Tiptoeing Back into the House of the Lord

Purple lights at worship service.

Our view of a perfectly wasted opportunity for someone to improv a Christian pop song called “Purple Reign”.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: pandemic pandemic bo-bandemic, banana-rama-fo-fandemic, fee fi mo mandemic: pandemic! It’s sucked beyond all calculable orders of magnitude, has put people we know in the hospital or the grave, and currently rated a negative-ten-million percent on the Tomatometer.

Then amid Worst Year Ever, a ray of hope: the vaccines arrived. Then amid our ray of hope, penetrating lasers of inky darkness: a media and populace that simultaneously embrace vaccines and distrust them at the same time. And I’m not talking about the deniers shrieking at us from their log-cabin schoolhouses with tinfoil roofs, boasting how they’re more interested in preserving their reckless impunity than achieving herd immunity. No, I’m talking about the ostensible “good guys”:

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2020 Road Trip Photos #16: Xavier’s Church for Gifted Soldiers

Christ cross runway.

This statue of Christ on a cross with its own runway is actually part of a cemetery.

One of our biggest regrets about our annual road trips is we always fail to make time for church services on Sunday. Occasionally we’ll happen near a church that’s built up enough exterior decor that it counts as a tourist attraction, but we’re never in a position to attend services. We’ve visited such houses of worships in New Orleans, Colorado Springs, and New York City, among others.

So it went in Vincennes as our walk took us slightly adjacent to George Rogers Clark National Historical Park, where we found holy grounds whose history predates Clark’s arrival in the area, not to mention the American Revolution itself. It was a Tuesday and we aren’t Catholic, but we appreciated a chance to spend a few minutes with our minds pointed more toward God.

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Communion in a Crunch

Home Communion!

All items readily available at your local grocer, appearing on no one’s hoarding list.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I keep rolling with the punches as the Coronavirus saga continues and we’re forced to adjusting our boundaries and personal thresholds in the face of what I call “the interim normal“. Among several changes I neglected to mention in Chapter 1 or Chapter 2 was that our church moved to online services effective March 15th. Once boasting a membership over 2000 at its peak, and located squarely within the very first Indiana town to confirm a positive COVID-19 diagnosis once those started happening here, our church knew they couldn’t procrastinate taking action. Thankfully the IT infrastructure needed for such an undertaking was already in place. They’ve been recording and sharing sermons online for years — an audio-only stream back in primitive times, now with value-added video today.

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Our 2019 Road Trip, Part 16: The Park and the Church of MLK

nonviolence and nonexistence!

When you get the chance to capture Dr. King’s words, you capture Dr. King’s words.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 my wife Anne and I have taken a trip to a different part of the United States and visited attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. My son tagged along from 2003 until 2013 when he ventured off to college. We’ve taken two trips by airplane, but are much happier when we’re the ones behind the wheel — charting our own course, making unplanned stops anytime we want, availing ourselves of slightly better meal options, and keeping or ruining our own schedule as dictated by circumstances or whims. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

For years we’ve been telling friends in other states that we’d one day do Atlanta’s Dragon Con, one of the largest conventions in America that isn’t in California or New York. We’d been in Atlanta, but we hadn’t really done Atlanta. Hence this year’s vacation, in which we aimed for a double proficiency in Atlanta tourism and over-the-top Dragon Con goodness. Before we went to D*C, there was the road trip to get there, and the good times to be had before the great times at the big show.

By the time we finished our meager lunch at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, the storm had abated for a spell. Not far down the road is Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, whose features include a Visitors Center and free parking a block away. It was a nice start to the experience.

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name Until They’re Gone and It’s Just You Left

Cheers Lady!

“You want to be where you can see troubles are all the same.” With or without alcohol, really.

Some introverts treasure those few places where we can feel like we belong. I mean in the physical world, not just online.

Comfortable spaces where we feel less weird and have reasons to hold up our end in a conversation instead of retreating from it. Areas where we can find common ground with folks who don’t think of us as strangers, who might even attempt eye contact despite how unnatural it can feel. Benign territories where the sight of a familiar face is a boost to our spirits, where mere recognition is validation, the baseline brownie points of existence. They admit they see me; they don’t slam the door in my face; ergo, I matter.

I’ve had a few of those places in my lifetime. That list doesn’t seem to be expanding much as I get older without becoming any more outgoing, which is a thing that happens for some folks as they age but hasn’t yet been the case with me.

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Happy Easter from MCC!

Easter Service!

Our view of church this morning at 8 a.m., remembering and worshiping before the crowds who’ll be flocking in for the 9:15 and 11 a.m. services. We sat in the back with Anne’s grandmother and enjoyed the message, in which our lead pastor skillfully worked in a brief but topical detour to refute Lex Luthor’s flawed theology in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Apt timing.

Happy Easter to you ‘n’ yours from Midlife Crisis Crossover, and may you have a truly blessed day.

The Stage Set for Easter

Hope on Stage, 2015

Pictured above: the main auditorium stage at our church home throughout the month of March.

It hasn’t been an easy, gracious month ’round these parts. Everywhere we turned, believers and non-believers alike were up in arms. Christians of all denominations, at all levels of faith, at various save points of their walkthroughs with Christ, have had plenty of questions, countless disagreements with others, even debates with each other. Anyone among us who never felt challenged or moved to sincere contemplation all month long wasn’t paying attention.

Easter Sunday is one of those too-rare moments when we collectively set aside our divisions, recognize why we do what we do, remember what our successes mean, realize what our failures don’t mean, and reaffirm why we ought to keep trying to do better.

We’re looking forward to service tomorrow morning. We welcome it. Right now, we need it.

* * * * *

“So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter. May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” — 2 Thessalonians 2: 15-17 (NIV).

A Fond Farewell to the Chapel of Love

The Old Chapel!

Ten years ago, these were the pews where 60+ friends, relatives, and hangers-on gathered to watch a truly peachy-keen woman agree to holy matrimony with this one dorky guy who read too many comics.

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