On Eagles Wings

For some reason, once in a while, I will get old church hymns stuck in my head. These were family favorites, the ones my father sang most robustly during Mass, the ones my mother chose most often as a church organist and choir director. There wasn't much need for her to practice, especially these old favorites, but if she had to sing rather than just play, she'd practice. And I have many memories of her at the piano downstairs, making music, that I could hear clearly through my bedroom door.

One of the most missed aspects of religion (and, really, perhaps the only one I truly miss) is tradition. Tradition is comfort. It is a collective memory that says you are not alone. Or, even if you are, that it was not always so, and that thousands or millions of other people know the same prayers you do, the same hymns. That you could walk into any Catholic church and follow along, the contents of the Mass unchanged. Though P grew up in an Italian/Czech family in Pennsylvania and I in an Irish family in Indiana, it is like we have some shared memories, or notions, from childhood. I jokingly say that I had wanted to find a formerly Catholic, currently atheist man. I found one, much by accident. So as this man who had not met many of my friends or family sat next to me during my mothers funeral, he sang along, he knew when to sit, kneel, and stand. He squeezed my hand when the priest uttered words he knew I would find offensive and worthy of an eye roll.

This week, we are two atheists with a seven and a half foot Christmas tree, garland and stockings on the mantle, and a manger scene. We've done every Christmas since we've been together. We both like the lights and sparkle, the ornaments with a story, the excuse to dote on one another with gifts. Each year I mentally refine a bit more how we will handle Christmas when we are parents, raising atheist children. Each year I become a little sad, remembering the god father who gave me that manger scene, gone eleven years now; the father who helped me build a stable for it, gone nineteen years now; the mother who gave me most of these decorations, gone not even two years. And when I think about how I will tell my children that some families believe in the myth of Jesus, that it gives their lives order and meaning, that they celebrate this story at this time, we take this time to celebrate love and family. We take the days off work to visit loved ones or to help people in our community. We take the long cold nights as opportunities to drink hot chocolate and read together, to eat a little less healthy than the rest of the year because sometimes, it's okay to splurge. We take the time to celebrate another year that we've had together.

While my children may enter a Catholic church as I would a mosque, respectful and unsure, they will know tradition, and they will know community. They will perhaps even know the old hymns that penetrating the floor boards of my childhood bedroom, as, like a nonsense meditation chant, the songs will sometimes come to me as a focus for my brain that is trying to drift away; an anchor about which I do not have to think but merely drop and feel safe against the waves.

I hope they have less waves than I did as a child. I hope they always feel safe.