How to Get Out of Volunteering in One Easy Lesson

Tim is not the only one in the family who has found themselves "volunteering" at mass. It happened once before to his brother. As far as I can tell, it's a "twin thing".

Several years ago, the three of us were innocently strolling into church when Tom was waylaid by an usher and pressed into service. They wanted him to help pass the basket for the weekly collection.

First, he tried playing dumb. How did one do that? he enquired. Was there a certain procedure he had to follow? When, exactly, was the collection taken up? (I'm pretty sure he would have asked what a basket was if he thought he could get away with it.)

With a nice-try-but-you're-not-getting- out-of-it smile and a reassuring pat, the usher gave detailed instructions and sent us on our way.

Tom's next tactic was to try and talk Tim into taking his place.

They'll never know it's you and not me, he pleaded desperately. You're better at this kind of thing than I am. Besides, he concluded, playing what he obviously believed to be his trump card, I'm wearing shorts and you have long pants on. That means you should do it.

Hmm. You can't take up the collection while wearing shorts. Was that rule in the King James version of the bible, or the New Catholic edition?

Giving him a nice-try-but-there-is-no-way-on-God's-green-earth-that-I-am-doing-this look, Tim settled down smugly into his seat.

And so, Tom eventually subsided into a grumpy silence where he continued to brood over the whole collection issue. You could almost hear the wheels in his brain churning.

Actually, we did hear something. About half-way through the mass, during one of the quieter moments, Tom grumbled, "I have to get up, walk to the front of the church, pick up a (not so nice word) basket, bow, and start at the first pew."

Heads swiveled, mouths gaped open, eyes grew wide, breaths were sharply indrawn with audible gasps. A full heartbeat passed before Tom realized he was the center of much unwanted attention. Coloring a lovely shade of pre-dawn pink, he leaned over to us and, keeping his eyes firmly fixed forward, asked out of the side of his mouth, "Was that out loud?"

Um, yeah, kind of.

I don't believe he was ever asked to take up the collection again.

Take These Papers, Please

Some men are born to volunteer, some hope to achieve volunteer status, and some have it thrust upon them. Like Tim at Easter Sunday mass.

Since we arrived a bit late, we ended up sitting on folding chairs in the back next to one of the side doors of the church. It was also next to the table holding stacks of the church bulletins.

Toward the end of mass, one of the ushers, an elderly gentleman whose main job seemed to be organizing, rearranging and distributing the bulletins, approached Tim with a speculative gleam in his eye. "Are you double parked?" he slyly asked with a guileless expression pasted on his face.

Caught off guard, Tim blurted out, "No," and then felt the jaws of the trap snap shut.

"Good," the man crowed, stacking both a pile of the bulletins and a pile of some other pamphlet on the corner of the table. "Then you can stand at this door when mass ends and make sure everyone has a bulletin as they leave." Then, he scurried off before Tim could do more than gape at him. Obviously, this was not the first time he had shanghaied an unsuspecting victim.

Tim and I looked at the two piles and spent the next five minutes quietly debating whether he was supposed to give out both items or only the one.

Before our subtle whispered discussion could progress to some not-so-subtle hand gestures, the man returned and proceeded to demonstrate the fine art of bulletin distribution (I guess Tim looked to be in need of remedial instruction.).

As the first few people tried to sneak out a few minutes early, he planted himself in the doorway like a bouncer at Studio 54 in its heyday and demanded they show both the bulletin and the other pamphlet before they were allowed to exit.

A few foolish souls tried to wave him off or bluff their way out, but he wasn't to be denied. No papers, no exit, no exceptions. (A guy with a walker and oxygen tank almost succeeded in his bulletin-free bid for freedom, but apparently the valve on the tank doubles nicely as a paper holder. Who knew?)

After several more minutes of demonstrating the proper technique, the man seemed to feel that Tim was ready to fly solo, and thrust the remaining pile of bulletins into his hands. The other pamphlets he kept for himself, apparently judging that Tim was not yet ready for the challenge of multiple handouts, and moved on to another door where madness reigned and people were leaving in a willy-nilly fashion without those earth-shakingly vital pamphlets (Didn't they know the fate of the free world hung on whether or not they could name all the members of the choir?).

