Thursday, December 8, 2011

Small Town Friday Night -- Then and Now

Last Friday evening I went to my home town of Corry, about 35 miles from Erie, to have dinner with my parents.  Afterwards we went downtown where a community holiday celebration was going on, with all the stores open, the chance to ride in a horse-drawn wagon, and Santa in the lobby of one of the banks.  A fair number of people were there, even lines of kids with parents all the way out to the sidewalk waiting for their time with Santa Claus.

I couldn't help but think of Friday nights in this same town decades ago when I was a child.  Then "downtown" was busy every Friday night.  Local factories were still open and prospering and malls and fast food were coming soon but not quite yet.  Folks ate at local restaurants and shopped, but mostly saw each other walking about.  Those days are gone and most everything has been affected, including the churches.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church was the one I grew up in, where I learned to love God through the Liturgy of the Prayer Book and heard the first summons of a call to ordination.  Last Friday night, current members of the parish took a risk and opened their church to the community, offering hot chocolate and cookies, and not knowing if anyone would bother to stop in.  But they did stop in, most of them, I'm sure, through those doors for the first time, especially the many youth and children.  And the people of Emmanuel were ecstatic.

Such a simple thing, but nonetheless a sign of resurrection on the other side of things that used to be.  A sign born of the determination of people in the church and the community to celebrate and humanize in the midst of and even in spite of it all.

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