This Friday was Port City’s shopping night, when all the local merchants serve hors d’oeuvres and drinks to entice people out for Christmas shopping. We took Aitch for a stroll downtown, since he’s now capable of being awake past seven o’clock without having a total meltdown. He enjoyed the Christmas tree, the horse-drawn carriages, and the crowds in the shops.

One of the downtown churches was having a Christmas carol sing-along, so we made a little detour so that Aitch could hear it. In the past he has been absolutely enthralled by live music. We fear that his musical taste is being warped by my out-of-tune voice and Husband’s inability to keep time, so we try to expose him to the real thing whenever possible.

I love New England Protestant churches. After a lifetime of Roman Catholic excess, a whitewashed church with clear glass windows seems very exotic. These churches make nineteenth-century American history come alive for me. I recently read an excellent biography of The Peabody Sisters that made it clear that religious philosophy was one of the few intellectual debates that a woman could legitimately engage in. Being anti-religious, I’m too quick to dismiss any kind of religious discussion as being of no interest, but the Unitarian/Congregationalist arm of the Transcendentalists contributed a lot to the national conversation on equality.

Also, I’ve always harbored an intense desire to live in a converted church. I would have seem to have been born in a lucky time period for this ambition, since the Catholic church is selling properties left and right; they even sold a nice brick church right down the street a few years ago. Alas, neither Husband nor I am rich or handy; any aspirations in that direction will have to involve a lottery win or a second marriage.

The church hosting the sing-along had wonderful old-fashioned pews with doors that latched. If you have a toddler and are church-shopping, I would highly recommend a house of worship with this type of pew. They effectively contained Aitch and prevented him from escaping or from bothering the people on the other side of the retaining wall, which was useful because he wasn’t as interested in the music as we had hoped. He was attentive during the solo performances, but lost focus during the sing-along portions. I guess he gets enough tuneless warbling from me at home.

I was relieved when a trio took the stage and Aitch quieted down again. Relieved, that is, until the song ended. In keeping with the church setting, there had been no applause after any of the featured performances, but Aitch shouted, “Yay!” And then, after a beat, “More!” Everyone laughed, and we were appropriately humiliated.

After Aitch’s second outburst, we packed it in. We were in the vestibule putting on our coats when the pastor came out and urged us to stay, Aitch’s behavior nonwithstanding. He was very friendly, and although we declined his offer we spent some time talking with him about the history of the church and the fund drive for renovations to the steeple. He had been pastor for two years, and told us that it was difficult to attract members to a Presbyterian church because there were not a lot of Presbyters in New England. Apparently, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians entered into some kind of treaty years ago, which left New England to the former and sent the latter to the mid-Atlantic and midwest. All of this was news to me, since when you grow up Catholic all Protestants look alike.

Since the demographic make-up of New England has changed since the Congregationalists took over, I said that I thought the Presbyterians might be able to attract some new members, particularly Catholics who might be disillusioned by the pedophile scandals and also by the Church’s treatment of gays. I asked the pastor whether his church was gay-friendly, and he answered,”If that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for, there is….” and he named a local church with a lesbian minister.

If that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for? You mean, tolerance, openness, acceptance? There are special churches just for those kinds of people?

I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he misspoke, because he could not have meant it to come out that way. Could he?