Left to his own devices, Tim tried his best to live up to the gargantuan task he had been assigned. Gamely, he offered the bulletins to each and every departing churchgoer, but it wasn't the same. Like a classroom full of rowdy eight year olds who've just discovered they have a substitute teacher, the congregation surged out the door, hands firmly in their pockets, practically trampling poor Tim in their haste.

As the tide of escapees continued, I began to worry what would happen when bulletin-man returned and found out that Tim had allowed some people to actually leave without the all-important piece of paper.

Would he be forced to confess this sin, perhaps given a penance of forty-five Hail Marys, sixty-two Our Fathers and a few Glory Bes thrown in for good measure? Or maybe he would just be taken out to the parking lot for a lesson in the finer points of body-tackling eighty year olds with canes.

Before we could find out what exactly his punishment would be though, the last person exited, and since our friend was still terrorizing people at the other door, we made good on our escape.

I'm guessing that the next time, Tim will be a bit warier when someone asks him if he is double-parked.

Easter Mass

Every year when we go away for Easter, my mother insists we go to mass on Sunday. Somehow, this is always more complicated than it should be.

Year one: Vegas. Step one: find a church that offers an actual service that is not a drive-thru (this was my mother's rule; the rest of us were willing to negotiate on this point). Step two: Hope they have a mass in English that does not interfere with our feeding schedule (again, my mother. All you can eat buffet........knowing when to sit and when to stand; is there really a choice here?) Step three: getting there on time ( my mother is the maverick in the crowd; she wants to get a good spot in church, everyone else wants to get a good spot at the Treasure Island pirate show).

With all of these big issues decided, we set out for the church, which, according to the guy at the hotel, is only few blocks away. Yeah, right. And the odds are really in your favor at the casinos. Add to this the fact that every five feet there is someone handing us flyers, complete with pictures, advertising strip clubs, and we are really in a spiritual kind of place when we finally arrive at the church.

Naturally, our journey has taken us so long that by the time we arrive, the little church is jam packed, and we end up standing in the entryway along with two hundred of our closest friends in eighty degree weather. So much for step three. Fortunately, most of them brought their small children who managed to out-talk and out-cry the speaker system. We could barely hear the trumpet player, let alone the priest. So much for step two. One out of three isn't bad.

Year two: San Diego. My mother was not about to do a repeat of the previous year. She got everyone up and moving early. She insisted we take the car. She carefully selected our seats. Everything was going according to plan until.....wait. There were two churches in the same building? Were we in the right one? Where were half of the people going? Should we follow those who were leaving, or those who were staying?

Luckily, we chose to remain and have people stand in front of us, blocking any view of the priest, the altar, the entire front of the church. We also lucked out by picking the high mass and got to spend the last half hour listening to the people from the other chapel stand outside and visit with each other right next to our open door. This year, they actually did manage to drown out the trumpet player completely.

Year three: Florida. Once again, we were there early. We got seats with an unobstructed view. We were not near any open doors or windows. We could hear every word that was spoken, every note that was sung. Unfortunately, these were not positive things.

To put it kindly, the singer was not an American Idol finalist. In fact, he seemed to be from the William Hueng school of voice. There was also, as it turned out, no chance of the congregation drowning him out since about ninety percent of us were clearly visitors and and had never heard the songs before.

We had never heard the prayers or readings before either since we were attending a Malkite Church. A fact they failed to put on their sign out front, thereby luring in unsuspecting out-of-towners who think all Catholic churches are the same.

Mass began. Half of the congregation sat, half stood. Then, half knelt, half sat. Some finally gave up and just planted themselves for the duration. Others got up and stood in the back, the better to make a quick getaway. People frantically thumbed through hymnals trying to find out where we were and what we should be doing. The sign of peace was near the beginning, not the end. There were two collections and two homilies. Prayers started out sounding the same, and then halfway through, changed into something else. Confusion reigned.

Forty-five minutes later, we were back outside wondering if we had fulfilled our Easter Sunday obligation or if we should stick around for the Spanish mass or Arabic mass and see if those groups had a clue.

Maybe next year, we should find a nice Temple or Mosque to visit. The whole Catholic thing does not seem to be working for us.