Saturday was a completely different kind of rollercoaster ride.

At 11 am I attended the funeral service for a priest at my church. She had previously been a seminarian with us, and had returned only a few months ago to be on the clergy staff. She was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer at Easter, and died more quickly than I think anyone expected.

I had not intended to go. Although I knew and liked her, I didn't feel a particularly strong personal connection. Then, on Friday, I received a letter sent by our rector, asking parish members to attend. Suddenly I realized that this was as much about my community as it was about the priest herself. Even if I personally wasn't mourning deeply, others were, and our congregation was suffering from this latest blow in a difficult year.

So I attended, and was glad that I had. The service was packed, and the liturgy was presided over by our new bishop, assisted by priests from throughout MS-'s life. The sermon was not a eulogy ~ as requested by MS- herself, the preacher preached the gospel. We sang my favorite hymns and I found myself grieving in an unselfconscious way.

In his brief comments, our rector said, "One of the things I learned from MS- is that I want to die in the arms of this parish." All I could say to that is "Amen."

Standing outside in the columbarium as her ashes were interred, I looked around at the throng and recognized them as my community. I am confident that these are people who would sustain me in extremity, people whose experience of the Spirit is expressed in action through kindness and compassion.

At the reception after the service I met a young man, BB-, who moved to Washington on September 11 from New York. He shared his joy at finding this church, and his sense that it was unusual and wonderful to be part of this community. I introduced him to a few of my favorite people as we chatted, and it gave me pleasure to help him know a few more of this diverse crowd.

I had intended to go to work then, but after going home and changing, I started to look at the newspaper. My eyes began to swim in my head and I thought I'd take a little nap. It was 2 o'clock. I woke up at 10 pm. Tottered around a bit. Went to bed at 12:30 am and slept until 10 am. The rollercoaster of life evidently took quite a bit out of me.

6:08:56 PM    please comment []

On Friday, we took the day off for A-'s birthday, and went to 6 Flags America, a local amusement park.

I haven't been to an amusement park in at least a couple of decades. And prior to Friday, I think I'd been on a rollercoaster exactly twice. As time as gone by, I've lost all sense of immortality (see Fear of Heights) and I'm now quite terrified by flimsily-supported altitude ~ although flying doesn't bother me a bit.

I was, however, determined to face my fears and not be a wet blanket. The upshot of it was that I went on every rollercoaster but one: Roar, The Wild One, TwoFace, Ride of Steel, Batwing, and The Mind Eraser. The one I skipped looked like it did too much spinning around and I didn't want to get a headache.

The scariest: The Ride of Steel, which starts off with an open-car ascent up a steep incline to what feels like hundreds of feet. I realized that I was sitting on the outside of the car, with nothing but air off to my left. Aaaaaagh. All the falling and swooping and what-not after that ascent was a relief in comparison.

The most fun: The Batwing, where essentially you are suspended face-down as you go whizzing around. Except for the g-forces that push you into a harness which could be a bit snugger, it's as close to flying as I've gotten in my waking life. By this time, I was sufficiently adrenalin-drained and desensitized by previous rides to the point where I was able to pretty much relax, resign myself to the possibility of a gruesome death, and have a great time.

The park was an exercise in pluralistic demographics. Apparently just about everyone likes to scream their head off because their stomach has just slammed against the inside top of their skull. Desmond Morris's hypothesis that laughter is a combination of a fear response (scream) with a recognition response (smile) seems borne out by the observation that virtually everybody's screams turn to laughter at some point in a rollercoaster ride.

Hell, yeah, I'd go again!

5:37:39 PM    please comment []