The Liturgical Tradition - Pt1: How I got hooked

For some time I have been wanting to consolidate some thoughts that have been rolling around in my head regarding church tradition, liturgy, and forms of worship. What follows is the first part of what I hope will become a series.

I was raised in the non-denominational church. Partially out of necessity (growing up overseas in a Muslim country means you take whatever you can get) but even when we moved back to TX, we started attending a non-denominational church. I think it was just habit by then. I'm not really sure.

My first experience with the liturgical tradition was after I moved out to CA. I wasn't really actively 'shopping' for a church, but I wasn't particularly thrilled with the one I was attending. I was basically riding Mom's coattails to a single parents group at a large NDC here. Occasionally I would go to the college group, but I didn't know anyone, and have never been great at making friends on my own initiative, so I would mostly stand in a corner and juggle until things got started, and then I would sit in the corner and more or less participate.

Anyway, my brother's girlfriend (at the time, now his wife) had been raised Episcopal, and during their semester in Oxford he had fallen in love with TLCs, so they had found a good, solid, orthodox Episcopal church in the area that they were attending, and one week he invited me to go with them, and I said yes.

The church was fairly small (seating about 150 people fully packed) and had stained glass windows and statues and crufixes, and all the bells and whistles (literally). I spent most of the service trying to figure out when to kneel, what page of the little black book we were on, and how to best pretend to sing along to the plainchant songs/prayers. I believe my overall impression at the end of the service was, "Well, that was interesting. I don't think I'll ever do that again." I had a few questions, but for the most part I didn't care enough to ask about most of what was going on. Besides, I prefer to appear to know what I'm doing at all times.

A few months later, my brother mentioned to me that the rector of the church was also a blackbelt in karate, and taught classes through the church for a free-will-donation fee. We decided that it would be a fun thing to do together, so we started going. Looking back, it strikes me that that first day in karate class was far more awkward than that first visit to a TLC - I still didn't really know much of what was going on, didn't know when to kneel or stand, and spent most of the time watching others out of the corners (or middles) of my eyes. Plus, I kept wanting to address the Sensei as "Dr. so-and-so" instead of "Fr. so-and-so", due to my previous sublimation in the academic world.

But after a couple of months going to the church twice a week for karate, and as I got more familiar with some of the people in the karate class who were also members of the church, and - most importantly - the cute girl I had a crush on started attending the church, I began to think more about giving liturgy another chance. So I hooked a ride with some friends and never looked back.