For weeks after leaving Chestertown, I have avoided going to church on Sunday morning. I have touted a long list of excuses. I am exhausted after a week of 4:30 AM wake-up calls and Army reveille. More than this, in chaplain school, we pray multiple times each day, and listen to daily sermons. Doesn’t that somehow count toward Sunday worship? When the weekend rolls around, the last thing I want to do is force myself to pray and worship in a way that doesn’t feel authentic to my own tradition. There are no Iona worship booklets or hymns from the Scottish hymnary, or even any hymns from a hymnal. Most of the worship available on post is geared toward a more contemporary, evangelical audience. I do love a well played guitar, but, throughout my entire life, Sunday morning has been reserved for something else, something different. In my heart, of course, I know that I have been avoiding Sunday worship so that I might avoid the heartache I feel over moving away from home and being separated from my church family.
Last weekend, while I was visiting the town where I went to college, I decided it was time to break my streak of church skipping and face reality. My college minister is a rector at a local Episcopal church and though it wouldn’t be the same as going to church at home, reconnecting with her and my liturgical roots, would be special. I arrived as the service began and the announcement was made that my friend, the priest, would be away on a Sabbatical. I had a split second to stay or leave. As disappointed as I was not to see this friend and worship with her, I had a feeling that I had come into that sacred space for another reason altogether.
I spent the first half of my life in the Episcopal church. The prayers, creeds and liturgy drawn from the Book of Common Prayer are the first words I learned to articulate God and faith. Each week, from the time I was old enough to escape the nursery, these prayers were grafted upon my heart before I knew what any of it meant. “Lift up your hearts,” “Walk in love,” and “Send us now into the world in peace...with gladness and singleness of heart,” these phrases, and many more, are the threads which have bound my faith from childhood, and no matter how I may have grown as a follower of Christ, no matter how many other words I have learned, these first ones remain a part of me.
I was reminded of my own enthusiasm for church when I was a young, as I watched a pre-schooler take part in the liturgy of the Holy Eucharist. Throughout the Great Thanksgiving she stood intently in the aisle of the church, pretending, herself, to be the priest. Facing the altar, she made priestly gestures as the prayers were read-- the sign of the cross, a raised hand, and a dramatic bow as the bread was blessed. She may not know the details of what it all means, but she knew that whatever it was taking place in these moments, it was sacred.
As we all gathered around the Communion rail, small, smooth hands as well as the older, wrinkled ones, reaching out for a bit of the bread of life, a taste of that spiritual food, the sacrament of body and blood, I realized why I had come. Participating in this meal was just the reminder I needed. No matter where I am in the world, home is only as far as the pilgrims who gather to break bread and share cup around God’s table. I found this table long ago. Before I even understood what it meant, I lifted my hands to be fed, knowing whatever was taking place around this table, it was a means of finding fuller life. I am grateful, even through my homesickness and tears, to remember this and find my voice again so I can give God thanks and praise.
