E & Q: Religion and Politics, Oxford, Miss.

Visiting different churches makes one aware of the ways in which God’s Word gets sliced and diced.

Services at St. Peter’s Episcopal flip between a photocopied bulletin and the Book of Common Prayer. A bulletin insert reprints the First and Second readings, The Gradual, then the Gospel. The Gospel is read in a particularly elaborate display of text. Following an acolyte, who bears a crucifix on a staff, the Priest carries The Book into the congregation. She holds the red and gilt Gospel aloft. She reads; the people chant back, “thanks be to God.”

Our message for today (Matthew 21:28-32) supports the sermon, to go into the darkest place of ourselves so we can be changed. Well enough, though thematics trump formal or aesthetic concerns. A passage from Psalms 25:4-9 presumes to anticipate Matthew: “All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.” Later, I check out the Psalm for myself. It is an acrostic, in which each line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet; starting at verse 4 (the bulletin actually says 3) is like asking a child to sing her ABC’s from the letter D.Ollie Rencher, the Assistant Rector, gives a sermon on the transformative power of God’s love. This brick gothic church somehow manages to be both establishment and progressive. William Faulkner worshipped here. Well-heeled visitors, in town for a football game and The Grove, take communion here. One congregant sports a bow-tie, impressively hand tied. Whatever changes come to Mississippi, the realist in me suspects, probably will begin at St. Peter’s Episcopal.

Next week, we attend a very different meeting, the Oxford Quakers. The group of twenty or so, until recently under the care of Memphis meeting, convenes at a member’s home in a sub- division just outside town. Service is unprogrammed, which may strike some as unstructured, but worship follows a ritual. Folks gather at the top of the hour. Children squirm through the first fifteen minutes, then head to First Day school. It takes another fifteen minutes to hunker down, to clear out job worries and “to-do” lists, then a communal silence develops. This silence is not so much individual absorption as an invisible, connecting chord. Sometimes someone has a message. Sometimes folks have lots of messages. Often, silence reigns.

At the top of the hour, the clerk shakes hands with the person sitting next to her or him, and the usual greetings begin. Much more happens after that, though I usually cut out.

I like Quaker worship for the same reason I could never follow the Book of Common Prayer. If the light of God dwells within each of us, we must decide for ourselves how to interpret the Word. I probably simplify. Just let me note that few bodies of worship (the Primitive Baptists excepted) leave time for silent prayer.

Attending a new church, even for a familiar denomination, takes getting used to. At Quaker meeting, Julie and I say our hello’s, then find two chairs in a corner of the back den. Mocha, the house pooch, settles down by the couch. A precocious pre-teen reads Hamlet next to me. At quarter after, the kids go to the basement for First Day school. I acclimate, check out the faces, the books on the coffee table, and photographs on the wall. Thirty minutes pass. I study the fringe lining the sofa. A communal silence builds. No one speaks today. At noon, the clock strikes twelve. Mocha sits up and wags his (or her) tail furiously. I make it a point to greet this good pooch by the paw.

I believe in the transformative power of Dogs.