Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Sitting in my pew in the temple I felt welcome, as I often do in places of worship. This sense of well-being was followed somewhat abruptly with an urge to flee. Well, "flee" might be a little strong, but I can't say that I have ever been completely comfortable in church, or synagogue in this case. Maybe it was because most of my childhood memories about what I experienced on those Sunday mornings was getting up early and waiting for the services to conclude so that our regularly scheduled weekend could reconvene. The sounds and words of the Bar Mitzvah that we attended this weekend made me remember all those Sundays before my father decided to retire us from the Methodist church.
Don't get me wrong. I took it seriously enough to earn my Bible in Sunday school: a Young Reader's version that had some pretty interesting modern illustrations, but it was the real deal from Genesis to Revelations. I read the whole thing. But before I had my shot at my first communion, my family had parted ways with the First Methodist Church. My father asserted that he didn't need a building to find God, and he was closer to Him when he was in the mountains chopping wood anyway. And we, as a family, bought this. I admit that I missed the after church trips to the donut shop, but didn't feel any loss for not having to put on our Buster Browns and school clothes one more time that week. I knew enough to know that the Sabbath was a day of rest, and why in the name of All That Is Holy would I imagine anything restful happening in one of those creaky wooden pews?
Since then I've been back, from time to time. My wife insisted that our son be baptized at the church she went to as a child. There has been a funeral or two. I've been to a bris and a christening. I've been to weddings in the woods and indoors. Whatever god was needed in each of these instances seemed to be available for the asking, not necessarily because of the location. The temple I sat in on Saturday listening to readings from the Torah had previously been a church for Christian folks just a few years ago. It made me wonder if you had to call Yaweh or the Flying Spaghetti Monster each time you set up shop, or if the cardboard Stars of David taped on the stained glass windows would be enough to get the transmission straightened out or if you had to climb up on the steeple and adjust some sort of holy beacon or other.
So apparently, after all those years, I am still far too distractable to sit in church. Or temple. Heaven help me.