Kathy has been coming late to senior choir rehearsal Thursday evenings because of the graduate course she has been taking at Carthage. . . which turned out to be a good thing last night. As she drove towards Holy Communion via Sixth Avenue, she noticed several young men walking across the bridge, wearing hooded sweatshirts – and didn’t think much about it. But by the time she had finally driven into the parking lot and parked, finished up a cell phone call, and gathered up her stuff and was walking into church, she caught a glimpse of those same young men inside the church – – – poking around outside the office, where they had no business being. I should maybe add that HC is located in the kind of neighborhood where we have to be conscious of matters such as safety and security, much as we might wish to be fully open and accessible at all times. (We actually are remarkably open and accessible, considering our location and the problems which sometimes occur in the neighborhood. I’ve heard Pastor Jeff say that barbed wire is not the best way to keep a place safe and secure, and I think he’s right. )
Anyway, Kathy immediately knew that this wasn’t anyone from the congregation and they didn’t belong there, but she wasn’t about to confront these strangers by herself. So she wisely turned around and went to another door for which she had a key, let herself in, and with one short flight of stairs was in the doorway of the choir room, where we were rehearsing.
She walked in and waited in the doorway for a moment before interrupting to say that there were several unfamiliar men, presumably from the neighborhood, somewhere in the building – and that she thought it was something that needed to be checked out by some of the men of the choir. And lo and behold, almost every man in the choir leapt to his feet and was out the door – several heading down the hall, several others heading down the stairs, a couple others walking into the restrooms, etc. You would have thought that they were a well-trained SWAT team, so efficient and smooth was their little fan-out-and- search mission. And it didn’t take long before the guys – who turned out to most likely be high school age – were found but scurried outside before they could even be chased out.
It was all over very quickly – but it was incredible how many different emotions I experienced over the course of those two minutes. . . The first was plain old fear that there might be someone in the building who intended to do some kind of harm and who might be dangerous. Then I felt great admiration when those guys were up out of their seats and out the door, without a bit of hesitancy. Then I felt embarrassment that I hadn’t joined them, so I went trailing after them, trying to keep calm and also trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Then I heard Steve Rouse let out a shout and panicked for a split second, before hearing in the next breath “It’s okay! It’s okay!” The intruders had caught sight of him and fled. At that point, even though rehearsal was almost done, I swung by the office in order to grab the key with which I could lock the outside door to prevent any further intrusions- and as I did that, I felt a sense of relief that our brief scare was over but sadness that we live in a world where locks and burglar alarms are more and more of a necessity. And as we all returned to the choir room to finish rehearsal, we were looking at each other with an odd mix of emotions- pleased with ourselves yet maybe feeling a bit sheepish at all of the fuss. But it did feel good that in that moment when it seemed like there might be something or someone threatening our safety, we did what needed to be done.
This might sound really weird and overly dark – but I have sometimes daydreamed about where I would want to be if something truly catastrophic occurred. . . if Racine were struck by a horrible earthquake or tornado or tidal wave or nuclear accident or invasion from Mars . . . whatever. Would I want to be in the middle of a faculty meeting at Carthage? Would I want to be at the radio station? Would I want to be in the middle of chorus rehearsal for Beauty and the Beast? Would I want to be at a Racine Symphony concert? I guess the question is, in such a terrible and frightening moment, by whom would I most want to be surrounded? The first answer is that I would want Kathy with me, but I don’t know that I would want to be at home, just the two of us. . . so I guess the second answer is that I also wouldn’t mind facing such danger or calamity with the good-hearted, selfless, and surprisingly fearless members of the Holy Communion Senior Choir. It’s an odd compliment to pay to someone, but there it is. “If disaster ever strikes, I hope we’ll be in it together.”