Still going to Church and Singing Gospel

I WENT TO CHURCH Sunday, after almost deciding not to. It has a way of drawing me to it. I have now been reguularly attending church for, I believe, nearly a year, and regularly singing in a gospel singing group at the senior center for four years, and ii both instances, I am both a bit surprised at and proud of myself. I still don't know how much longer I will continue; hell, maybe I'll do both until I die. I like the Presbyterian church I go to, despite the fact that it barely exists. Sunday, there was a total of six people in the building,including congregants and clergy. I like the relatively progressive approach of this church, both locally and generally. I will never be a member of any existing church, I still believe, merely a perpetual visitor. I would still like to visit a few other churches, just for the learning experience. I qould be willing to at, as a visitor, a religious service of practically any religion on the planet, for that reason. To me, no other approach makes as much sense. I have a good friend who is very progressive politically, and isin charge of teh music at his church, a Methodist church which has a lady minister who herself is allegedly qite progressive, ada congregation of about forty to fifty,mostly progressive. That sounds like my kind of place, and I think I will give it a try. My minister,a retired corporate attorney nearly eighty, tells us that the more inclusive the Presbyterian church attemmpts to become, the more membership it loses. By "inclusive", what ismenat is acceptance of transgender people, gay people, and all those people who live in a universe of more than merely two genders and one sexual orienation, who use pronouns in all kinds of non traditional ways. You know the type. Mainstream white heterosexual Christian America has done a much beter job,to say the least, in tolerating and tehn accepting women and ethnic minorities than gay and transgender folks. it still struggles with that, as, arguably, it still does race and gender. Our palm Sunday sermon reminded me thaat I have always rather liked Pontious Pilate, who stood up for justice but was forced to capitulate to the demands ofan angry, violent mob of religious fanatics. We in America know all aobut angry violent mobs. We sang "How Great Thous Art" on Monday, then, immediately thereafter, somebody nominated "The Old Rugged Cross", which we seldom sing. Somebody piped up and said; "Good idea. It completes the same idea"....I scratched my head. My fellow singer was apparently asserting that "How Great Thou Art" and "The Old Rugged Cross" carry and express the same theme, or, message, or, whatever. I'm still scratching the old pate. Those two songs? Complimentary? How so, exactly? The former, to me, would be appropriate for nearly any religion, or for no religion at all. Personally, I think the universe, what little of it we can see and comprehend, is pretty damned great. Amazing, awesome, great. And thus the same goes for the force, or for the infinitely superior spirit, as Einstein said. The sone about teh cross is a sweet, slow sappy little melodyexpressing warmth and love for an instrument of torture and death. In my universe, because of these two arguably quite divergent themes, the two songs are indeed not only not a cozy pair in philosophical tandem, but rather, diametrically opposed. One, noble and sublime, the other, primitive, barbaric, tragic, just like Christian crucifixion theology itself. The only thing they have in common for me is that they happened to be my maternal grandmother's two favorite gospel songs. Grandma Gaynelle Estabrooke was a nineteenth century Christian who therefore made the most fervant twenty first century Christians look religiously lukewarm, so, she should know.