Sunday, September 18, 2:30 PM. Amy.

It’s still raining today and warm and muggy.

Every evening after supper, we do Bible time for twenty minutes or so. On Sunday mornings, too, we’ve been doing “church”—our own little family worship time. “Bible time” and “church“ are basically the same thing except on Sunday we do it in the morning instead of at night, and everything’s a little longer. It would seem wrong for there to be no such thing as church anymore. We’re doing our best to make up for it.

Personally, I don’t miss going to church. I realize in hindsight that I only ever went out of guilt. It’s what Brewer wanted. It’s what my friends did. I wanted it for my kids. But then when I was actually sitting in the service, it was bad poetry set to milquetoast music followed by an interminable lecture on topics wholly detached from our lives. I tolerated it by learning to tune it all out.

That’s not entirely true. There were times when something would reach me, would help me see some part of our lives in a new light, would help me make a better decision. When Brewer was dealing with alcoholism after we were first married, I wouldn’t have made it but for the church. I wouldn’t have left Alan—and that was definitely the right thing to do—but for the church.

Mostly it was a time to hold hands, to daydream, to run through my shopping list, to take some comfort in being around people like ourselves.

I haven’t missed church.

Our family church time is fine, though. Frankly, it’s more interesting. And it’s more meaningful to me: I can see our kids engaging and participating, leading the music, asking questions, praying out loud.

Last night when Brewer prayed under the stairs I prayed too, in my head. It was the first time in weeks.

I think my faith is shot, like old knees or old brakes. There’s something about the chaos of all this, the randomness, the wantonness that makes me question why I ever believed.

Maybe I never did believe. I admired Christians. I wanted to be around them. I wanted my life to be fixed, to be transformed.

I’m an Austen scholar, not a major one but not inconsequential. Part of what drew me to Jane was her quiet, steady, noble faith. She doesn’t make a big deal about it. She’s not evangelistic per se. She portrays a faith that is orienting, rooting, securing. That’s who I wanted to be, what I wanted from Christianity.

But God has not given me that option. Those friends, those “people like ourselves“ are all gone. Jane Austen’s heroines had their ballroom parties and romantic temptations and social dilemmas to navigate. This world has none of that. Instead it has the random loss of who knows how many billion people. It has the random deposit of one arbitrary family, utterly at random. Random cows and horses and dogs plucked from the carnage of millions. Random arm breaks on our first day at the farm. Random tornadoes threatening our short-lived peace.

I admire Brewer’s faith, I really do. It would terrify me, terrify me, for him to lose it. But I can’t share it anymore. And I can’t tell him I don’t share it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.