At the evening I was invited by Andrea to assist to a meeting in her church. As far as I understand, it was actually a mass, but it was very different from what I expected. The place where it was held was a huge hall, with hundreds of white, plastic chairs and a stage at the back. On the stage there were musicians playing religious rock. I found the scene funny because the drummer was isolated in a sound-proof room, on the stage, with a microphone on top of him. Aside from the drums there were two guitars, one keyboard, one bass, one male singer and two girls who performed the chorus. The man on the front guitar also sung, sometimes.
Above the stage and below it, there were Christmas decorations (golden starts, and coloured balls). The decorative items from above casted shadows on the back of the room. The shadows were interesting because the decorations were illuminated by seven lights, so there were seven shadows for each decoration, with different angles and levels of fading. Finally, at the very back of the stage, there was a structure extruding out of the wall, decorated with light, which reminded me to a Jude menorah.
The musicians played four songs, one after the other. Basically they were prayers, but in compasses of 4/4 and with a somewhat fast tempo. They played one song, and then one singer (who was not the priest, as I first thought) said some words, and then another song, and so on. During the songs, two big screens, placed at either side of the stage displayed the songs’ lyrics, but many people seemed to know the songs from memory, as they sang with their eyes closed.
After the songs came the tithe. First they requested money for the church itself (Andrea put $20) then, as a special occasion, they requested money again, but for some charity in Peru. I distrusted it a little, because the screens shown a very crappy sideshow who anyone could have made. Andrea however, put money again (but I don’t know how much).
Next, from a room at the side of the stage, the actual priest came out. With a microphone in hand, he started talking about the nature of faith. The screens shown “Faith II”, and the priest said that he would continue the topic of the previous meeting. He explained four characteristics of faith, but I don’t remember any of them. What I do remember, however, is that he talked a lot about money. I had learnt at my teacher training course that the Protestants see material wealth and success in life as rewards for their faith, and that seemed to correlate with what the priest was saying, but in a moment he said that the spiritual (he said heavenly) reward is preferable, so I came out a bit confused.
I tried not to look at Andrea while the ceremony was taking place because I considered myself to be only an observer. As I told her afterwards, I intended to seem only a shadow. As such, I was dressed almost completely in black. However, she decided to sit down on the second row, so I was actually very noticeable.
The priest also talked about Noah and his Ark as a metaphor for constant effort toward success. He mentioned a few times a rough period of his life, why he became a priest, and about what the Devil says to make one procrastinate (though he didn’t use that word, that was what I understood). He mentioned at one point that, through faith we gain things, and that reward can even come in form of a boyfriend. I could swear that he looked at Andrea when he said that, though she didn’t notice it.
Finally, after the ceremony we head back to her bus stop. On the way there I told her what my impression of the ceremony had been (everything I’ve written so far) and that I don’t want to fight because of religion, though I reiterated that neither do I want her to try to convert me, nor I want to erode her faith. She said that she had invited me to the ceremony because of my negative view of religion. I answered that, to me, what I saw was useful to people in need, people whose lives are a mess of drugs, for example. But for anyone emotionally stable (I was referring to myself) it doesn’t work.
We then arrived at the bus stop we were heading to. There were a lot of people; some even were forming a double line. There I asked her what she wanted to do next. I left the question vague on purpose, to know what she thought. She said that, given that I’ve recently met her family it was her turn to meet mine. On the spot I asked if she wanted to dine at my house, but since it was 10 o'clock at night it was impossible for my family to organise.
The plans were postponed to the next day (today). I will write about what happened tomorrow. As for the time of this post, we cleaned and organised all the things in our house. I’m eager to see what her reaction is going to be.
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