Studying Life

The room smells old, and almost damp, whether it was the rain that had persisted all day or the moistness of a late-summer-time swamp cooler. Green and gold line the stage, the centerpiece of the room. A bronze-looking Jesus hangs from a cross and that cross hangs from two wires connected to the ceiling, it is crooked. I am sitting in the back of the room, writing notes in my composition book, being nonreligious and simply interested in the people that reside there, where around five white plastic folding tables are set up perpendicularly to the stage, with about twelve to sixteen chairs on each side. The tables remind me of cheap parties and barbecues. In front of the tables there was a row of seats. The Holy Trinity Newman Center isn’t a church, it's a placeholder.

The Newman Center was originally built in 1966. The lobby looks almost like a log cabin, yet the main area becomes a hoge-poge of these different post-modernist building techniques. The floors remind me of high school cafeterias; the plain, beige and spotted tile spreads along the main area, just below the stage in a grid. The grandeur of God and holiness is juxtaposed onto the bleakness of brick, a single glass window, and a glowing red EXIT sign. The only thing that reminds me of a church is the high ceilings. Beyond the window is a garden, where light fills in the green, the door is left open because the weather is nice. The light inside the center is full but dim. It feels solemn.

People filter in for mass at 5:30. It’s Thursday, September second. They greet each other with smiles, handshakes and whatnot, though most people were already sitting when I arrived. A young couple with a very young daughter sit in the row closest to me, the daughter sits on the father’s lap and smiles at me, I smile back. I worry at this point that I may miss the detail of the place by the simple act of looking for all the details. My hand already hurts a little. People quiet down now, and their faces all look serious, except for the young ones, they look either impatient or joyful (or trying hard not to laugh at a joke that their friend made). The cooler runs smoothly, fitting into that blindspot in our ears that makes it hard to remember that you really hear it.

The people vary. Most of them are seemingly white, but there are a few that could have other ethnic origins. Oldness dominates the room, and I only see a few people under the age of thirty. The rituals begin as The Green-Robed-Father approaches the stage. The mass rises and I do too, having to put down my pen and notebook for a moment and take in the practice. As they repeat the words and prayers, I can’t help but envision a gloomy, dark-cloaked choir of druids, bellowing the words of God, Christ, and etc. The small bronze Jesus glows slightly against the light of the candles on the table below him, and the red glow of the EXIT sign behind.

Communion begins, and having never attended a ritual like this, I join in. Unbeknownst to me then, I was supposed to cross my arms on my chest to signal that I am new, and not yet ready for communion. Yet, this didn’t happen. I walk down the aisle between the rows of chairs, then kneeling in front of the Father as the person before me had done. He puts the cracker on my tongue and it tastes like plain rice cakes. I get up and almost trip, quickly and awkwardly making my way back to my comfort in the back of the room, where people are more spread out.

After more standing, sitting and kneeling, people began to leave the center. I sit and write more to complete the many pages of thoughts running through my head. As I sit, I can’t help but realize that everyone here, including me, is studying life. We are all studying man and life and its multitude of meanings here. So, though I may feel out of place here, we all have the common goal of understanding humanity, and I would go as far as to say that all people have that same goal.