Pieces of Ourselves

One of the great mysteries of life is how a place - a building, a spot of ground, a restaurant, a school - can become so intertwined with who we are. Perhaps it's because at those special places we leave a little piece of ourselves behind. When we go back to visit or even just see a picture we find the little piece of ourselves that we left there.

For just a moment we become a little more whole than we were before.

This is the way I feel about this building. For those of you who didn't grow up in Beaufort, this is the original building for St. John's Lutheran Church. Located on Ribaut Road, it was dedicated on June 17, 1956 with a charter membership of 52. 

When my parents married they realized that going to the Presbyterian church one Sunday and the Methodist church the next was going to be a little disruptive when they had children, so they followed my great-grandmother to the Lutheran Church. There they became actively involved and taught my brother and me that church was where one was supposed to be on Sunday (fever and vomiting were potential reasons for not going, but couldn't be counted on). Being in the choir or behind a musical instrument was preferable. 

At St. John's Lutheran Church I learned the goodness of people. I learned that church was a place where I could be an awkward, weird, grumpy teenager and the grown-ups around me would still act like they loved me. (I'm sure they rolled their eyes but I never saw it.) The people I saw every Sunday (and every Wednesday at choir practice) became like family - adults like aunts and uncles; peers like cousins.  

I learned that balance in my life would always be found in taking a few hours on Sunday and singing a hymn or two, because that's what my parents did. I found joy on Easter Sunday when the sun, streaming through the stained glassed windows, lit beautiful arrangements of azaleas, lilies, and dogwood blossoms in every windowsill of the sanctuary. And, to this day, Christmas Eve just doesn't feel the same if I'm not at a midnight candlelight service.

I believed that in this place I was safe, and the regular Sunday church attendance our family engaged in created a beautiful and reassuring rhythm to our lives that I still dance to. 

The little piece of me that I left at the old building on Ribaut Road cannot be revisited in person, but I frequently re-visit the memories - the hymns, the good pastors, my mother at the organ, the sound of my father's voice in the choir, the peace found in that simple little building - and am grateful that home includes such a treasure.