Editor’s note: This commentary is by Chelsea Catherine Wait, a writer living in Montpelier.
[T]he First Congregational Church of Berlin sits near a bend in the road, tucked behind several farms, the airport, and I-89. It’s an unassuming church — a small white building that rests between several residential houses, shaded by trees. I almost pass by it at first. The driveway is gravel, stained dark by a recent rain. Inside, the walls are bare, painted baby blue.
I visit the church as part of my volunteer work with Green Mountain United Way. The congregation has collected supplies for Tatum’s Totes, a partnership with United Way that gifts foster kids with backpacks, clothing, water bottles, and just about anything else you can fit into a bag. Some children are taken into the foster system with nothing more than a garbage bag with their clothes inside. The packs provide items the kids desperately need and helps them transition into their new homes. Since July 2017, the congregation has collected supplies for 100 kids in Barre, Newport and St. Johnsbury.
The magnitude of their generosity is surprising, considering the group of people around me isn’t very large. They gather in the back rows of the sanctuary, no more than 25 people. I sit near the middle, wedged into the middle corner of a pew. The woman next to me leans over and introduces herself. “I see you made the decision to visit us today,” she says. “I’m glad.”
I smile and tell her I’m there with United Way, that my visit is for informational purposes. I want to see what the group is all about, to put faces with the great generosity that’s helped make Tatum’s Totes possible. I don’t tell her that I’m not a church person. That I’ve always felt uncomfortable in places of worship, even though I’m deeply spiritual and believe in a higher power.
I’m uneasy at the beginning of the service, hesitating to rise for psalms and hoping no one will notice when I don’t recite along with the prayers. I tell myself to get through the service as best I can, and then I’ll get to the good stuff — getting to talk to people about their work in the community. But as the sermon begins, something changes.
Pastor Laura Cadmus radiates calmness. Her timing and measured pauses give each of her statements a sense of incredible weight. They seem more like open ended questions for the congregation to linger on. She opens her sermon by quoting Gloria Steinem and acknowledges how systemic racism impacts the world. She talks about truth, and about the discomfort that sometimes accompanies confronting our own truths. Pastor Cadmus refers to God as “she” and near the end of the sermon, quotes one of my favorite authors, Annie Dillard. I sit in shock. Am I smiling? In church? It doesn’t seem possible, but somehow it’s true.
After finishing her sermon, she invites members of the congregation up front to talk about their gifts — parts of them that bring positivity to others. One of the women speaks about her love of painting. She says she was initially hesitant to try it. She didn’t want to mess up the pristine canvas in front of her. She didn’t want to make mistakes. But eventually she began to put her brush to the canvas. She shares two beautiful paintings with us, one in dark blues, purples and blacks, and the other in vibrant oranges, yellows and reds. “I realize now,” she says, “that from far away, you can’t even see the parts I messed up.”
When the service is over, I find myself in deep thought. The experience, I realize, felt authentic in a way I didn’t expect. The messages were universal. They reached across belief systems, and in doing so, made me feel welcome in a way I have not felt welcome in church before. We are all works in progress, they said. We are constantly learning, growing, and being given opportunities to give back to others.
It’s funny — I showed up at church with this idea about what it would be like and was completely surprised by how it actually was. I was impressed not only by their incredible support of Tatum’s Totes and United Way, but by their authenticity, their understanding, and their willingness to be vulnerable. I may not believe in God the way they do, but I’m a firm believer in giving and compassion, and in the strength that communities have when they band together.
While I have been surprised by many things in the Vermont community since moving back here in September, this experience was one of the nicest and most encouraging.
