roots.

To be honest, I was only there to watch my brother act like a chicken.

My sister-in-law had invited me to their church on a Saturday night. The church was celebrating its bicentennial, and one of the members had written a play about its history. The play was just as much about the general history of the Methodist church in America. It talked at length about the circuit-riders, preachers who would ride their horses to a different church every Sunday to preach. And when the preacher came to town, a chicken had to die, because chickens are delicious, especially when fried by a Southerner. And that's what my brother was doing. He was acting like a chicken, who was in turn warning other chickens that the preacher was coming to town and they'd better run.

I'd been to the church before for a random Sunday service and once to eat salty boogers. The church might be 200 years old, but the sanctuary had been added in the last ten years. The old one stood nearby, now called "the chapel." I sat in the back and felt mild unease at the newness of the room. The stained glass windows were lovely, the giant cross at the front was impressive, but it all felt very sterile. The walls were perfectly antique white, the carpet, that thin stuff they use in schools, a soothing blue. It reminded me of the houses I toured when I was looking to buy one. They were nice, but you couldn't tell one from another by standing in the kitchen.

I grew up in a tiny church in rural North Carolina. The sanctuary was old. The ceiling tiles had discoloration from leaks, the windows were a bit grubby and from an old style that is no longer in vogue with church designers. Everything, the pews, the doors, the walls, creaked. The carpet was thick, deep red and had wax drippings from long-ago candle services.

This church used to be in rural North Carolina, but then Raleigh grew and started slurping up areas around it and calling them the suburbs. That's why this church was able to build a new sanctuary after its 190th year, while my little home church has been around for 234 years and still fits quite comfortably in "the chapel." I assessed all this while waiting for the drama to start. I was impressed with one detail, the giant solid wood cross on the front wall. My sister-in-law told me that when they built the new building, they had to cut down a grove of old oak trees. One of the members of the church was a woodworker, and so he took the wood from one of the trees and made the cross. The Raleigh area is full of huge and beautiful oaks, and I hate the idea of cutting them down when they, too, have already celebrated their bicentennials. I was glad that they were able to pay tribute to the trees, to acknowledge their roots. As I looked around, pews filled up around me as parishoners greeted each other warmly. Had I been at the church in Lenoir, I would be shaking hands and giving out hugs to old friends, but here I was a stranger.

The house lights went down. The "play" was more of a series of vignettes. Various characters in the church history, either actual figures or amalgamations of generic townsfolk, came out front and talked for a while. Periodically, a group would stand up and sing a hymn. I found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would. The script was simple, but there were moments of levity generously scattered throughout. My brother the chicken, for instance.

It was all very familiar. The songs were ones that I haven't heard in years, and somehow I remembered the words and tunes enough to hum quietly to myself. My sister-in-law and niece favor contemporary churches, where the music is new and modern. But I love the old hymns that have already stood the test of time. They seem imbued with history, as if you can hear the devoted parishoners from every generation of the past 200 years singing with you. Those songs are like the giant and beautiful oak trees; they have roots.

And the actors, well. I didn't know any of them, except for that one chicken, but I recognized them. They were good Southern Methodists with varying comfort levels regarding being on stage. Some of them took to it well, speaking loudly and clearly. Some of them understood their parts and inflected their words just right. And others were nervous, quiet, stumbling, just trying to make it through because the director had asked them to help in the church drama and they had wanted to be involved. My own church does a Christmas drama every year, and it always made me smile when the three magi said they came from afar. Judging by their accents, "afar" meant Piney, Sawmills, and Dudley Shoals.

At some point, they trotted out some children for the cuteness factor: two little girls in matching ivory period dresses and giant pink bows in their hair. They recited some little verses into the microphone, and I didn't understand a word they said. But I got the point, which was that they were adorable. I'm sure it was even better for the church members who remembered when those little girls were born. I've played that part, and there still are little old ladies who remember when I was born and how adorable I used to be.

Towards the end of the service, the preacher got up made some remarks. He asked all of those who had been baptized in the church to stand, and we applauded them. Then he asked for those who had been married in this sanctuary (or perhaps the chapel) to stand. Teenagers in old-timey clothes walked around and handed long-stemmed red roses to the standing couples. Finally, the minister asked those who had loved ones buried in the cemetary to stand. More roses were passed, these were white. The woman in front of me, who was roughly my age, had stood each time. She was not the only one who held two roses. Clearly, there was a community here, a family. There were people like me, just visiting, and people like my brother, who had moved to the area a few years ago and started attending, but there were also folks who had planted themselves here long ago.

Finally, the preacher recognized the playwright, a middle-aged man that had been sitting behind me the whole time. He had been baptized there, had family buried there. My brother's family lived in a development that had been built on land that had been in the playwright's family for years. It had been a cute little drama, a series of vignettes and old songs to explain to everyone just how much history they were sitting on. But it was a love letter, too, to the new sanctuary, the old chapel, the uprooted trees, the silent headstones out back, and generations of adorable little kids, nervous actors with thick accents, little old ladies who remember when everyone was born. He was just paying tribute to his roots.