A Day At the Office

Pastor John drove into the parking lot early that morning. His mind was full of the to-do list of the day as he slid into his parking spot and removed his driving equipment of sunglasses and fingerless gloves. He liked the feel of the gloves on the wheel when he drove anywhere. He believed that more people would wear them if they tried them. The sunglasses were only worn when the day was exceptionally bright. He would rather just see the world as it is.

He exited the vehicle and, after throwing the keys into his pocket, strode towards the church door. He had not been there for some time, and it was with some curiosity that he looked forward to this visit. It really wasn’t a to-do item on the list, but the inspector had called, saying that the building was clear.

Pastor John walked past the large trash bin, taking up a few parking spaces. The pavement was stained in front of its door with a blackened smear. Coming closer, he noticed a scattering of old cigarette butts on the parking pavement in the shade of the building. There were many different colours, makes, and models, some with a tinge of the red of lipstick. John mentally added another item onto his to-do list; to phone the director of the AA meeting, asking her again to mention that the butts should go in the ashtray, standing like a forgotten sentinel across the parking lot from the door. “Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter now,” thought John as he remembered that they were not left there recently, but that night, a month or so ago. Some bits of glass from a window agreed with his memory, lying mixed into the debris from the cigarette-smoking crew.

Pastor John continued up to the door of the church and opened it. The bright sunlight of the mid-summer’s day immediately grabbed his attention, stabbing his eyes as it spilled through the missing roof. John looked around and sighed. The far wall of the church was no longer there, and the sun entered unimpeded through the blackened steel girders that were able to span the space from side to side, because the concrete-block side walls still ascended to full height with the front. There were a few remnants of the inside walls, some only naked studs, that used to separate the rooms of the office area, barely reaching to where the ceiling used to be. They awaited their fate by a verdict from the insurance company before they, too, could be cast into the trash bin. “Insurance companies think differently than the rest of us,” John said to himself. The rest of the space was swept almost clean by the crew sent by the insurance company to do their first clean sweep of the space after the demolition crew had removed all the bigger pieces of charred roof, walls, and contents. It was all gone.

This was the long-awaited first opportunity John had to get back into the building since the great fire that had razed it to this sorry leftover. A hollow emptiness was heard from the corners where wonderful goings-on once happened since its opening, some years before. The phone call from the fire inspector was a rough mix of relief and dread for John after waiting so long to be given the okay for a firsthand look at the wreckage. John’s hesitant entry into the place had no solace to offer his aching heart, as his gaze took in the total ruin of the church.

John looked around. From his vantage point just inside the door, he could see into the sanctuary. The bright sun showed the pews were water-stained from the great fight the firemen had conducted to save what they could. John remembered the joyful sounds it once held, the singing, laughter, and blessing for all who entered. Now, it was empty, open to the elements. John noted that the pulpit was no longer at the centre stage. The stage itself was reduced to the minimal bones of the 2 X 6 framing. It was another part of the church awaiting the determination of the insurance company to find its fate.

To his right, there was what was left of some of the walls that made up the large meeting room. It was there that his wife, Grace, had met with the first-time moms, many from the local immigrant community, to talk about parenting and the care of babies. Sometimes, it had nothing to do with the babies. Some of the moms were unmarried, coming from the neighbourhood, and drawn into the circle of Grace’s love and acceptance from a world which was cold and uncaring. Many of them were estranged from their moms, some through great distances, whether location or ideology, and they were struggling through the first few years of being a mom without many living resources to help them. Sometimes, the Internet was just not enough.

Some of them from the immigrant community had been showing up, also, at the ESL group on Thursdays. “…or they did,” thought John, remembering their overwhelming friendliness and humour as they worked to grasp the convoluted intricacies of the English language. He was still trying to find someone else who could take over that class in another church building, somewhere close. He wished they didn’t have to go because it was in that class that he met whole families, when the men could arrange their working schedule to fit.

The same room was where the AA people met on Wednesday evenings. This was an eclectic gathering of people of all ages, beliefs, and nationalities. They were men and women who were connected by two realities; they were all brought low by alcohol, and they were all looking for respite and human touch in their troubles. John was usually present with some of the members of the church at the meetings, though he wasn’t leading them. He attended just to be friends with them as they shared their struggles and victories. They were largely a brave bunch, not needing anyone to convince them of the unfortunate meld between quirks of character, genes, and personal weaknesses they faced daily. John thought of them as he silently sent a prayer heavenward for them. They had had to find another venue, and John had not been able to keep connected with them as much as he once did, now that they were meeting across town.

These meetings were but a few of the endeavours the church community John had pastored over the past few decades were involved with. The food bank room had been in the back, but it was totally gone. The same fate had befallen the storage room, which had been filled with random furniture and the bits and pieces of domestic life for anyone who needed them. It was a friendly and welcoming church family, for sure. He had found another church which would rent them space in the afternoon on Sundays, but it wasn’t their building. It wasn’t home and it wasn’t comfortable. But, because so much of the church went on either outside the Sunday Service times or outside the walls of the building, they bumbled along as best they could, like a limping man going to work, attempting to do honour to his calling. The Church was more accurately the congregation of people who took their responsibilities towards the common good very seriously. It was so much more than the narrow focus of their worship service, though most of them were pretty committed to show up every Sunday. Their commitment to all that was happening in the church humbled John as he led them as best he could. He loved each one.

The authorities never found out who set the church on fire. They said there were very few clues as to why or how, other than the starting point of a vulnerable alcove in the structure on the side of the church that faced the alley in back. By the time the fire was discovered, it had been alight for long enough to spread up the wall and into the attic, ready to pull down the roof onto the slab-on-grade floor of the building. When the fire trucks arrived, the best they could do was to prevent the neighbouring buildings from catching fire and save the few bones of rooms inside.

John was guessing that the arsonist or arsonists had no idea they were upsetting so much of the community’s joy when they started the fire. It was unlikely they were homeless people trying to get warm. It hadn’t been that cold at that time of the year. It could have been someone who had some kind of run-in with a member of the congregation or even of some other congregation. Who knows what goes on in the minds of people to bring them to a place where burning a building down is a rational response? That kind of thinking was foreign to John’s mind and to the minds of all of the Christians he knew. It seemed senseless.

After looking around one more time at the desecrated insides of the church, John sadly shook his head and turned back to the door through which he had entered the largely empty space, where the liveliness of the church was no more. One more glance around over his shoulder, and John was back in his car, driving off the property. Going into the world, John determined to be a part of the Church.