that way, and despite an earlier failed attempt to go to Sunday School (Me vs. Church Part I.)  I’m pretty sure I just wanted to know about religion, not to become “religious,” so the beliefs and practices of the Unitarian Universalists (UU’s) interested me. I must have been impressed that many founding fathers and great American artists and writers had been members.  The idea of sinlessness certainly sounded like my cup of tea. And they valued justice and equality, with philosophy and science as equal partners with faith—all very nice.  No one I knew attended, and probably the encyclopedia was my only source of information. It sounded like an open-minded church that would appeal to liberal young minds. On one late summer/early fall Sunday, I drove out on my own to see what it was about.

Maybe I had most of it right about the UU’s, but at the particular congregation I tried out, something was missing: appeal for new young members. I had determined that it was vestiphobia, a fear of suits, that kept me from going to Sunday School. With this Unitarian bunch, I came to fully recognize my next church-related psychological disorder, gerontophobia, the fear of old people.

I’ve always heard that a shy young person showing up at a church service for the first time can get swarmed by eager teenage welcomers, much like a swimmer with an open wound attracts a shiver of sharks. That didn’t happen at the UU Church that Sunday.  There clearly was no youth group. It looked like I was the only person under 80 in the pews. Maybe it was just me being self-conscious, but it seemed suspiciously like all those gray heads stopped gabbing and turned to look at me, some with squinty-scowly faces and not-so-hushed voices questioning “what’s he doing here?”

Rather than seize the opportunity to make new friends and heal the generation gap, I followed the conventional path of a knucklehead adolescent, reaffirming the teenager’s belief that old people are weird. And at that moment I really felt it.

The service certainly did live up to my expectation of being “non-churchy,” but it moved so slowly! It began with someone endeavoring to speak on the metaphysical meaning of autumn, followed by a reading of an indecipherable piece of poetry. Then there was a performance of a long Brahms duet for screechy cello and out-of-tune piano. I started doing things to keep myself awake, making an origami sailboat with the program, drumming my fingers on the back of the next pew. I was the Ringo Starr of finger drumming. I checked my watch and un-origamied the program to see how much more there was.

There might have been a message or a sermon after that, but it’s possible I dozed off in that awfully dry and stuffy room. Someone next to me hacked a phlegmy *ahem* and I snapped awake just in time to hear a nice lady read the announcements: “Marcus Barkis has some handouts on the California migrant workers; he’s organized his fellow residents for a grapes boycott at Road’s End Retirement Home.” And “Stay after the service for coffee, cookies and a scintillating slideshow of Ward and June Weaver’s Golden Anniversary, and their second honeymoon on lovely Lake Winnipesaukee.” And “Help us honor this month’s dearly departed members, our friends Fred Flint and Wilma Stone. We will surely miss them and their dizzying didgeridoo duets. You may sign the remembrances book on the foyer desk.”  

I thought, “Hmm, Fred and Wilma might have died of dehydration right here in this old over-heated building!” The disturbing image of mummies sitting in pews sprung to mind. I estimated that if they were kicking the bucket at two or three per month, the congregation would be dried up in less than a year and a half.  

I was looking for something a little more miraculous to happen that day; sorry to say, my visit with the Unitarians was a one-and-done. Obviously, I had some years of maturing to do before continuing my search.  More on that search next time, in Me vs. Church, Part III.

Afterwords: I don’t mean to imply that UU’s are typically elderly or that their services are necessarily uninspiring.  This is just smarty-pants me and my imaginative fun-poking.  And now, of course, I am a certified weird old person. I might even fit in with their congregation, and stay after for cookies and the scintillating slideshow of lovely Lake Winnipesaukee.