Dear Reader,

I’ve always been a churchgoer. Some of my earliest memories are of the white clapboard church in the North Carolina mountains whose arched windows let in the kind of morning sun that’s more dust than light. That church was the first place I ever prayed; I was baptized in it, and years later, my mother’s funeral was held in it. Though I haven’t been a member there in decades, that church will always be a part of me, of who I was and who I have become.

These days, I plan vacations around churchgoing, working in as many country chapels and cathedral quires as possible. I’ve gotten up at 6 a.m. to attend morning prayer at the Shrine of St. Edward the Confessor, kneeling beside the bones of a king. I’ve processed at the feast of St. Frideswide through a candle-filled Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. I’ve toasted a parishioner’s 90th birthday at All Saints Margaret Street; having come straight from Heathrow, I was raising a glass at my 7 a.m.

I love the pageantry of churches like these—the incense and robes and carried crosses. I find it easy to sense the presence of God in these places, where saints lie under my feet and the ceiling soars so high above that I have to crane my neck back to see the glimmers of gold in the rafters. But I’ve also attended church services in strip malls, and in unpainted adobe buildings with dirt floors and glassless windows. And in each and every one of these, we did the same outlandish things: lifted our voices to sing and talk together to a Being none of us can see, confessed our sins, ate flesh, and drank blood.

Whether or not you are (or ever have been) a churchgoer yourself, I hope this issue of Fare Forward will give you a glimpse into this strange place and the reasons why some of us continue to seek it out. Our writers are quick to acknowledge that church is far from perfect, that it has done more than its fair share of harm. Many of them (myself included) have gone through times when church was the last place they wanted to go. Casie Dodd writes in “Not Beyond Help” (pg. 110) of the season between leaving one church behind and joining another, and how, in between, she found spiritual comfort in an unlikely place. In “I Am a Churchgoer” (pg. 20), poet Mischa Willett finds that as his reasons for going to church have changed, so has his own self-perception: rather than a professor who goes to church, he sees himself now as a churchman who happens to teach at a university. Ryan Keating, in “The Way of Life” (pg. 50), reflects on his own changing motivations for churchgoing in a country where publicly practicing Christianity can be dangerous.

There are, perhaps, as many reasons for churchgoing as there are churchgoers. We’re pleased to share a few with you. And if you’d like to add to the conversation, we’d love to hear from you, too.

Fare forward,
Sarah Clark
Editor-in-Chief