Musical Chairs

Yesterday morning, I happened to attend a church service with my mom. After a lackluster church breakfast where, thankfully, the overcooked quiches were outnumbered by immense quantities of donuts and sweet rolls, my mom and I migrated from the gathering hall to the church. We haphazardly selected two seats from the mostly empty rows, and I settled in for some pre-service people watching.

Families began to saunter in, dressed in the widest range of “Easter” garb I’ve ever seen: jeans, mini-skirts, suits, hats, dresses, pink hair, greasy hair, groomed hair, heels, flats, tennies. (This is one of the things I like about this church—it’s a good mix of people, and it’s not stuffy.) As I watched the seats begin to fill, a family of six stopped to file in, two rows ahead of us. The granddaughter of the group, who was probably about eleven, stubbornly continued walking up two more rows, attempting to convince her family that they should sit in that row. To her dismay, and my amusement, her family completely ignored her until she was forced to concede and sit down with them. Of course, the seat-juggling for this family did not stop there. Grandpa stood patiently in the aisle as they tried to figure it out. Grandson wanted to sit next to Grandpa, but someone hadn’t moved down enough seats to allow Grandpa a spot. Grandma didn’t seem to notice the commotion at all and appeared to have no will to move. Mom and dad seemed overwhelmed with their petulant daughter and their son who was completely uninterested in sitting next to Grandma. Finally, Grandpa walked down the empty row behind us, headed up the outer aisle, and met his family in happy compromise from the other end of the row. With a few more musical-chair-like movements, the family was settled.

Soon, however, I heard a woman behind me attempting to direct the traffic in her row. “Honey, I want you to go sit over there to save seats for the boys.” “What?” “Can you move down there because we need seven seats.” “As soon as I get up, I am going to lose my seat.” This banter escalated into an irritated wife snapping at her husband on Easter morning, because she was determined to keep anyone from infiltrating the row she’d designated for her late family members. It seemed to set their Easter service off to a rocky start, as their bickering interrupted my train of thought during three hymns and part of the Gospel.

While all of the seat-swapping was taking place, I leaned over and whispered to my mom, “Wow, I’ve never seen so much commotion over seating.” She looked at me and responded, “Yep. And everyone has their own areas where they sit every Sunday.” After that, I looked around suspiciously, wondering whose seat I might have inadvertently stolen, and checked my hair for spitballs, in case I’d managed to really tick someone off. I wouldn't want to interrupt the force of habit. But, seriously, does it really matter that much where you sit in church?