With churches closed, Cabot biker sets out on a spiritual quest.
With churches closed, Cabot biker sets out on a spiritual quest
Before worship services on a recent Sunday, Randy Irwin kneeled to pray.
Irwin, a 69-year-old Cabot resident and member of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, carried with him two items: a sheet of paper detailing the worship service planned for the day and his copy of one of the main books used in the faith’s worship, the Book of Common Prayer.
Irwin wasn’t kneeling in the sanctuary; he was kneeling on the wood porch of Johnson Chapel United Methodist Church, an abandoned but maintained structure in an area west of Des Arc.
Visiting rural churches in Central Arkansas has been Irwin’s mode of connecting with God during the coronavirus pandemic. The virus that closed most churches and other public venues in Arkansas last March sent clergy and laypeople online to lead and take part in worship, transforming religious services and observances.
Meanwhile, worship houses that closed during the pandemic are weighing reopening. The number of Americans who have been inoculated against the virus continues to grow since the release of the first covid-19 vaccine late last year, and Gov. Asa Hutchinson is considering ending the state’s mask mandate Wednesday.
When Trinity first closed its doors last March and transitioned to online worship, Irwin watched an online worship service alongside his wife, Marilyn.
“[The online service] wasn’t doing much for me, and I ride a Harley-Davidson,” Irwin said. “Other than the sermon, [the Episcopal service] … it’s all out of the Book of Common Prayer. So Sunday morning, when I used to go to church, I would [instead] get on the Harley. So I’d go north, south, east, west … and when I found an interesting church of some sort — any denomination, [it] didn’t really matter — I’d sit out on the front steps because they were all closed, too, and read my Episcopal service for the Sunday.
“I still have my service,” Irwin said. “In my mind I’m going to church. It’s not my church, but it’s a church. We’ve all got the same God.”
Riding, a pastime Irwin picked up during his years living in Southern California, allows him to stay alert yet relaxed and able to worship in a way he found meaningful during the past year.
“The sights and smells, they all sort of tune you in to what’s going on,” he said. “While riding you can’t talk or answer the phone; you’re away from Facebook, emails. … Everyone was exploring, to some extent, how we deal with this [pandemic]. There are people who went to church, people who did nothing … my deal was going around the country[side] to church.”
“As the world turns crazy, turn to Jesus,” read the marquee sign outside Brownsville Baptist Church in Lonoke. Another week, it stated, “Time is short, hell is hot. The king is coming, ready or not!” Messages imparted on church marquee signs that continued to change from week to week let Irwin know he
wasn’t alone in seeking connection during a time in which many have faced isolation from friends, loved ones and fellow churchgoers.
The Rev. Canon Russ Snapp, subdean at Trinity, likened Irwin’s travels to pilgrimages, a way for the motorcycle enthusiast to take himself to different sacred spaces to practice his faith.
“I think it’s fantastic,” Snapp said. “It’s very creative to connect with not only God but other people in what we call the body of Christ, the church, without actually being physically present.
“Even the grounds of churches — not just inside them — the grounds are considered holy,” Snapp said.
He then quoted from the T.S. Eliot book “Four Quartets”:
“You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.”
“Even though [Irwin’s] been there by himself, he’s not by himself,” Snapp said. “He’s spiritually there with others of the faithful who have been there in the past, as well as who will be there in the future and who might be there in spirit right then.”
The cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal diocese of Arkansas, held its first indoor worship service in a year on March 14.
That morning Irwin made his way up a set of steps and, pausing to don a cloth mask, rushed between the ushers that bracketed a sanctuary entrance.
“It’s odd, but nice,” he said this week of returning to worship services at Trinity, which he also attended Sunday.
He was again surrounded by aged wood, its smell mingling with that of incense while daylight filtered in through stained-glass windows. The congregants social distanced and wore masks. Communion was given without using the traditional communal cup. To prevent spreading droplets, those assembled didn’t join the small choir in song.
“Being outside, which is where you see all the experiences of the world, particularly riding on a Harley — the smell, the scene — you have to keep all your senses on the riding so you don’t get run over,” Irwin said. “And then stopping at a church where nobody’s there and borrowing their front steps to do my Episcopal service was comforting in a different way.
“I was at church, still doing my Book of Common prayer service,” he said. “It’s a good thing.”