Page 29 of Leaving the Station
I’m beginning to think that Oakley took me here to murder me and/or engage in some sort of occult ritual, but then I examine the window more closely. Or rather, the space where a window should be.
“It’s a ghost church,” she tells me, walking down the street and turning the corner. I run to catch up. “Look.”
We’re standing facing where the side of the building should be, but all that’s there are exposed steel beams and overgrown grass.
I shiver, though I’m not sure if it’s from the cold this time. It’s a skeleton of a church, like a set piece from a Hollywood lot that was only meant to be filmed from the front.
There’s nothing inside, just a crumbling brick foundation and a badly burned crucifix nailed to the inside of the one remaining wall.
“This is unbelievably creepy,” I say, turning to Oakley, but she’s already walking toward the church, through a gate that should probably be locked. I follow reluctantly.
It’s almost too quiet within the church grounds, as if even the sounds of the city are scared to pass through the hollow shell of a building.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say. It’s one thing to trespass into an old, definitely haunted church. It’s another to trespass into an old, definitely haunted church when you’re a Jew.
It’s ominous, like I might be smote if I take another step.
“If you shouldn’t be here then Idefinitelyshouldn’t be,” Oakleysays, bending down to pick up a chunk of stone that must’ve fallen off the building.
“At least you were a Christian at some point.”
“You know you’re allowed to go inside of churches. You’re not going to burst into flames because you’re Jewish.”
“Maybe not, but it kind of feels like I might.” I’ve been inside a church a couple of times, once for an old teacher’s wedding and once for an interfaith event that the church was doing with my synagogue, but both times I felt deeply uncomfortable.
“Okay, but here’s the thing,” Oakley says. “I don’t think the religious power of a church is in the building. Like, this”—she points to the hollow interior of the former church—“isn’t a religious space anymore.” She rubs a hand on the exposed brick of the inside wall, and I look around to make sure no one’s about to arrest us and/or condemn us to eternal damnation. “The English word for church is a rough translation of the ancient Greek word ecclesia, which basically means an assembly of people.”
“I feel like you’d do well onJeopardy!,” I say, trailing anxiously behind Oakley as she explores the grounds. “You know too much.”
“Oh, IknowI’d do well,” she says casually. “But anyway, that’s all it means, ecclesia, assembly. It doesn’t matter that we’re here, walking around the grounds of this church, because it’s nothing. It’s not a spiritual place anymore; it’s only a building. And it’s barely even that.”
“But that’s not true,” I insist, and it feels good to push back. “Like, for Jews, we still have a fast commemorating a temple that was destroyed thousands of years ago.” I look up and try to figureout how to explain what I’m feeling. “I don’t know if I believe in God, like I told you, but I believe in tradition. I like being a part of a ceremony that people have done for thousands of years. And that includes being in a physical space—a synagogue, a temple, what have you.”
“Wow, okay, brag,” Oakley says. “Not everyone comes from a religion as old as yours.”
I roll my eyes and point to the charred crucifix. “I stand by what I said, though. It’s deeply creepy.”
She shakes her head. “Feel how you want.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
I reluctantly smile at her.
She smiles back. “You want to know what churches are good for?”
“Not particularly, but I’m pretty sure you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“Free food and well-maintained public bathrooms,” she says, and when I look over at her, her face is more serious than it was before.
“I’ll never say no to a public bathroom.”
“Exactly.”
I like talking to Oakley like this. Half of what I’ve been saying aren’t even thoughts I’ve had before. But being with her opens all these faucets in my brain, and ideas come flowing out: ideas about the nature of religious spaces and buildings. About tradition and ceremony.
I didn’t have this at Cornell.
