Munger Place United Methodist Church is dead. Well the building will continue to exist, and will be used as some sort of satellite branch for the Highland Park United Methodist Church, and I’m not sure what exactly that means, but it do know that the congregation is done, dispersed and disbanded. And the funny thing is that I didn’t think I really cared, but now that I type those words I feel myself welling up a bit. It’s a sad occasion, on many levels, and while I haven’t been active in that church for many years I’ve always silently cheered for it to succeed. It deserved to succeed. It deserved to carry out its mission fully realized. Even when I heard that it was finally ending I still held out that something or someone might intervene and save it. I won’t say I prayed, because I didn’t, and I reasoned that there were already plenty of prayers going out on the subject. God should have bloody well known by the time the final chord struck. I think back now and remember all the people whose lives I intersected with in that beautiful sanctuary, who I prayed with and worshiped with, people I knew by name, ate with, laughed with, and mourned with.
I will always consider Munger a landmark location in my life, a lot of circumstances unfolded for me there. The biggest one was my marriage to my second wife, a pivotal moment many would say, and it was my second wife, but my first church wedding. It was the second church that I’ve ever attended regularly, it was the third christian denomination that I pursued for any length of time, it was the first time I really became involved with a church congregation, and it was the first time I really felt at home spiritually. While I was there I sang in the choir, played in the bell choir, and for the longest I was the guy that created and ran the Power Point presentation that accompanied the service. I lost two very good friends while I was there, and helped send them off. The first time I’d ever lost people in my life that made a real scar.
Munger Place, when I arrived in 2000 was a terribly poor inner-city church, and that fact was all the more difficult to deal with due to the fact that it had once been a very rich, silk-stocking church. When I left for the last time in 2004 it was still a terribly poor church, the fact of which was made ever more difficult because I knew how hard everyone in that congregation worked, was working and would continue to work. Everything was a struggle there or seemed to be, many things needed fixing or renovating, and there was never enough resources to go around, especially money. Reeling from my own financial difficulties I never supported the place financially, but my then wife and I did support it with our efforts and our presence, you might even say our love. Despite all of that, and perhaps because of it, the place was a magically spiritual place to me. It was thick with spirit, thick with the presence of the Holy Spirit, it was a place that I really felt God. It seemed that every aspect of that church was God’s real purpose made manifest on Earth, because there really was no way in hell that such a motley group of people could make an organization function like that place functioned.
I think the Choir at Munger Place was the real heart of the whole conflagration, a real metaphor for what was going on at that sacred place. Such a motley assortment of people, just like the congregation at large, and only a very few really possessing any real musical or vocal ability. The stalwart musical director, and I was always so moved by her patience, her perseverance and her love, because there’s no way that that choir moved forward any other way. I take some pride that I was among their number, however briefly, and we all sang with gusto. To quote a good friend totally unrelated to this story, “What we lacked in talent, we made up with in enthusiasm”. And that was what Munger Place was to me, a place where so many really good people worked so enthusiastically to carry out a message of love and hope, God’s message, and they did it wish such devotion. Even when worn down, and tired they did their best, and there were so many crazy moments there, so many. The pastor when I first arrived there often remarked at how you had to be ready for anything during any given service, because you never knew what could happen. And that’s where I learned that God is change and chaos, not all laws and orders, and I saw that once you let go of a lot preconceived notions, rules and regulations that you could start to understand what spirituality is really all about.
Like I said, those people involved with Munger Place worked hard, that same pastor when I first attended was working hard to resurrect that church, to bring it back to a former glory. And it at times seemed to be working, but when you took off the rose-tinted glasses you could see that it was only a matter of time. But we gave it a good fight, and I feel bad that my time ended there due to circumstances and events that occurred, but I feel really good to know that I fought down in the trenches of that place. What can one say about a church that is near death. One can bitch and moan about all the wrongs that have been perpetrated over the years, and one can rail against the establishment that would allow such a positive force in the world to expire, but in the end it is all for naught. It doesn’t matter anymore, the course is set and no matter what anyone does the end time has come. It’s over. But it doesn’t matter, because what happened at Munger is worth knowing and worth saving in memory, because a lot of good happened there, and a lot of people who had no place to go found God there, found a home there, found a way to keep going there.
