entering the theatre

when i was a young child, back in the previous century, one could enter movie theatres at any time, and stay as long as one wanted. one could therefore come into the ten commandments just as moses were holding his hands up against the red sea and now have any clue that it was moses or what he might be doing dividing all that swirling jello. or one could join john wayne and montgomery cliff's big fight in red river and not have any idea why they loved each other so passionately. one had to stay around for a while, see the whole movie at least until "this is where i came in" to begin to understand what was going one, and for better movies stay for several showings, maybe buy another box of jujubees, to really understand the story.

the liturgy and the church year are like that, too, it occurs to me. dropping into a congregation where someone reads or someones read three passages of scripture, and someone else prays a "collect" or a "megalynarion" can be confusing. but if one stays around for the whole cycle, one not only finds that it makes sense (I'm trying to avoid an awful cliche that it's the greatest story ever told, but that it is a story in which each of us has a leading part, an interactive story that transforms us and leads to transforming the world around us.

one of the church's several new years days is coming up. but one can join the story at any time.