Our pastor is coming over tonight, to "get to know us." Apparently, we're the first couple in the history of the church to join the choir before joining the church, and that's sparked a little curiosity. It seemed a logical move to us; we love to sing, and joining the choir ensures that we'll actually get our lazy butts out of bed Sunday morning and get to church rather than sleep in. This is not common, though, and I think Reverend Paul wants to know a little more about the crazy couple in his choir, in case we're actually there to subvert the congregation.

He needn't worry. Since we moved up here to Ohio in the summer of '97, we've been searching intensively for a church which was as good as the one we left. It has not been a fruitful search; there was always something not quite right about every church we visited. In one, our presence caused the median age to drop by about forty years; in another, nobody bothered to shake our hands, get our names, or even smile at us. In the freakiest, the service omitted all reference to sin, forgiveness, or salvation, stating that two terrorist bombers who had blown up a plane that weekend were now in heaven with God. Now, I can't presume to know the state of anyone's soul but my own, but you'd think that the kind of person who would kill almost one hundred people would have a few issues to work out between himself and the Creator...

So when we stumbled upon our current church, I could almost hear a Hallelujah chorus ringing in my head. No brusque ushers, a nice and friendly congregation, a rector who's not afraid to call his parishoners on their foibles, and a choir which didn't set my teeth on edge and make my eyes roll back in my head. We were in for the duration. We joined the choir. Hence tonight's meeting.

He's going to ask us about joining the church. That will be new for me; I've never actually been a "member" of a church before. Considering this and past entries, I know that sounds strange, but bear with me. When I was a kid and attending the "Church of Shake, Rattle, and Roll" with my mother, we weren't actually members; my father is somewhat agnostic (perhaps more lazily than questioningly), and my mother wanted to wait to join until the whole family could join together. So she's still not a member of the church she's been attending for over twenty-five years.

At West Virginia, I didn't attend church until my senior year. At that point, Eric did a collaboration with a theatre professor in a production that was staged at the church of that teacher, as well as our composition professor, Dr. Beall. It was our first experience with an Episcopal church; Eric was raised Church of Christ. Between the two of us, though, we got a handle on the books and responses. We continued to go there and were eventually married in that church. Reverend Dorothy was wonderful, the people were so kind, and we loved singing in Dr. Beall's choir. But we were never "members." We were listed as such in the church directory, but we were never asked if we wanted to join.

Reverend Paul may ask us that question tonight. It'll be interesting to see his face when he finds out that neither of us has ever gone through the confirmation process. I wonder if we'll have to do that now? And I know we'll have some questions for him. We both are uncomfortable with infant baptism, which is a tenet of the Episcopal church. Wonder what kind of flack we'll get if we tell him we'd rather wait until our children are old enough to decide for themselves? That should be a hoot.