faith! - Virginia Cooper

Virginia Cooper’s journey with the ­Episcopal Church began as many others’ church journeys have – with a baptism. Hers, as an infant. By the renowned, late Rev. John Spong, no less.

“And then my parents never went to church. I did absolutely nothing,” she said, explaining her childhood faith experience. Her family didn’t even attend Christmas or Easter services. But the seed had been planted and was, on occasion, watered.

A family friend who happened to be an Episcopal priest was among those who, unbeknownst to Virginia at the time, was keeping the seedling nurtured. He frequently visited her family for dinner, with visits lingering into the evening. When it was time for Virginia to be sent to bed, she fondly remembers that he would always tell her goodnight by placing the sign of the cross on her forehead.

“That is a very tender, sweet memory” she said. It is brought back to her at baptisms or other experiences in the church when Virginia observes clergy gently moving their hands in the sign of the cross.

Other nurturing experiences came when she attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. The campus is situated in a beautiful rural setting, surrounded by the Amish, a traditional Christian group whose faith-driven simple ways of living are hard to miss. Their presence in horse-drawn buggies is an example.

Often when Virginia found herself overwhelmed by college life, she would take drives around the Ohio countryside. More often than not, her car would end up behind an Amish family in their buggy. “They literally made you slow down because you would be stuck behind them,” Virginia said. “It honestly was majestically beautiful. The dew would be out, and the morning mist, and you would hear their horses’ hooves clopping along.”

Little did Virginia know at the time, but those very moments were the beginnings of her understanding of mindfulness. Today she holds a doctorate in psychology and uses tools in her private psychology practice that she first learned during those serendipitous encounters with the Amish.

“It was literally as simple as noticing the sunlight hitting something, or hearing the horses’ hooves,” she said. “I feel it in the woods when I’m walking the dogs, and I see it at St. Martin’s, sitting and looking at the stained glass … you can choose to pay attention to where you are in every aspect of life.”

Virginia’s appreciation for stained glass might also be connected to her Kenyon days. A chapel with beautiful stained-glass windows stood in the middle of the campus. It was open round-the-clock.

“In the middle of the night, some of us would go in there. It was just magical.” Those late-night chapel visits are where Virginia remembers her prayer life beginning. She would take notice of her surroundings – the shadows of tree branches on the walls, the dust floating in the air – and suddenly she was fully present and part of something much larger than herself and her heady college thoughts. “

“It was very grounding.”

But it wasn’t until she was preparing to marry her husband Marc that faith as part of day-to-day life began. Speaking with a priest for pre-marital counseling – ironically in the Florida church her parents years later had come to be very involved in – Virginia heard about “having faith as part of our marriage.”

As someone who had studied psychology, Virginia says the value of spiritual practices are not lost on her, but it took a while for life to settle into a pattern that allowed regular church attendance. And as is often the case, that was around the time she and Marc had their children, Gabe, who is now 17, and Anna, who is 15.

The family found its way to St. Martin’s by way of another parish that didn’t work for them. At St. Martin’s, Virginia said she has found the sense of community that was missing in her previous experience and that, she believes, is central to a meaningful church practice.

A friend in the Education for Ministry course Virginia took once explained that the cross is the shape it is because its vertical lines represent our relationship with God; and its horizontal lines, our relationship with other people.

“You’re not doing this by yourself,” she was told. That was comforting.

“…but church is where I am part of a community of people who believe, and people whom I really trust … trust that I know the playbook that they’re trying to live by.”

Sharing that “playbook” provides an intimacy that isn’t present in other types of relationships for Virginia.

She also loves the wisdom gained from a community where people of all ages have the chance to know one another and learn from one another.

Virginia sustains her faith with intentional practices such as walks in the woods, and church participation like being on the vestry, a decision that came about after a difficult year in which her family received meaningful pastoral care. She wanted to give back in gratitude for that care.

And with her children moving toward their college years, requiring less of her hands-on attention, along with Marc’s work as associate chief of staff for the VA Health Care System’s Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences in Salisbury, N.C., she knew she had some time to give. (Marc’s work keeps him away during the week.)

Virginia also serves as an usher with her son so that they can be a part of extending the warm welcome to others that she believes is so vital to the lifeblood of St. Martin’s. “I think it’s really important that St. Martin’s continue to be super welcoming,” she said.

Virginia also believes that an intentional act of service like ushering is a way to ensure that you will make the effort to go to church.

“If you are involved in something that will require your participation, you’re going to show up,” she said. “And once there, you’ll find yourself embraced by the community.”

Virginia Cooper and her family joined St. Martin's in 2009. Virginia and her husband Marc are parents to Gabe, 17, and Anna, 15.