It's Sunday and with us, you won't hear any church bells. Bells calling people to come to church and listen to the preacher. Most churches are gone or changed into galleries, shops or homes.
I try to remember when it was the last time I heard it. Most likely as I was a child. It was in the street where my grandparents lived. Two churches were present, built in the same small street.
If I think of the one across the street, the one we visited once in a while, the one I could easily see out of the living's window, I only remember all those people dressed up, not a single sound. Not the sound of bells. Those people, the church visitors, wore hats and gloves. Their newest, best Sunday only clothes. For sure not one of them would visit the pub right after the service because the church wasn't built on a square in the center of what is by now a town.
Most likely many church visitors fell asleep and they all kept as much physical (we call it "social") distance as possible. It was one of those typical behaviors these church visitors had next to showing off (the new outfit) at the entrance and keeping distance, coughing, singing out of tune, and... taking a nap as soon as the preacher arrived at the top of the pulpit.
How did he feel seeing his sheep falling asleep, showing no respect for the words he chose to share on this particular Sunday? He thought about those phrases for a whole week because he had nothing else to do. Most of his sheep are strangers to him. They just fill one of those uncomfortable seats. He never visited them at home, he is an outsider to their lives.
It's out of habit most still go to church but the need is no longer felt. At home, with a cup of tea, still in pajamas the service can be followed too because it is broadcasted. There's no need to sit in an ice-cold, old church, coughing, catching a cold and bladder infection, if your home is warm and safe. If home is the place where no one looks down on you, points at you, gossips about you.
The preacher already knows no one is listening to him, not for real. The only thing he can do is shout at his sheep. Some wake up and with some luck those who hide at home hear his words too. Who knows it even makes them think for a while. Ask themselves "How blessed am I?"
It's blessed enough if it is for that only moment of the day. That moment you decided to make your own plan and stay at home instead, since it feels as if it is true what they say "your home is your castle and it is the best place to be, to stay".
Everything is at hand and while you hold your mug coffee or tea, hot chocolate perhaps, for a short moment you really feel free.
Freedom, it's a relief. For a second no pain, it's just about the present, a moment without history, missed chances, being annoyed, feeling grief, disliked, fat. The only thing left to do is to capture that feeling and save it for those rainy, stormy, ice-cold days and nights. Those many times in a person's life no one really seems to care because they are all too busy to be aware you are still around. You are there exactly where they left you, wrapped by the blanket of hostility.
_The renovation of this church in the city of Arnhem (the Netherlands) is taking place for many years. The church is no longer used as churs but a center for expositions and "free markets".