I had a spiritual experience is all I'm saying
I was seven, and I asked the Sunday School teacher (my memory gives her knee-high nude pantyhose and a polyester skirt-suit), “How come everybody has their eyes closed?”
“They’re praying,” she told me.
“What’s praying?” I asked. We lived next door to a creek and I knew what Praying Mantises were.
“It’s when people connect with God,” I was told.
I think about that a lot: it’s one of those childhood moments forever seared on my memory where now, in my adulthood, I try to piece together why I now feel as I do about certain things. I know that, usually, when I’m feeling connected to Whatever Awesomeness is out there, it has something to do with privacy, and maybe immensity of space. Like, being out on my dad’s boat in the Gulf of Alaska, just miles and miles of ocean, sky and mountain on all sides. Or, driving through a thunderstorm, huge spears of lightning splicing the road in front of me. Or, laying on my back in a sunflower field between Siena and Florence. The cliffs at Gayhead on Martha’s Vineyard. It’s easy to see, in those moments, that there’s something so much bigger than me.
Last weekend, though, Christopher and I went to see Sweet Honey in the Rock (give a listen to their tune I Remember, I Believe) at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. And it was amazing. And, maybe like church. Like a congregation. Six women on stage making music with just their voices, rocking a room with some thousand people of all ages and colors, talkin’ ‘bout their spirituality, and the women sitting next to me kept saying “Praise Jesus,” but she meant it in the kind, Love thy neighbor, make a joyful friggin’ noise kind of way, and I felt connected to something that was waaaay bigger than myself and it was certainly awesome, not in an Eighties Awesome, Dude! sort of way but awesome like full of awe. They’re coming to Ravinia in July, and you should check them out is all I’m saying. ‘Cause we all want to be connected to something. And at Ravinia, you can drink wine while you connect.