December 17, 2012
SundayÂ
Today was, according to the liturgical calendar, the Third Sunday in Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete in Latin is the plural imperative form of the verb that means “rejoice.” The name derives from the first words of the Introit of the Latin Mass: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. (Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.) Traditionally, Gaudete Sunday represented a lightening of the mood of an otherwise penitential and introspective spiritual season, because the birth of the Savior, the Light of the World, was at hand.
For many years I had a big Open House Extravaganza on this Sunday. In the invitation, I always explained why I called it my Gaudete party, that the concept proceeded from Ron’s and my Catholic heritage, that it was a good day to rejoice in the presence of so many friends in our lives and to open our home to them. The year that Lynn was in Daisy Scouts, the leader called to ask what this Gaudete thing meant. (She pronounced it like “cadet.”) She was concerned that it might be some sort of prayer service, “all Catholic and everything,” which she certainly did not want to attend. I guess I didn’t explain clearly enough that this was a party, with sandwiches and cookies and fruit punch, because she kept asking about the Catholic aspect of it. (“Well, why does your party have a Catholic name?”)The Daisy troop met in a Methodist church, and I arrived for pickup once to find this woman leading the little girls in prayer. In the end, she and her family didn’t come to the party, and I was not sad when Lynn, and most of the other members, lost interest in the activity and the troop disbanded. I’ve forgotten her name, but this morning I did write “Daisy leader from 1992” in my prayer mandala. I hope all is well with her.
I don’t have my party anymore, haven’t since 2006, a fact that still causes me some sorrow. I went to Tree of Life Lutheran Church this morning after a phone call to the congregation next door, another step in our continuing efforts to get them to mitigate the noise that emanates from their building whenever they have a worship service or a practice for one. This morning’s introit over there sounded like a volley of rifle shots such as I hear sometimes when I stay at a hotel across the street from Fort Meyer in Virginia, only much louder, even though at Fort Meyer the rifle team is outside, and actually closer in terms of linear distance to my hotel room than the activities inside Living Spring Church are to my kitchen.
It was a hard day to talk about rejoicing in church, but Pastor Cathy, in her sermon, managed to do it. We sang the Marty Haugen hymn that urges us to “be strong and loving and fearless,” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” which I can still sing in Latin. For many years, my congregation used a version that ended the song on a major chord instead of the minor chord that fits the mood and message of the piece. This morning, the traditional rendition of it was restored, and I left thinking that the service and the sermon had been planned just for me.
In the afternoon, Ron and I went to the annual offering of Nine Lessons and Carols at his parish, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Ron sings with the Cathedral choir, and the Christmas concert is one of the events he most enjoys and derives the most spiritual nourishment from. But because of the complications brought on by his eye surgery in September, he was unable to participate at all, and so we were both there as spectators. That he was able to undertake the trip I see as a great blessing, (remember, at Thanksgiving he couldn’t tolerate the sunlight and the travel to celebrate Thanksgiving with our daughter and her fiancé’s family), a sign of hope for a full recovery, a harbinger of the day less than six months from now when he will see Lynn in her bridal elegance and have only tears of joy, not of stinging chemical pain, in his eyes.
Afterward, we went to Isaac’s Restaurant for dinner. Isaac’s is a local chain of sandwich shops where the entrees go by the names of birds. I had a Canary Club — cranberry almond chicken salad on white with bacon and cheese, and a Diet Dr. Brown Cream Soda. It was the first DDBCS I’d had in about a year, since I went off aspartame completely. It tasted like heaven.
There were few diners in the restaurant. By about 6:45 we were finished. We’d paid our bill, and I was having the last precious drops of the DDBCS when we became aware that our server and another young woman were standing at the front window of the restaurant, oohing and ahhing, and taking pictures of something.
The neon sign above an awning that juts out from the front door of the place had exploded. Flames were arcing off the sign, a shards of it were falling to the ground and continuing to burn. The young women were taking pictures with their phones. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
We gathered up on our things and started for the door. A restaurant employee — one of the cooks, I think — was standing at the door. “You need to use the back door,” he said.
“But our car is right out there,” I said, my voice rising into something of a whine. Going out the back door would have required us to walk quite a distance around the row of stores to arrive right at the spot from where I took this picture. He turned away, deliberately, it seemed, and we slid out the door.
A police car had arrived, and two officers were taking charge. In addition to Isaac’s, a Chinese restaurant to the right was open, as was a drug store on the other side. “Our food just came,” said a woman who had come from the Chinese restaurant. The officers were not pleased that the five or six of us gathered around were exhibiting a casual attitude about the fact that flames were continuing to shoot up from the sign. (The picture makes it look like there was fire inside the restaurant. There was not. That is a reflection in the window.) “You people need to get back!” one shouted. Another was shouting into the drug store, trying to determine if anyone was still inside. Another police car arrived, and a third officer entered the restaurant.
The township fire marshal, who goes to my church, arrived in his own car. I checked my natural inclination to holler “Hi, George!” He drew forth from the back seat of his SUV his firefighter’s coat and hat, and a long tool. He walked up to the sign and began batting at it.
Those of us lollygagging about taking pictures got yelled at again. I was unwilling to risk the wrath of my township police, who have so recently supported me in our ongoing problems with the church behind our house, so Ron and I got into our car and left. As we headed west on Linglestown Road (we live less than two miles from the restaurant), we pulled over for three township fire trucks that were responding to the blaze. At home, I discovered that the oldest of the three girls who grew up in the house beside ours, a year ahead of Lynn in school, has become engaged.
And that was my Sunday. Again I say, rejoice, that there are people in this world who serve and protect us, that we have concerts to go to, neighborhood restaurants to eat in, daughters to marry off to fine young men, and the means to communicate our joy to the world. There is light, however dim it seems sometimes. May we never lose sight of it.
And thank you for reading, so much, so often.