everybody hurts

When I sing in church with the "worship team" on a Sunday, I sit with the other musicians facing the rest of the congregation for most of the service. It's a strange and awkward vantage point. There are things I like about it (getting to see who arrives and where they sit, as well as all the amusing fashion, cute babies, and squeamish dances people do when finding their way through a sea of humanity) and things that I do not (feeling like I'm on display, not getting to sit with my friends or hubby). But last Sunday, it felt a bit like an out-of-body experience.

I sat slumped in my chair, numb and exhausted from too little sleep and an overly emotional Saturday. I didn't want to be there, and the "on display" aspect of my perch amplified my sad-sack self talk of feeling fat, frizzyhaired, and possibly secretly tone deaf. I was convinced that I sounded as awful as I felt. I was sure that everyone could see that I was singing with fakeness sewn into my weak smile.

And as I tried to keep it together and sing some songs, my mind rolled around depressive and angry tirades that I silently shouted into the back of my throat.

Yale and I had spent Saturday evening in the burbs with his family celebrating his mom's birthday. And I was aghast at how much that was like a dull knife carving out my heart. We got home late and I was exhausted, but I couldn't sleep. I tossed in sadness and self pity all night, daring myself to wake up Yale and tell him that I was shredded with the missing of my parents and all the birthday dinners that would never be.

So I didn't exactly feel much like singing.

But there from the front of the church looking out, I saw the secret and tender things that you don't notice when sitting shoulder to shoulder with the crowd. The tears. The hands raised limply but earnestly in petition. The late arrivals who looked even worse than I felt. But they came. The broken, the broke, and the broken hearted. They came to church and sat and... who knows? Prayed, cried, begged, fumed, sang, dozed. They came. hundreds of people.

It occurred to me, no, struck me, that on any given Sunday, there are probably at least a hundred people in that church who sit quietly in seething pain. Physical or spiritual or emotional. Who is crying when someone else's baby is baptized? Who walks out sneakily while everyone stands to sing a hymn? I know that there have been more Sundays than I can count that I cried, snuck, or hid. Or all three.

Sitting facing a room full of pilgrims on Sunday was different somehow than sitting next to them. I didn't like the set-apartness of my musician's seat, but I did appreciate the perspective it gave me. It felt like a great big family breakfast, where everyone had just come, no matter how they felt or how they didn't feel. Sitting together and doing what they needed to do, whether praise or cry or just sit.

I know that "just showing up" does not make one a believer. But showing up is part of it. Showing up, and looking around, and loving our neighbor and pew mate. Give a hug. Ask the questions. Acknowledge the shit-tacularness of life AND the goodness and glory and beauty of it too.

Everybody hurts, sometimes. And on any given Sunday, you may be sitting next to one of those everybodys. Love them, even if it feels awkward and unseemly. Even if it means that YOU will start crying. Even if you yourself felt like crap when you got up that morning. We're family. And eventually everyone in your family is going to see you wipe snot off your face with your arm. Why not just get it over with?