More Awe Than Irony.

I hear people talk a lot about Church.

I will be blatantly honest with you, I don't know exactly what Church is.  I mean, I do.  I was raised in the ELCA Lutheran Church.  We went on some Sundays as a family, some weeks just to Sunday School and some not at all as my Dad 'pretended' Mom didn't know we were getting McDonald's breakfast instead of sitting in our lessons.  As I got older we went to more progressive Saturday night Church and I was in fact married by my favorite Lutheran Pastor. 

I guess what I mean is, I know what a physical Church is but I also know it is a whole lot bigger than four walls on a Sunday morning.

Today my husband and I went to the Hardware Store.  A habit learned from my parents growing up.  See we didn't have Menards or any other big retailer near, but we did have the stores where they knew my dad and greeted us by name.  We wandered the aisles of worn, cracked, beige linoleum over cement in a place that smelled like lawn fertilizer, dust and paint.  When you looked out through the front windows dust specs sparkled in the light.  I loved everything about it.  The smells, the voices, the people, the learning.  

So as we walked through the door today and I smelled those familiar, almost heart pinchingly nostalgic smells, my heart swelled.  I smiled.  I was so happy - no almost giddy.  We got a wheelbarrow.  And a weed puller.  A new quart of paint for the front door.  Plant fertilizer.  And as I left I realized how at peace I felt.  So  happy and emotional and full of life and joy.  It was the feeling I felt when I walked into a church to hundreds of bodies singing a single song in unison.  The tingle as the congregation falls silent and there are those two seconds of absolute calm before the Pastor speaks.  The feeling that I understand something, it actually is all ok for a moment and I don't have to worry.  

I realized in that moment, the Hardware Store is one of my Churches.  

To be honest there are a few more places I feel like this.  A spring afternoon mowing my lawn with my daughters playing in the yard.  Painting the patio hearing the neighbors talking on their deck and smelling a grill, a fire, fresh mowed grass.  My parents house.  Sitting.  Just sitting and looking at such beauty and absolute splendor that it makes me cry and I feel too embarrassed and inadequate to explain why.

As we left the store today, I looked at Adam and said 'I really am just like my Dad, aren't I?' To which he said with more awe than irony, "yes and I will never believe that is anything but a good thing."

Jillian