worship

June 24, 2019

Sabbatical, Day Twenty-Nine

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Arches National Park

Yesterday I sat in the sanctuary of Second Presbyterian Church of Albuquerque for the second time.  It is a beautiful building, full of symbols that I find at home or in other PCUSA congregations around the country.  Last time I visited I was greeted warmly by many people, and this time I was greeted even more warmly by some of the people who remembered meeting me three years ago.  I love sitting in the pew in the sanctuary, attempting to follow the cadence and language of this worshipping community.  I love feeling connected to others even as I am away from the community I call home.

Yesterday, I sat swinging my legs in the pew because I am too short for my feet to reach the floor if I sit back in the pew.  The act of swinging my legs was as delightful the second time as the first, I felt like a child enjoying the moment.  I was seated between a friend who has walked beside me all these years as I learn to be a pastor, and my second child who has only known me as a pastor. I sat between these two people I love, who love me, and I listened to another  friend lead a worship service that felt created for me to find God.  The announcements, joys, concerns, and an update of the asylum seeker and refugee ministry were all the things I needed to hear.  The prayers and hymns in Spanish and English felt as if they were cracking open my heart so the words of the sermon could be felt.

Most days, I create worship services for others.  I know the limitations of a pastor in creating a worship service; and how easily Sunday becomes a habit instead an expectation of having your heart cracked open so you can feel.  Understanding how easy it is to forget to expect I will encounter God in worship, I treasure the moments I get to follow instead of lead because it changes my perspective.

Yesterday, I was given the privilege of sitting in a pew, a privilege I do not want to waste.  I learned how another worshipping community is living their faith and call to serve God and others.  I was reminded that I too am loved by God in all my brokenness, and in fact my brokenness is often used for good.   I tell this to others daily, but to hear it spoken to me was life giving.

Yesterday I was told I was loved by the God who created the sandstone beauty I saw and touched today.  I am not sure how to explain how I needed to be reminded that words I regularly proclaim to others are also for me.  But I did.

Thank you to the pastor and the community who welcomed me and reminded me I am loved too.

December 16, 2018

Sharing Space

I attend worship services alone every week, sometimes more than once a week.  My family attends our Sunday service and most of our special services, and yet I still feel alone each Sunday because they do not sit with me.  Most Sundays I do not talk to my family members until we are walking home after all the Sunday tasks are finished.  I am no different than clergy all over the world.  In fact, a whole lot of people who are single, widowed, or are the lone person in their family who attends religious services attend services alone.  It is because I attend services alone that the act of sitting next to someone during a worship service is such a profound experience.

Rarely do I get to enjoy the restlessness of a child in a pew, or feel another person lean into me to reach a hymnal.  Almost never do I have someone reach for my hand when a prayer, hymn, reading, or sermon moves them.  I do not share whispered words, elbows in the side, or pieces of hard candy with my spouse or children.  I do not know what my children’s singing voices sound like when blended with the voices in front or behind me, and I have no idea when my oldest child stopped singing in worship.

I am a leader of worship which means I sit alone, sing alone, and never feel the comfort of an arm around me on the back of a pew.  I get to watch the people in worship to make sure the details are happening as they need to, but I do not have the privilege of holding the hand of someone as they sit beside me.

Worship is a communal experience, which means we gather together, we sit together, and we learn together.  Worship as a communal experience means you know what the sigh from the person behind you means, or when the person in front of you is praying or nodding off.  Worship as a communal experience means there is joy in sharing space with others as you build memories and habits.

I rarely get to share space with my family in worship.  I have only a few memories of sitting with my children as they have grown up in the church.  I do not know which hymns make them tremble with emotion.  I do not know what their hands feel like clasped in mine.  I do not know what it feels like to have them squashed between my husband and I in a pew where people know to look for us.

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Sitting with my oldest child.

But today was one of those rare occasions when I did not sit alone.  Though we were not all together in the pew, three of us were, much like a typical Sunday.  On my left was my oldest, on my right my husband.  At one point he sighed, leaned into me, shifted and put his arm around me on the back of the pew and my tears were instantly at the surface.

I was not alone in worship.  I was between my child who no longer sings and my husband who sings with a confidence grown over years of communal worship.  For me today, this was an illustration of joy and goodness, the themes for this third week of Advent.  I hope as you share space in this world, whether it is in worship spaces or other places, you take a moment to appreciate the people surrounding you.  Pay attention to their sighs, their voices, their whispered words, and how it feels to have them lean into you.

Pay attention and give thanks.