Almost Heaven
James doesn’t want to go to Mass. At two and a half he doesn’t want to do most things, even the things he actually does want to do. “I not want to go to CHURCH!” His words start in a growl and end in a scream that echoes down my spine.
What do I say to him? I don’t want to go to church either, but I can’t say that. It’s the Mass, the source and summit of our human experience, the closest we get to heaven on earth and all that. But those textbook explanations don’t feel right, so I don’t say anything. Instead, I let his protests fill the room as I pull back my hair and step into my favorite red skirt.
What did my dad say to us kids on Saturday afternoons when we left parties to get to the vigil Mass or on Sunday mornings when he picked me up early from my grandparents’ house to make it to church on time? Or more to the point, what did he want to say? What words did he swallow? If he wanted to skip Mass, he never said so, just loaded us in the car despite our protests all the way at the injustice of it all. If being Catholic meant leaving the party early, then being Catholic sucked.
When I was in middle school and an altar server scheduled for the early morning daily Mass, he’d remind me that I got extra blessings for getting up so early to suit up in my robe and do the sacred dishes. But I didn’t want extra blessings. I wanted to sleep.
James, who doesn’t even know what a blessing is, wants to play with his favorite yellow truck in his pajamas, and he definitely does not care about extra blessings unless blessing is code for fruit snacks.
I seriously consider not going. We’re on vacation, I think. No one will ever know. It’s just the two of us at my grandmother’s Florida condo. We’re waiting out the last month of winter with her, basking in the bounty of sunshine and grandmother love. It’s a pretty sweet setup, with my in-laws one town over and even a regular babysitter here. So while I’m technically solo parenting for the next couple of weeks until my husband joins us, it doesn’t really feel that way. We’re a flock of snowbirds flown south to wait out the cold.
Lucy, our five year old, is with my in-laws at their place one town over, and I know there’s a snowball’s chance in hell they’re skipping Mass this morning, so I take a deep breath and open the negotiations.
“If you come get dressed, you can bring your big yellow truck to church.” To my surprise that’s all it takes. James is sold, and I’m out the door with trucks and snacks in a canvas tote bag I found in the closet before he can change his mind. We’re singing along to George Ezra’s “Shotgun” with the windows down when we pull into the church parking lot a few minutes later. The parking lot is full already and are people… leaving? Shit. Mass must have been at eight, which means the next one is at ten, which means we have an hour to kill. So we take our bag full of trucks down the street to the beach to pass the time until the ten o’clock Mass.
Our deacon said in a homily once that he couldn’t imagine why people wouldn’t want to be at Mass. “Really?” I thought. “I can.” A deacon preaching a homily that sounds like a perpetually disappointed father lecturing his disappointing children, a bored priest frowning up at the raised Eucharist as the congregation mumbles: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…”
If heaven looks like our Sunday Mass back home, I don’t want to go. Give me a windows down, singing at the top of my lungs kind of heaven. A sand in my toes heaven, a waves crashing and salt spray on my arms heaven.
James plops down in the sand and leans into my arm, excavator in one hand, dump truck in the other. We watch people make their way down to the water’s edge with wagons weighed down by coolers, tents, boogie boards and towels. He drives a tiny cement mixer up my arm and across my back, shaking me from my thoughts. I look down at my watch and reluctantly announce that it’s time to go. We wipe the sand from our church clothes, pack up toys and shoes and walk, feet bare, back to the car, James’ hand in mine.
The church is packed when we arrive, and we slowly make our way along the rows until we find room for two in the middle of a back pew. We’re tucked softly inside a cloud of white hair and orthopedic shoes, grandparents and great grandparents smiling down benevolently at James who has turned the kneeler into a seat and the pew into a road. Next to us, a woman with a stylish white pixie cut in a blue and white striped dress drives a tiny excavator toward James who drives the cement mixer toward her. He squeals in delight when she folds her bulletin in half and shows him how to drive his truck through her paper tunnel.
This is a far cry from our church back home in the suburbs where the same people who bemoan the lack of young families stare daggers at the sound of a fruit snack wrapper, a toddler’s frustrated yell, a child asking if it’s time for donuts in the middle of the psalm. The same people who fear for the future of the Church while rolling their eyes when the future of the Church needs to slide out of the pew to go potty.
Cynicism and hypervigilance have made Church feel less like home and more like a museum with a dress code. Don’t touch anything. Don’t raise your voice. Be still, be silent, be solemn. But I can’t believe in a heaven that’s still, or silent or solemn. The heaven of my imagination is more like a dinner party. Loud, joyous, holy.
Looking down at James, playing in his Father’s house, I think of Jesus in the temple. I think of Jesus teaching the little children, of Jesus sitting at a dinner table laughing with his friends. Maybe it’s both. I think. God is here and God is out there. Unwilling to be contained despite my best efforts to contain Him.
This, I think, is heaven. All of us, together, playing at the feet of Jesus.