I hate being cranky on Easter. Actually, I hate being cranky any day, but especially on the most glorious of celebrations of renewal, there is no place for Scrooge. Bah, Humbunny!? Wrong holiday, wrong sentiment.

But cranky I was.

In my meager defense, I was still a little bleary from the four hour Easter vigil the night before. But Easter mass only magnifies one of my pet peeves about my parish.

Soooo many people come late to mass.

I normally sit at at the back of the sanctuary with my godmother. A remarkable bright and enthusiastic 80, she recently sustained a fall that would have left a lesser woman permanently grounded. Not this gal. She’s back to navigating with a cane or Rollator, but for convenience and safety, during mass she now sits against the back wall of the sanctuary on the seat of the Rollator. I sit on a bench next to her.  Between us and the last row of pews is a very narrow aisle, the only access people have for walking the width of the sanctuary and finding available last-minute seats. Every Sunday, once she and I are settled and mass has started, 5, 10, 15, even 20 minutes later, people are coming in and rushing along that narrow back aisle looking for seats.

That means that our feet are stepped on, and anything we hold out to read risks being knocked from our hands to the floor. People don’t say “excuse me” as they crash by — they just crash by. It’s disrespectful toward an elderly woman who has been a pillar of that church for decades. Having spent a little time in a wheelchair, I know that most folks choose not to see the “infirm” seated below eye level, but I’m a tall person on a long bench that’s part of the wall. Can’t they see me?

Scroogie enough?

Hang on. I wax Scroogier.

Easter was, of course, jam packed, so much so that the crowd spilled out into extra seating on folding chairs. But the same Late Parade took place, only in greater numbers. People with hair still wet from the shower, families with several children, young parents toting babies in carriers came 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes late through that already jammed aisle.

But that was just the beginning. Once in, they seemed to need to leave again. The stream of people going back and forth in that narrow aisle was constant. Constant. I might as well have been standing on a downtown sidewalk during rush hour. I was stepped on. I was knocked against. I couldn’t hold out anything to read, or see or hear what was taking place at the front of the sanctuary. People didn’t say “excuse me” as they crashed by — they just crashed by.

You know what happens when you feed a pet peeve. It becomes a beast. After an hour of  this, I was, to use my godmother’s favorite expression, “seriously honked off.”

I couldn’t put up a red light in the aisle and stop the flow of traffic. What could I do? Well, I could starve the beast and change my response.

If you’ve never read Emmet Fox, I recommend him without reservation. His books brought me back from a long hiatus away from the church. His insights are precise and so well targeted that when he hits you upside  the head with Christ truth, there is no hiding place. He emphasizes in all his writing that our faith is in our state of mind, and that anger and resentment kill the Spirit. Rather than criticize or condemn our fellows, he says, we must “salute the indwelling Christ” in every person we meet.

So, I tried it. I looked at the elderly couple pushing past me. That’s Jesus. I looked at the harried young father carrying a screaming baby out of the sanctuary. That’s Jesus. I looked at the two “tween-age” girls going out to the restroom for the third time since they arrived. That’s Jesus. The well dressed woman crossing the sanctuary to have an overly-loud conversation with a friend? Jesus.

When I realized how surrounded I was by the Divine Presence, the beast vanished. I was immediately lifted up and my heart was lightened. What a beautiful group of people! What a joyous event!

Not even a minute later, a small boy, no more than elbow high to me, came through the aisle shepherding what appeared to be a younger sibling. As he weaved his way along in front of me, he said in a high clear voice, “Please excuse us.”

Coincidence?

Nah. Ain’t no such.

Grace comes in such small packages some times.

Wishing you a space for grace in your life today,
Kate