Sunday Morning

This morning would not be for fishing.  

Such a pity.  

It’s surely shaping up to be a great day for a troll past Brown’s boathouse or a couple of passes along Haven Island or maybe even to scoot over to Autumn Bay to cast or troll.  It truly looks to be a day for catching northern pike.  The morning sun is almost finished burning off the fog that shrouded the end of Cube Point.  Straight across the other end of the bay from there, the blockhouse at the end of Long Island is already fully visible.  The retreating fog is like a tarp being pulled back to reveal one of the Creator’s marvelous works of art.  

Yes, this really would be an Autumn Bay day.  One could just sense the long, bronze-sided fish lurking amongst the towering pike weeds down below.  Even the boat ride over, buzzing right past and then beyond the blockhouse would be grand.  The bay is full of ripples, sunshine and nothing else.  It surely is going to be a glorious day on Wilderness Bay. 

If only we could just get out on the water. 

Instead, I’m carrying a kitchen chair through the woods down a root-strewn path between the cottages.  Ahead are my two brothers laboring with benches that usually inhabit the front yard of Tannenheim, two cottages over.  This is definitely not my usual morning routine when not fishing.  I should be checking the minnow trap in the shallows of the reeds, looking under logs in the woods for bait worms and salamanders, or running along the muck bridges in the cedar swamp.  I should be busily wandering along the beach collecting cute, miniscule toads in the old oval galvanized metal bucket, not carrying a kitchen chair through the woods.  I’m barely big enough to carry this chair across the cottage floor, let alone navigating the twigs, twists, turns and roots of the path between cottages. 

No, none of that cool stuff will be done this morning.  I’ve been told that I gotta stay clean.  

It’s Sunday.  

We’re having church.   

After having just arrived midday yesterday, I’m anxious to get started enjoying my summer playground amongst the cedars and balsam firs.  We’re only here a week and there’s so much woods, sand and water to enjoy.  Now we gotta stop and have church?  

It’s got me in a bit of a funk, actually.  I mope up the path to the cottage with my kitchen chair, dragging it now behind me.  That gets me a, you should know better, look from mom when she sees me nearing the front door of Cedar Haven.  The dark, rich soil and some old, brown cedar needles clump up on the bottom of two of the chair legs.  I struggle to wipe them off and do my best in acting like they weren’t really there before bringing them into the cottage.

People are arriving by foot and by boat.  Some come from as far away as the other side of Cube Point, toward Hessel.  Others make the short jaunt from next door or down the path towards Smith’s point.  They are all responding to the call to worship, sounded by my grandpa, a Lutheran pastor.  As a matter of fact, we’re all Lutherans from what I can gather. At least I assume so.  We’ve got a supply of old Lutheran hymnals and an old Lutheran pastor.  We’re about to have a good ol’ traditional Lutheran church service right here inside Cedar Haven cottage on the island.  

As I enter the screen door, I immediately notice all the comfortable wicker furniture and other furnishings have been rearranged or removed altogether.  Now there are only rows of kitchen chairs and benches from the fireplace all the way back to the rear door of the cottage into the kitchen area.  The rows of mismatched chairs and benches face the fireplace.  Many vivid shades of summer green from the trees outside, illuminated by the morning sun, filter into the cottage through the windows on either side of the fireplace giving them the appearance of glowing green stained glass.  An artfully crafted cross created by my aunt hangs on the wall above the mantel.  Sure enough, it is beginning to look like a church.  

Appropriately, the little red cottage was nick-named by some as the “church cottage” according to my grandma.  It all seems very church-like, indeed, set up like this.  Well, except for the deer head mounted above the fireplace, the spot from where my grandpa will lead the service.  In another twist, it looks as though he will do the job seated in his favorite rocking chair.  And people say Lutherans are stuck in their old familiar ways.  After I think about it a little more, I realize those who have come the farthest by boat probably knew the previously set time to arrive.  There’s no way they could have heard the call to worship.  Like usual, grandpa had employed his make-shift church bell which was a succession of several hard whacks of a huge pipe wrench against the LP tanks on the side of the cottage, um, I mean church.

I’ve always thought my grandpa was neat.  I’ve seen him at “real” church services in “real” churches all decked out in his minister’s robe and stole, standing up there high in the pulpit, saying really important and meaningful things about God that seemed to really move people.  Now I marvel at him once more, but in a different way, as he rocks in his chair beneath the mounted deer head, pipe in hand, comfortably dressed in a plaid shirt instead of his minister’s robe, making a story from the bible come to life in a new and revealing way.  

He is truly an amazing man.  Why, just earlier this morning I was standing by him while he cleaned a bucket of perch we caught the night before at Coates Point, hands covered with fish guts, scales and blood.  He showed me how to scale and behead the fish and then how to slice this way and that way all along the belly and most importantly to make sure to steer clear of the “hoopen-gable”, as he called it, while scooping the entrails out with his thumb.  I think he enjoyed saying the word “hoopen-gable”, I know I do.  I can still recall the sound of his thumb nail as it ran down the length of the spine of the small but tasty fish, scraping out the innards.  It sounded a lot like a zipper slowly being zipped.  

