Glimpes of God - Day Twenty

It's seem appropriate to share this glimpse of God on a Monday, because mainly this glimpse happens for me on Sunday mornings or Monday evenings.

It's not a place I would have imagined seeing God three years ago. Faith communities require being together in person, right? Gathered with our bodies in the same physical space. That's what church is, right?

Except three years ago, we discovered it wasn't the only way to do church.

We could gather online, each of us in our own homes, caring for ourselves and our community by remaining apart. We could still be church with and for each other. It was weird; it was hard; and it was heart-breaking, But there was also joy. 

I remember the moment I introduced myself to Jessie Mantle. We'd never met in-person. When she'd been able to attend in-person she always went the 8:00 am service, and I attended the 10:00 am. She hadn't been able to attend in-person for the previous couple of years because of health issues.  The joy that Jessie expressed at being able to gather for worship with her faith community because we were meeting on Zoom was palpable through the computer screen. 

It's why I'm at the tech desk every Sunday, making sure our community is accessible and inclusive in ways we didn't understand we needed to be before the pandemic taught us that lesson. Every Sunday morning, I see a glimpse a God in the faces in the boxes on my computer screen, in the richness of the discussions that happens during Sunday Reflections, in people caring for each other. 

I see a similar glimpse of God on Monday evenings in the two connected but separate, online contemplative spirituality groups that I've started attending. They meet alternating weeks, one is only for those who are part of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, the other includes space for our allies. I've never met any of these people in-person, and given that we're scattered across the continent, it's unlikely I will for most of them. 

But are they are part of my faith community? Most definitely. They've helped me rediscover parts of my faith I thought I needed to throw away when I figured out I was queer. I see glimpses of God in the patchwork quilt of those faces, in how each of us has chosen to cling to faith despite so many stories of hurt, stories of churches pushing us away because of something we can't change, stories of choosing to believe when it would have been easier to walk away. 

I'll leave you with the graphic I created for our Lectio Divina practice one evening which does tie back to my Sunday glimspes of God because I was introduced to the author by someone who was in my Sunday boxes on my screen.