Missing Icons

Maybe ours were stolen? Maybe we couldn't afford them? Maybe they told a story about which we didn't agree? I just didn't know.

But I do remember when I was a kid I visited a Catholic mass with my next door neighbor friend. I think it must have been an obligatory visit because he had come to VBS all week with me and my family and his mom asked my mom if I could go to church with them the next Sunday. My mom said I "had to go because it was the polite thing to do." So, I went. It was a Sunday morning mass, too. It seemed I got a "full dose" of Catholicism at a tender young age.

At the time I wasn't really comfortable there. These people knelt on these little benches when they prayed. Everyone seemed to have known a "script" that I didn't know and so they knew when to speak to the guy up front in what appeared to be the coolest bath robe I had ever seen!

Just arriving there was an experience. The parking lot was full of cars and there were lots of people coming into the church. Our parking lot at my home church was rarely "full" and there definitely wasn't "standing room only" like there was here! I saw another friend from school there, he didn't look any more comfortable than I did, but he knew when to do that "thing" on his forehead and across his chest and I didn't. So, I didn't wave at him (because I didn't want to inadvertently commit to something or make a gesture that might imply I had come there for some kind of spiritual business I wasn't ready for -- I didn't really want to be one of those boys in the "junior" bath robes). Therefore, keeping my hands close to my sides, I just tried to look like I fit in.

Keeping my hands still wasn't easy from the start though. Walking in through the lobby, there was a bowl of water on a pedestal. My friend's parents put their hands in the bowl, then my friend's brother and sister and then he did, too. I used to play in the drinking fountain at the lobby of my church, but this wasn't a drinking fountain and everyone was doing it. Mom would have scolded me for not washing my hands long enough, but I guessed it wasn't about getting clean. I heard someone whisper something about "holy" water, but all I knew was it was cold and now my hands were wet. Left pant leg... end of problem!

When the "parade" started, I thought that was cool. Some little guys, a little older than me were walking into the church with a guy carrying something smoking. That was the coolest! I didn't know what it was, so I leaned toward the aisle to see if I could smell it. No good, but I followed it with my eyes all the way down the aisle. They also carried these big banners with pictures and words written on them. The words didn't make any sense to me, but I do remember beautiful rich colors and gold and silver lettering. They looked like curtains I'd seen in a really nice theater.

I checked out when the guy with the cool bathrobe started speaking a different language. Everyone else who knew the "script" spoke back in English, but I didn't know the script so I just knelt when they did, but the rest of the time I was looking at statues, stained glass window pictures and still trying to figure out what the smoking pot was all about.

Nearly 40 years later, the images are still there. Appreciated now with a far greater sense of understanding and purpose.

The next week -- Sunday -- in my home church, I was (confessedly) bored. The preacher didn't say anything funny that week and Mom didn't wear that bracelet I liked to play with. So... I just sat there, swinging my feet off the end of the pew pretending in my mind my legs were like that big carnival ride I saw in the parking lot of my friend's church a few weeks before. My church didn't do cool carnivals either. Something about not "fundraising" or something... my dad said when I asked him if we could have one, too.

So I just sat there... wondering what it would be like if my church had statues I could look at, stained glass pictures and other things that might tell a story or make me wonder more about God like I did at my friend's church.

I still wonder... are there missing icons?

What about you? Isn't it beneficial to sometimes have something to look at to help you understand the things you can't see? I'm glad I visited my friend's church that day, though at the time I didn't want to. It helped me to see then and helps me to see today the value of "seeing" things.

I wonder how much I'd miss if I couldn't see?

Icons.