A Prayer for The Many

Our exchange student from Japan left today, to many hugs and tears. I was sad to see her go, and maybe a little relieved. I'd often told people that the 17 year olds we host are not a true picture of teenagerhood. The girls we host are usually very polite, laugh a lot (it's a cultural thing to laugh at jokes, as well as anything you don't understand), and never gave us any lip. Definitely not typical for girls their age.

Although our Arisa was delightful, she was part of a small group of students from the same school who had obviously been mistaking a language immersion program half-way across the world, for Japanese Girls Gone Wild! Or a tamer version of it. The moment they arrived they were angling for ways to, well, get their own way. We had no problems with our student, who was sweet and helpful, but her pals were another story. They had a teenager's knack for, as my husband put it, 'finding the weak gazelle in the pack and picking it off." That gazelle was a sweet grandmotherly host (whom I'll call Dot) who took in one of the other girls after she had a meltdown with her original host family, and once paired up with her student, they were relentless. Instead of planning meals and events, as we host families are supposed to do, Dot made the mistake of asking them what they wanted to do. It's been a long time since Dot was 17 or she never would have given them this power, but once it was handed over, they spun the poor old lady around like a top. No! to the museum, no! to ping-pong night at her church, no! to pasta, no! to homework, no! no! no!

What they did want to do was to ditch the grownups as often as possible and spend time hanging out with their friends. This meant hours in someone's bedroom chatting (in Japanese), playing cards, eating mounds of junk food, and generally herding together as teenagers do. Not exactly the program their parents spent thousands of dollars for an intensive immersion experience to shore up their English.

So when Dot suggested Pageant of Our Lord at their local church, it was only after hours of coaching (an exchange student veteran) to put her timid foot down at long last and take no guff from her rebellious girls. The event may have sounded like a crashing bore to a teenager, but I actually wanted to go because I'd heard this show was technically as good as the famous, Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach. Tickets to that yearly event are expensive and hard to get. For those who aren't familiar with this event, in Pageant of the Masters, humans ornately painted and draped recreate famous paintings. It is an amazing visual feat and almost impossible to tell from their one-dimensional counterparts.

So, after a game of bowling in which the girls were humiliated by losing to their 80-year-old host - he had a few tricks up his sleeve, moving at the speed of molasses but with very good aim, we packed off to Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, where host Dot and her husband were members.

Rolling Hills Covenant Church is huge, uncomfortably so to a devout Unitarian like me who has a hard time with the Bible belt version of Christianity. They had several large, modern and well-tended buildings on two campuses straddling Palos Verdes Drive. The girls were able to go backstage to see the actors being made up for their part in the paintings and sculptures, and this part was quite fascinating. Although one of the students slept through the show, it was worth the price of admission. So when Dot asked me if I wanted to share my email address with the church (the carrot was a DVD of the performance), I agreed, and when I handed in my card, they eagerly gave me a book for people like me, whom they called 'seekers': The Morning Comes and Also the Night.

The next day I took a few minutes to leaf through the 200-0dd page book, written by the senior pastor at the church. Though I suspected it would be pretty heavy-handed, reading the story of the coming period as prophesized in Revelations to be akin to standing in front of an oncoming car. There was no mystery as to what was coming next, and yet the brutal certianty of it was mesmerizing.

Some Christians fudge the whole concept of heaven and hell (the kinder, gentler version), but Pastor MacDonald was pretty clear on the matter. Believe in Jesus as the only son of God or burn in the fires hell for eternity. As an incentive to those of us who actually were Christians (but not born-again) we would get a special, even hotter place in hell because, unlike the poor savages in a distant jungle who had not yet heard the word of God, we were willfully choosing not to tow the line. He did assure us, though, that at any time we could accept Jesus fully into our hearts and minds, and make a last dash for the promised land. There was also a cheery side-note about how the better a Christian you were, the better your job in heaven - like being an Director of Angel Affairs, or actually serving Jesus personally (probably a very nice boss).

As odd as some of his claims were, the most egregious part of the last chapter was his explanation of how Jews would be handled in this phase. As he described it, the last generation of Jews would have the opportunity to convert to Christianity (again as prophesied) thus making it to heaven with the rest of us. Those who did not would go to hell, along with the rest of us. Note I am including myself in both scenarios. When all this was said and done, the earth would explode, and a new world would come with God among us, a world in peace and harmony.

This kind of did it for me. Having a close and ongoing relationship with Judaism, I have come to know with certainty that God is there in the Temple, as well as in church, and this has led me to believe He can be found in any other place where people are in daily earnest and open communion, with the intent to learn. I have felt His presence during High Holidays uplift and inspire just as clearly as I have felt it during Christmas worship in church. Perhaps the difference is really within our weakness as humans: What we do in our search to be closer to the principals and commandments of God is where we seem to get into trouble. The challenge and struggle of those who study the Torah, or the Bible, or the Koran, is that we are all trying understand and reach perfection as defined by God in our daily lives - to live moral, responsible, forgiving, and just lives during our short stay here. Killing, maiming, or segregating others from a relationship to God is the act of those who cannot attain this state of grace. To me, it is a reflection of our failings.

Judgement on this subject is God's job. And I think He's probably better at it than we are.

I find Unitarian services to be somewhat colorless and boring and I miss the pomp and circumstance of the music and message I grew up with, familiar as a warm glass of milk. I'm more of a gospel choir enthusiast, and our unitarian choir can't sing worth a ditty, given that they let anybody sing, even if they can't hold a tune. But I am committed to the principals of acceptance for all beliefs as long as they uphold the same principals of fairness toward others. I am aware that to my Christian brothers and sisters, this puts my immortal soul in peril, but as I have often assured them, I believe it's a principal worth fighting for.

God, if you're listening, I betting the farm that you will understand.