You Can Change the Church, but Not the Spirit

By nature, I am not a joiner and so I am not much of a churchgoer. However, I respect and admire those with the devotion and discipline to lay aside secular pursuits for spiritual ones. Which is not to say Sunday morning is not sacred to me. But it is dedicated to the religious pursuit of information, not to securing a place in heaven.

And yet, in the last several weeks, I have sung, prayed, cried and lied through my teeth in a quartet of wildly different houses of worship.

I was not seized by a sudden attack of spirituality, nor did a holy vision propel me to services.

Quite simply, I was invited.

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At St. Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral on West 3rd Street the ceremony was a baptism, a welcome party if you will, for a 13-month-old girl named Giselle. Gigi held up well despite the array of seeming indignities that she endured. She is my niece, and I her godmother, and so it was my duty to follow directions given by the two priests so as to not impede her official debut in the faith.

When I was instructed to read a passage from the sacrament book about accepting Jesus Christ as my savior, I did it . . . for Gigi. When I was urged to pretend to spit on the floor to symbolize spitting on Satan, I did it . . . for Gigi. I may be messing up my own chances in the afterlife by uttering such blatant untruths, but I intend to do my best not to damage hers.

We dipped her in water, anointed her with oils and held her as she tried mightily to resist a teaspoon of wine. When we lit candles, her eyes widened in fear and she just about fell apart. “Don’t worry sweetheart,” I whispered. “We aren’t baptizing you by fire.”

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The tiny stucco church is not what you might expect to find in a place that is truly famous--Dolores Mission Church. I was prepared for something a little grander, a little less funky. That, I suppose, is one of the first lessons to be taken from a place like Dolores Mission. It’s not how you look; it’s what you do.

And what Dolores Mission does is minister to its Pico / Aliso parish--a poor, Latino population racked by gang violence and other crime. There is a school, a day-care center and a bakery staffed by former gang members.

On this Saturday, its first rickety pews are filled by the family and friends of someone who is about to embrace adulthood. This teenager, a friend, has just turned 15. She is celebrating her quincean~era.

For the parents, the priest makes the point that the girl is no longer a child. For the girl, he makes the point that her growing independence must be tempered by a sense of responsibility and obligation. The ceremony is but a prelude to the day’s big event--a party that will stretch from 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. But the church is the place it starts, the solemnity of the ritual the anchor for the frivolity that will follow.

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I do not dare trivialize the importance of a Sunday sermon by treating it as entertainment, but anyone who lives here should see the Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray preach a sermon at least once in their lives.

Murray’s church, First African Methodist Episcopal Church, is in the heart of this city, and not just geographically. It is an important establishment, made famous for its peacemaking role following the 1992 riots. It is not just a force for good works, but a power broker as well, courted by politicians and others in need of good graces.

I was invited by my friend Karen Kraft, who sings and occasionally solos in the church’s “third Sunday” choir. Karen is a 90-pound Texas blond who has, it is said, the voice of Mahalia Jackson in Tinkerbell’s body.

The choir is huge, the church was full, and I cannot remember a more exhilarating sermon. Murray’s grinning impression of a two-faced dog (smiles at your face, stabs you in the back) has stayed with me for a month.

On this day, there was time devoted to witnessing.

A handful of people spoke, but what I recall most is a little boy, perhaps 9, standing in front of the church as his mother described his frustration and tears with his schoolwork.

“Do you want to say something?” she asked her son.

He nodded. And then, he leaned to the microphone and said in a halting whisper, “Please . . . pray . . . for . . . me.”

I was not the only person who brushed away tears.

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In the People’s Republic of Santa Monica, the Church in Ocean Park is an institution that is an almost perfect reflection of its time and place: the liberal, socially conscious Westside.

Under the guidance of its longtime former minister, Jim Conn, a Methodist, the church created the Ocean Park Community Center, a $3.5-million social service agency that ministers to the homeless, to battered women and to runaway children.

On one recent Sunday, the church was also the site of an operatic recital by a pair of singers, one of whom, mezzo soprano Mariannell Bassett, happens to be a barista at my local yuppie coffee joint. My need for caffeine is sufficiently great that the diva and I have become friends.

And as I sat in the church, listening to Mariannell sing Rossini, Mozart and Strauss, it occurred to me that beyond their specific religious roles, beyond the rites, the sermons and the sacraments, churches truly function as the hearts of our communities.

Regardless of how you feel about religion, there is something holy about that.

* Robin Abcarian’s column appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053.