Brattle Street Elegy: Matzoh for Sacrament

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I first entered the Longfellow Park chapel on September 4, 1977. It was fast Sunday. I was a new physics grad student at MIT and a convert, baptized only about six months previously. This pair of circumstances very quickly convinced me that everybody knew more, felt more, read more, did more, understood more, was more than I would ever be. 

Fortunately, the building was full of fascinating nooks and crannies. For example, there was a trap door in the ceiling of the second-floor restroom by the balcony—at that time the only passage into the attic above the chapel. Do you know how quiet the attic above a chapel is between meetings on a winter Sunday afternoon? Since I had no social skills to speak of, it was good to explore the building and try to figure out what the different rooms were for, how they felt, what people did there, why they cared. As it happens, they cared a lot. And I learned a lot trying to figure out why they cared so much. 

Everybody loved the rose window. At various times, the glass was various colors—even violent orange for a year or so, until unanimous objection to the color led to fears that a “midnight maintenance” team would perform an unauthorized vitrectomy. My favorite was the pale green shade of glass that changed with the sunset during our late sacrament services. 

Over time, I found some measure of community there. Another ponytailed, bearded, hippie liberal intellectual, more or less, was just fine. I had no real idea how unusual that was, since the limits of this building were nearly my only experience of the church. But in Cambridge, it was kind of normal; the extraordinary tolerance of the community reflected the gospel quite well. This was the place where I spiritually came of age, watching the examples of wise, kind people. And, of course, observing the occasional counterexample of a few non-wise or non-kind people. And being non-wise or non-kind myself, on occasion, and meeting forgiveness. 

Once, somebody brought matzoh for sacrament, during Pass over. Everybody was cool with that, which made a big impression on me. Okay, there was the after-church meal of bagels and ham, but everybody had the grace to laugh about it. 

I went to church there for twenty-three years—twenty-three years in a singles ward. I probably drove several bishops nuts. For no particularly obvious reason, they made me a Sunday School teacher for fourteen consecutive years. I could never quite figure out how that happened, other than that maybe they could keep an eye on the weird folk. Kept me out of the attic, anyway. Maybe they could confine to one classroom those who wanted to talk about the documentary hypothesis, nuances of almah versus bethulah, the Pauline themes of Alma, or Campbell’s hero cycle in the Book of Mormon and the D&C. Whatever. It was a place in the community, with meaningful work to do, acceptance by others. In some ways, that’s how I imagine the celestial kingdom. It’s also where I got to know my wife. 

Yes, I know it wasn’t the building that did all this. But the sense memories are hard to separate from the things that really matter: the community of crazy, mostly kind people. I still miss it terribly, even years after marrying and finding another ward. Yes, I hope we rebuild a nice, funky building. But even more, I hope maybe someday we can rebuild a nice, funky community. Maybe someday.