I didn’t go back for the final service there this past Sunday. In the end I just couldn’t face my past, and there are just too many uncomfortable memories for me there. I don’t regret the decision as much as I thought I would, and I think that’s because my story there had ended and no matter how much I wanted to revisit the relationship with God that I had there I knew that it wasn’t possible. That time and place was what it was, and I’ll remember that, hopefully build off of it and take those experiences forward. No matter what happens from here on out I do know without a doubt in my mind that Munger Place was a place worth saving, a holy place where so much of what God is really about occurred. Where so many people from so many backgrounds came together under incredible circumstances to promote a whole lot of love, understanding and togetherness. I want to say shame on the United Methodists for not doing enough, for not doing what they should have, or could have to save Munger Place, because sometimes watering a plant for that last little piece of fruit is worth it, because there are those that really need it. And that’s what Munger was doing, it was growing a lot of spiritual fruit that the UMC should have understood, and should have preserved despite the difficulties involved. They never had, and don’t have, a problem asking us to sacrifice our finances, but seem to have been unwilling to sacrifice their own. That said, a part of me feels that maybe this was the only way to keep Munger Place around in any format, as mentioned the congregation is/was poor and the building needs serious work. Now it will receive that work, it will be refurbished and restored, and then it will still be a place where all can worship. The memories of that place, and all the good things that happened there will be preserved as long as there are those who remember them, and if I know anything, the walls of that sanctuary will store the love that so many felt for it until it one day crumbles to dust.
Munger Place was an amazing church while I was there, and I regret that I didn’t persevere for it the way I wanted to. But know that I did love that place, I loved the people there, I loved what happened there and I shall treasure the memories of Munger Place United Methodist Church for the rest of my life. I’m so glad to have experienced it at what I consider to be my spiritual high water mark, however small my place was, and I’m glad it was there when it was and what it did. Its time has passed, and now is a moment where we all move on. We leave behind the past to forge ahead to whatever it is that God wants us to do. Maybe he has a plan for us, maybe he doesn’t, but I at least can go forward for the rest of my life confident in the fact that there is a God, because I met him while I was at Munger, and I felt his presence there.

So I was thinking about how Santa Clause can deliver his presents to good boys and girls all over the world in a single night, and then it came to me. Obviously, for him that night is eternal until he completes his task. So while we’re all snug in our beds getting our 7-8 hours of sleep and enjoying the proper number of REM cycles there’s a poor fat bastard in a red suite struggling through every extreme environment on earth to give away, for free, the fruits of a full year’s worth of labor. I think we’ve been getting it all wrong this whole time, Chris Kringle isn’t a saint, or kind hearted chap who gives toys to nice children, oh no, he’s a damned soul cursed to live out an eternal night. And the real kicker is when he finishes he has to return to one of the most harsh areas of the planet, that’s infested with elves, and begin preparing for it all over again from scratch. You then add on to this the massive logistical and bureaucratic nightmare of keeping track of the nice or naughty level for every bloody child on the globe, and you can come to no other conclusion. Santa is being punished for something. Why else would an elderly obese gentleman choose an open cockpit to fly at high altitude, behind reindeer? Sure, reindeer are majestic, beautiful and all that, but would you want to fly behind twelve of them for an eternal night? That can not be hygienic. Clearly this was all chosen by demonic beings.
I’m imagining that at some point in the distant, dark past there was some fellow who did something very unpleasant, and this upset some ancient deity that thought this was a fitting punishment. Though I guess it could be a position of punishment, something that a bad person does for a certain period of time until they either die or get replaced by a badder person. I mean if you live forever, then one eternal night would be no big deal. I have to think you’d get used to it eventually, and it wouldn’t be a punishment anymore. It would be like working for the state.

You know one of the worst things I’ve come to discover about myself is that I’m a selfish ass. And lazy. That’s terribly depressing, because I don’t want to be any of those things, but I feel powerless to control them. These characteristics are just forces of their own and tend to drive me along, manifesting themselves in ways that override my internal desires most of the time. In thought and feeling I’m selfless, friendly and compassionate, but in reality and deed I’m most often not. I’m not always a selfish ass, but when I am and it affects people around me I have such a pressing bout of shame and guilt that it really hurts inside. As long as it’s just me I’m screwing over I don’t mind so much, I know I’m an ass, so I can deal with me. Okay, enough introspection, I’d better get back to thinking about working.