Goals

One of the choir directors texted me yesterday to see if I would play the bass for 4:00 Mass, and I was surprised to see how happy the invitation made me. I haven't been going to Mass. I watch the livestream with some combination of kids at 7:30 on Sunday morning. We zip over to church after the closing prayer and go through the drive-through communion line (<-there's a phrase that would have sounded like a laughable idea six months ago). Elwood usually goes to the 10:30 Mass in person, depending on the current iteration of mask guidance. We agree that it's a bad idea to sit in church for an hour with people who are not required to wear masks. He's more tolerant than I am about the risks that arise when people are instructed to keep their masks on and some of them just...don't.

I live in a purple county in a red region and so I am surrounded by folks who think that masks are an infringement of their freedom. And there has been an ongoing struggle between two related parts of my brain, both fueled by my OCD tendencies. On the one hand, OCD can express itself as scrupulosity, which means I am talking back to a voice that says "if you really loved Jesus you'd go to Mass it's not the same on a screen you could be there soaking in the actual Presence but here you sit on the couch you fearful hypocrite has God given us a spirit of fear no that's not what the Bible says but here you sit on the couch..." At the very same time, OCD can express itself as a disproportionate fear of disease. I have not permitted anyone to bring supermarket ground beef into my kitchen since I read the Fast Food Nation chapter about E. coli poisoning nineteen years ago, so perhaps it was inevitable that my level of COVID-19 anxiety would be on the high side.

I know that neither one of those voices should get much say in my decision-making; I try not to give too much weight to intrusive thoughts of any stripe. I have been trying to be very careful about potential exposures because I've been worried that getting sick would wreck my ability to teach my summer class. My department is counting on me; I'm counting on the money to put toward two sets of college tuition bills next month. There's no sick leave option for summer teaching. Ergo, I've been trying to minimize the amount of time spent breathing other people's air. And when I sit at home and hear the coughing over the livestream feed, it seems like a reasonable decision not to sit in an indoor space where people might or might not be sick, and might or might not be wearing masks.

But I miss it. I miss everything. I miss my retreat community and I miss my Alpha pals and I miss holy water and I miss sound checks with the choir before Mass and I miss being a Eucharistic minister and with the fiercest fieriest ache I miss kneeling down with a bare face before my bare-faced pastor and receiving communion on the tongue and returning to the pew to kneel in holy silence with hundreds of friends and neighbors and newbies and skeptics and visitors, and angels all around us.

(UGH I just made myself cry. ANYWAY. Moving on!)

I did not say yes to the choir director yesterday because first I have to learn to play the bass. But! Details! (No additional singers or wind instruments are allowed at this point because of concerns about the risk of COVID transmission, which is why I can't sing or play the flute. The co-directors can only add one stringed instrument per Mass.) Once I learn to play the bass I can sit in my own little corner, twelve feet or so from the two other musicians, who will both be facing away from me, and miles away from everyone else. We can do a sound check! With angels all around us!

I sat down this afternoon to play the Mass parts on the bass, and my first couple of attempts were not something you would want to amplify throughout a church. My class starts tomorrow, and normally I would not be optimistic about acquiring a new skill while also teaching a summer class. But I'm feeling pretty motivated. I turn 50 in a week, and maybe I will give myself the 50th birthday gift of returning to Mass in a way that feels both safe and fun.