I swore in church.

I recently went to church for the first time in a (very) long time.

This may be shocking to some of you. Indeed, it caught me off guard that I actually went. I’m not a fan of church and haven’t been for awhile. A part of me wants it to be the sort of thing that feels right for me, for the community aspect of it all. As a child I was forced to go, but somewhere along the line my mom finally gave up on the Sunday morning fights and surrendered to the fact that we would be Tourist Catholics (Easter and Christmas, Amen) though even most of those occasions eventually slipped. Most recently, I've abhorred the idea of going to church because it reminds me of my Pops, and I just cry (which was ok the first time my whole extended family attended church together and sat there sobbing like we were watching The Notebook, but not something I care to repeat).

Yet here I was, agreeing to go, because a dear friend asked me to.

We were late of course, because I was driving (my housemates car battery died) and had spent most of the early morning laying in bed trying to figure out how I was going to tell Rodolfo that I was backing out. He had asked my housemate (Annalisa), her boyfriend (Elio) who is currently living with us, and I to join him on this day as his time in the Solomons was coming to a close. I thought I was sick and needed to stay back. It was probably psychosomatic. When he offered me an aspirin (“I will give you something. This is the best medicine you will ever have”, he said it in that innocent, eager and impassioned Italian way he always did), I was suckered.  I was going.

I wasn't the only reason we were late of course– I was travelling with two Italians and considering this country runs on Solomon Time anyways, even the Swiss-German that was getting into the car had no power to counteract the tardiness of the rest of our gang.

So eventually we were off, dressed like tourists with our hats on, all sunscreened up and packing large bottles of water, not entirely sure what to expect but ready to continue our Sunday with God and the good people of a technically illegal squatters settlement in the Honiara hills about a 30 minute drive from my house. We stopped to buy beer on the way*. No joke.

The service had already started when we arrived at the permanent structure built at the base of a hill we would later climb. Inside there were rows of plastic patio chairs and perhaps 30 or 40 worshipers scattered throughout. On the altar, a band was playing while a lead singer belted out an enthusiastic tune, probably something about Jesus being a Savior and his love or something, while the back-up singers swayed and sang. This was loud though. There were drums. The guitars and bass were electric and the swaying involved some jumping, with lots of eyes closed in that passionate way once does when they are truly in the moment. Hands were raised to the heavens.

The pastor greeted us as we entered, hugging Rodolfo, who had started coming to the church to do some research for his PhD in Anthropology. He had spent much of the last year in this squatters settlement and had become one of the community, including becoming ‘adopted’ by a local family who would present him with an impressive shell money necklace** later that day. The gift could be compared to a dowry, and represented that they had now ‘bought’ him and therefore he belonged to their family now, not his own. He was touched.

We were ushered to the front row of chairs, which had been saved for us. Rodolfo had already briefed us on what to expect and it didn't take long before his hands were above his head, swaying to the electric guitar, vocalizing his prayers like everyone else so that the pastor was really just leading a tidal wave of love, dedication, sorrow and hope that would rise up and crash over him passing through the church and up the hill behind it, then on to who knows where.  All the while the band would play, faster and louder until you could feel it in your bones and the power of it all was pretty undeniable. I dislike church for a number of reasons but none of them would come to mind in that moment. I think it was the kind of thing that would inspire an appropriate use of the word ‘awesome’.

I cried a little, because I was in church and thinking about my grandfather (who would have hated this experience in its entirety; he would have found it offensive that this was considered religious worship and altogether not serious enough for church, good ‘ol Catholic man that he was) but I just put on my sunglasses for awhile and tried to decide how cute I thought the bass player was because that was as good a way as any to get my mind occupied with something else. No one noticed because most of them had their eyes closed and were too absorbed in the music and their worship.

There was a normal sermon, then more singing. People came and went. Smoke and toilet breaks were allowed. The crowd got bigger. Then, the song changed, and the woman behind me came closer and put her hands around my waist and before I knew it she grabbed me and started dancing. I was startled. ‘What the Fuuuuuu….?!” . It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. I turned to look at the congregation behind me and it was like everything was in slow motion, my senses overloaded and my brain unable to instantaneously understand what I was seeing: people were literally running around the church. Across the rows of chairs, in the aisles, in circles with their elbows bent and a bit of a jig in their step. Rodolfo got right into it but the three of us looked at each other with wide eyes and we knew we were all thinking the same thing “What the hell is going on?!” So we laughed, then awkwardly started to join in.  The awkwardness began to fade as we totally got into it, dosey doe-ing at the front of the church, just below the alter, with the pastor. I eventually had a chance to listen to the lyrics ‘I am running’ must have been the name of the song, and every time the band got to the chorus, we’d all have to start running around again. It was hilarious and a pretty decent workout.

As the service moved on, the pastor said a few words about Rodolfo, then Rodolfo got up to talk about his experience in the past year and thank everyone in the community, before calling the rest of us up to say a little something into the mic. I spoke about growing up Catholic and how if my church and been like this one I may have been more inclined to attend on occasion, which was met with a round of applause and some whoops and hollars. I laughed, imagining anyone giving a whoop at a church back home.

We all sat back down and the pastor continued, but was interrupted by Rodolfo who had forgotten a few things he wanted to say. First was to tell people about a proposal he had just submitted to get some water tanks for the community, and secondly was to tell everyone that our second car had a flat battery and to ask if anyone had jumper cables that we could borrow. We nearly burst out laughing at how displaced this request felt in the middle of a church service, and yet were appreciative of the effectiveness of the approach – the next day the local town council representative dropped off some jumper cables at Annalisa’s office and I learned how to jump start a car.

 (At least Pops would have approved of that.)

* The beer was for Rodolfo’s goodbye feast with his family, not for church.

**Shell money is the traditional form of currency in the Solomon Islands, and still used though mostly symbolically. It’s literally made out of shells and has standard value throughout the country depending on the shell, design etc.