With sister Alice and Uncle Tom

Sundays and Sunday Mornings

  In my early teens (1939-1943) Sunday was not the most fun day of the week, as I felt it should have been. “Going to church” wasn’t the problem; we were never required to do so. It just seemed that I always wanted to be doing something else on Sundays, drive to the beach – 10 or so 30 miles, depending on whether I was at home in Highland Park, or at my grandparent’s, 4610 South Gramercy Place in southwest Los Angeles. Or better still, going to a movie, a pleasure usually reserved for Saturday afternoons. It was simply the inactivity of Sundays that got to me.

  Some Sundays, weekends and summer days, staying at our grandparents, my dad and step-mother would show up with Uncle Herbert (Dana—my namesake) and wife—he drove a Willys, In all his life, my dad never drove a car. Uncle Herbert would drive us to a movie—these were the best Sundays of all, but sometimes Uncle Herbert would tell my dad the springs of his Willys couldn’t take so much weight, and we three (two sisters and I) were left out, although our average weight was probably somewhere close to 110 pounds!

  I recall one Sunday evening begging my grandmother to let Uncle Tom—in residence at 4610—take us to see “Rebecca” at the nearby Liemert Theatre (I had seen “Rebecca” several times), and she accused me of being too morbid, but we had our way, and once again I could thrill to, Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

  The Sundays when we did go to churches of various Protestant denominations, it usually was a depressing experience. I hated the sermons, most preachers ranting and raving about sin, and cajoling us to behave. Sounded like Old Testament to me.

  This morning, a reflection during my own particular brand of “going to church”— celebration of life with The Threefold Lotus Sutra, came to mind—church going  experiences in the early 1940s which were indeed celebrations of life—sermons of Ernest C. Wilson, D.D.S., and sometimes Norma Knight Jones, and a big happy Irish tenor, Francis Kelly. Wilson, from the Unity School of Christianity in Lee’s Summit Missouri, had started Christ Church Unity—only a block away from the first run, lush green movie palace, Warner’s Wilshire. We had heard Wilson’s sermons earlier at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. (Many years later I would read that Wilson had studied with several Buddhist groups in Southern California.)

  Sunday mornings with Dr. Wilson and company were, in a word, really joyous experiences. I always walked out feeling good about myself and about life—most welcome during those early years of a rather chaotic adolescence. Wilson, always soft-spoken, after brief prayers (called “affirmations” such as “all things are working together toward good”), would say, “and now. silently. . .” Perhaps Unity’s rewording of the Doxology closing most Protestant services explains the differences from other Protestant churches, the words changed from such phrases as “we poor creatures here below” to: “Thank God that good is everywhere, thanks to the love we all may share, the light that shines in you and me—praise to the truth that sets us free,” this truth for Unity—that “God” is a universal life-force for good alone, and that we have the potential to discover this life-force within ourselves by simply affirming it.

  Today, the One only Buddha vehicle, The Threefold Lotus Sutra is my “going to church” every morning, every day of the week. A celebration of life itself, reliving the Buddha’s life, and not only his teaching of the “Buddha-way” but participating in the very dynamic process through which he taught this “way Supreme.” The ultimate source for developing mindfulness of the Buddha.

Next: look for “ Stories from The Threefold Lotus Sutra.