# Church

**Published by:** [Existential Liturgies](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/)
**Published on:** 2025-06-06
**Categories:** church, existentialism, poetry
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/church-repub

## Content

The first time I went to church was probably at a construction site I was a laborer The minister had a face that looked like the gnarled bark of a very old tree He was the lead carpenter and I don’t think he liked me very much Understandable: I barely knew how to hold a hammer The eucharist was a horribly dry peanut butter and jam sandwich Blood of Christ, jellied for you The cathedral was a cold and wet, freshly framed bunkie on the side of a cliff The incense was a mason’s soggy, wilted cigarette My nose was cold and the secondhand smoke stung my lungs The frigid drizzle turned to a downpour as we finished the sacraments in silence “Goddammit” said the minister The sermon The parish was located on an island and the building-in-progress still had no ceiling. So we closed the service and headed home. The driving rain felt like stinging nettles on our faces as we sped home in a roofless, tin boat The next service I attended was in the bowels of an oil refinery We were shoring up the ceiling to replace a rotting steel lintel The call to worship was a bout of laughter from the foreman The millwright had told a dirty joke We had an altar call when the new, thousand pound lintel nearly slipped off the forklift and onto our heads All attendants swore loyalty to Christ that day Another service was in the streets of Tokyo at 2am with some friends. Our plane had just landed and it was dark and cold and rainy and we were waiting for a ride and a place to sleep We sang together to pass the time Most recently I attended mass in the taproom of a local brewery with a friend We drank beer in the middle of the day and laughed about being sent to hell Confession I met God when putting my 5 year old daughter to bed and we giggled at Grover from Sesame Street trying to sing about the hole at the bottom of the sea And I saw the person of Christ when Jonathan Van Ness taught strangers the delicate art of loving themselves on Queer Eye “In the world and not of it” is what was said So we formed an organization Where we met and broke bread For a time, there was life In the things that were said But an institution needs cashflow Treasurers And salaries A board of elders Who must at all costs Be kept happy Is this really what he meant?

## Publication Information

- [Existential Liturgies](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@existentialliturgies): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/igolle): Follow on Twitter

## Optional

- [Collect as NFT](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/church-repub): Support the author by collecting this post
- [View Collectors](https://paragraph.com/@existentialliturgies/church-repub/collectors): See who has collected this post