Went to bed fairly early last night seeing as I had to get up at the crack of dawn (ok, 7:30) to leave for church by 9:00. In case you are unaware, people in Memphis love their churches, the bigger the better. Seriously, the city features the biggest bunch of big churches you'll ever see in one place. There's one with so many bells and whistles that my sister's husband calls it "Six Flags Over Jesus." However, after visiting their church, I note that they really don't have room to talk. First stop, the parking lot. There are parking directors (embarrasingly named "coneheads," don't ask me why) and trams. Yes, I said TRAMS. When we got on, I asked my nephew which ride he wanted to go on first.
The tram drops us off at the door and we walk about half a mile to Jackson's classroom. It is one of I don't even know how many 4-5 year olds classrooms. Then we start the trek to the new sanctuary. The new multi-million dollar sanctuary. We pass a lobby worthy of a fancy hotel. There are information booths. Coffee bars. A soup station. And then there's the sanctuary. I'll just say this: I've never seen a sanctuary with nose-bleed seats before. I have also never seen a church with its own map before, so I, of course, felt the need to include it.
As we're getting settled, I put my water bottle in some sort of complicated cupholder. Cupholder! And then we stand for the music, which I admit is impressive. Having grown up in the baptist church, I am always impressed when churches feature musicians besides organists and pianists. The saxaphone was an added bonus.
My sister loves her church, and I'm glad she does. But I just have a fondness for my smallish church which doesn't even own a building, much less a multi-million dollar one. I enjoy the thrill of making my own parking space each week and then walking a few steps to the door. There's the Pepto Bismol pink bathroom tile, the puke yellow carpet, the seventies-era artwork, and the crazy ass tracts of the Seventh Day Adventists whose building we lease on Sundays. It's homey, not to mention homely. But when I'm thousands of miles from my family, homey is good.
Something about the South makes me extremely nappish. After a bit of shut eye, I walked down to the "lake" in my sister's subdivision and did a few laps around it. Got my fix of "This American Life," and tried to avoid the "mean ducks" (aka geese). I was doing fine till the fourth lap when a couple of the geese hissed at me as I went by. I decided I was cold and wet enough as it was, so I headed back to Jenna's.
I played with Jackson a bit and then got in a few crosswords (yes, I realize I'm nerdy. my sister informed me years ago.). Jenna made Greek food for dinner. It was yummy. Best part was: it didn't involve turkey. Yay!!
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