I must be clear that this all happened a week ago, July 30, eighth Sunday after Pentecost on the liturgical calendar–or kalendar, if we’re being precious–Year A, Track 2. Everything would have different had it not been this specific Sunday in this long green season of Ordinary Time.
Just before I left for church, I closed an email as follows: “Where do you worship now? I’m on my way to St. Michael’s as soon as I close. It’s hard to feel part of a community when no one knows my name.” For more than a year, that whimper of despair has become a common theme in my various forms of communication. I have been attending the same parish since February of 2012. I know the date because the church was close to Rex Hospital, in whose waiting rooms and bedside chairs I spent innumerable hours in the succeeding four years. As I left the altar after receiving the Holy Eucharist, I stopped at the healing station and asked for prayer on behalf of my husband, who was recovering from one in a long series of medical treatments. Combined with the magnificence of the architecture, the stained glass, the organ, and the choir–and the spiritually and intellectually riveting sermon–this priestly laying on of hands led me to believe that I was home. Clearly, that was not the belief with which I set out last Sunday morning. Continue reading
