I sat in the gallery at the courtroom today, wondering why there was a picture of two dancing moose on the wall behind the judge. I learned later it’s Michigan’s state seal (duh), and one of the moose is an elk, but it’s still unclear to me why they’re dancing.
It was striking, too, to see how much a courtroom resembles a sanctuary. Those of us in the gallery sat on wooden benches that could have been pews in any church. The bar is the communion rail. The jury sits in the place of the choir. The bench where the judge presides is the altar itself.
We were spectators to the action at the front (the chancel), where things take place in a specialized vocabulary we may or may not understand, just like first-time visitors in church. The difference, I suppose, is in church you don’t see people you love in shackles. It was a sad and sobering morning, actually, although the outcome was as good as could be hoped for.
I don’t mean to make light of the matter with the dancing moose and all. I know serious things happen in courtrooms. Only, in my experience comedy appears in the oddest places. I wonder if when Joseph was in prison, his technicolor dreamcoat only a memory, he managed to find things that made him smile and even laugh.