Now he sits in front of us leading us in worship, a stark contrast to the scene earlier that morning.  What a guy!  Later in life, I would come to realize that he was blessed and talented for sure, but that the thing that moved people and helped him become a leader was his Faith, and his allowing God to use him for His glory.

I think it was probably at these simple cottage church services that I first began to realize as a youngster that God could be worshipped in places other than a “real” church.  With the exception of home, up until that point I had always experienced the act of worship, praying, singing hymns, Holy Communion and Christian fellowship in the sanctuaries or Sunday school rooms in our church back home or other “real” churches.  Since then, I’ve been blessed to praise and worship God in many places and settings, but no other place holds the lifelong memories as do those Cedar Haven church services.  And as I came to realize through those worship experiences, God can be found anywhere and everywhere.  Indeed, many hours spent outside amongst God’s handy work on and around Marquette Island over the years, have proven this out for me.  From peaceful star-filled night skies and the calmest glass of waters to towering spires of pines and the power of mountainous rolling waves I have been able to experience the Creator’s majesty.  As a youngster I came to realize with the help of those cottage church services that one doesn’t necessarily need the formality of minister’s robes, stoles, and pulpits.  Plaid shirts, rocking chairs, pine trees and the lake can make up your cathedral.

I’m in less of a funk now.  My spirit is lifted by this gathering of friends and many relatives and the songs I enjoy singing.  There is no organ or any other musical instrument to accompany our hymns.  The singing regularly starts off a bit hesitant and awkward, but by the time the song nears its final verses, you’d be hard pressed to find a better choir anywhere in the Upper Peninsula that morning.  As if on cue, a Veery perched somewhere in the cedars just outside near the open front porch windows serenades the congregation with its downward twirling soulful solitary song adding its own unique praise to its Creator.  It’s clear and strong song punctuates the end of our hymn.  Everyone becomes quiet as heads turn toward the windows.  We all heard it.  We all deeply appreciated it.  After a moment of peace, faces turn back.  Most are smiling.  Grandpa breaks the silence with a hearty and agreeable “amen!”

I was actually beginning to enjoy this meaningful gathering of friends and family in the presence of God.  I have to admit, though, that I became side-tracked during one of the Bible readings.  I began to recall the stories I had heard of church services Up North in the days before I was around.  Grandpa would lead those as well, but they also included Sunday School for the kids sometimes.  My mom had been known to get in a boat and lead the lesson while the kids remained on the dock.  What an excellent way to relate the story of Jesus teaching from the boat while followers and the otherwise curious crowded the beach along the Sea of Galilee.  On occasion the kids even got to get into the boat.

Similarly, there was quite frequently a large crowd that would turnout for church services on the island, rivaling that of the nearest Lutheran church on the mainland in Cedarville.  I began to also recall stories of church services being held outdoors in front of Tannenheim in the early days.  Immediately after the breakfast dishes were done and the pot roast or chicken were in the oven, the children were sent to the end of the dock to clang horseshoes together as church bells to summon the various cottages surrounding the bay.  Those arriving, usually by boat or path, gathered for worship utilizing a wide assortment of benches and chairs arranged in the vicinity of the old basketball court out by the beach.  Sometimes folks actually sat in hammocks and usually managed to keep from falling out of them during the service.  Even before that, I’m told, there where church services lead by Reverend Krause on the front porch of his log cabin cottage back in the 1940’s.  Prior to that, Pastor Abicht, the first of many Lutheran pastors that have come to vacation on Wilderness Bay, was known to have held worship services.  Once Cedar Haven, the church cottage, was built in 1961, the services were held there indoors and thankfully away from the mosquitoes and flies.  I’m told Clarence and Gertrude Becklein, my great aunt and uncle, typically arrived late entering through the back door, winding up sitting near the kitchen appliances.

This current cottage church service comes back into focus quickly as I catch the tail end of grandpa relating something funny that happened at last evening’s pinochle game to the morning’s sermon.  The congregation responds in laughter. There always seemed to be a lot of laughter at those church services and especially during the gatherings and fellowship that ensued afterwards.

As we continue to sing, pray, and listen to readings from the Bible, I occasionally strain my neck to glance out the front window.  Even though I think this church service in the cottage is cool and unique, I become more and more fidgety.  I feel more distracted than usual while at church.  Little boys can only sit still so long and the church at home doesn’t have all this waiting just outside its doors.  That makes things all the harder.  The mounted deer head staring down directly at me while I’m trying to remember and recite the words of the Lord’s Prayer isn’t helping much either. 

The sun is higher each time I look outside, warming things up nicely.  The bay is still full of ripples. The drop off becomes more and more vivid.  Did I just see a fish jump a ways out?  My favorite swimming raft sits out by the dock on the beach, calling to me.  

It is, and still will be, a glorious day on Wilderness Bay.  Church is almost over.  One more hymn and I’m out of here.  

Thanks be to God!