By Tracey Clanton

“Good Morning, Skycar.”

“I need a taxi to take me to 1227 4th Street, please.”

“May I have your phone number? Is this Tracey?”

“Yes, this is Tracey.”

“We’ll be right there.”

By the time the taxi arrived, I had managed to stop crying long enough to repeat the address and answer the driver’s questions. He wanted to know if it was OK to take a short cut instead of driving through traffic on Lincoln Boulevard at 8 a.m.

When we arrived, the driver asked, “Are you a teacher?” He had pulled up in front of the school next to the church and there were lots of children running into the yard.

“No, I’m going to Mass.”

“Good for you,” he answered.

“Yes, it will be good for me.” And at this point, I had started crying again.

My church, St. Augustine by-the-Sea, offers an early-morning service on Wednesdays called “Market Day Mass.” It’s a Mass that coincides with Santa Monica’s Farmers’ Market. I had been attending Market Day Mass on Wednesdays for about six months when I took the taxi that day. I should probably note that at the time, I had two working vehicles and was physically able to drive. That’s just it, I was physically able to drive — not emotionally. I was having my version of a breakdown, and I was in no condition to drive but I had to go to Mass, so I called a taxi. That was the Wednesday morning that changed my life. An explanation is in order.

I began attending Market Day Mass because, as I told my friends, “I just can’t deal!” I was employed in a dysfunctional work environment that was affecting me physically, emotionally and spiritually. I had lost 10 pounds. I know that sounds great to some, but for me it was unhealthy. I was drinking up to four Starbucks’ caramel frappacinos with whipped cream a day. I didn’t realize that this was a problem until the Starbucks’ crew mentioned that they were worried about me. That was the day I added espresso to my frappacino diet. I barely slept, and spiritually I was a shadow of my former self. I didn’t know what else to do, so I started going to Mass on Wednesdays — in addition to attending the 7:30 a.m. Eucharist on Sundays.

When our rector, the Rev. Hartshorn Murphy, returned — he had been on vacation when I started attending — he was surprised to see me and even introduced me to my fellow Wednesday parishioners. The people who regularly attend the service spoke up and said, “We know Tracey. She’s been coming for weeks.” Fr. Murphy was surprised because, as he said, there are no “thees and thous” in the Wednesday service and he knows that I’m a Rite I kind of girl.

The Wednesday service gives me a feeling that I can only try to put into words. I feel stronger when I walk out of the glass doors of the church than I do when I enter them. Especially during the time when I was feeling so broken, so confused — but I never felt alone. The Wednesday service re-confirms my faith that Jesus continues to walk with me. It’s in the words of the prayer read during the ministry of the table, “Our brother Jesus walks with us the road of our suffering…” In bad times, you can’t hear those words enough.

On Wednesdays, instead of a sermon or homily, we hear a meditation reflecting on the life of someone who was important in the history of the Anglican Communion. I always get some sort of message from the meditation, like the “moral of the story was...” I find myself spending moments during the day reflecting on the moral of the story. It’s a spiritual distraction that helped me make it through some bad times.

But the times were really bad, so bad that one night on my way home from a work-related event, I had an automobile accident. My car was driveable and no one was hurt, but I was freaked out. The accident was, as the saying goes, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” I knew I was in trouble and the only thing I could think of was, “God, please help me!” I didn’t sleep that night, which had become a regular occurrence, and the next morning I took a taxi to St. Augustine by-the-Sea to attend the Wednesday service that changed my life.

“Have a good day!” the taxi driver shouted after me as I ran up the church steps.

One of the Wednesday regulars noticed that I was crying and went to find the priest. The Rev. Joyce Stickney, our associate priest, came out and put her arms around me and simply said, “I love you, Tracey.” In those words, I heard the voice of God and knew that I would be all right. The peace I felt at that moment is the peace I feel every Wednesday — even when it seems that my world is anything but peaceful. That Wednesday, I didn’t go to the office. And I never went back to that office again. I took a leave of absence from my job and one month later I resigned. That Wednesday changed my life, and the Wednesdays leading up to that day helped me when “I couldn’t deal.”

I attended Market Day Mass every Wednesday while I was unemployed because the service provided me with the strength to believe. During the times when I needed it most, it seemed that the moral of the story — the message in the meditations — was about faith and hope. The Mass helped reinforce my faith and I never lost hope.

I have a new job now and I attend Market Day Mass as often as possible — about twice a month. I attend now because I’m grateful and I know that I am blessed and it’s important to me to celebrate that on Wednesdays. I’m at a different point in my spiritual journey now — I’m searching for answers. And I look for those answers on Wednesdays while listening to the meditation, enjoying the smell of the incense, chanting and praying. And I’m finding them within. And each Wednesday, when I walk out of the glass doors back into the world, I feel stronger than when I walked inside, and I know that Jesus is walking beside me.

Tracey Clanton is a member of St. Augustine by-the-Sea Church, Santa Monica, Calif.

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