A Virtual Church

People of the Creed

March 2, 2020

 There may have been 70 of us gathered in worship today. We are not present in this church often, as we live in another town, but we feel part of this community. We share our lives before the service starts. Catch up on family goings on. How the crops are doing. How the twins are. Who has vertigo and migraines and I feel one with them in the human condition we share. I am bound to them in love. All the Linda-s and all the others.

Today in the order of worship when we stood to recite the Apostle’s Creed, as we always do in that little church, I was swept away in the power of the act. Recitation by rote or heart; quiet reverent voices who knew the words spoke a faith that millions have spoken through the years. I thought in that moment of my Grandmother in the Ayden Methodist Church speaking those words. I thought about Russian Christians who had spoken those words even under oppression. The words and the faith expressed in them have endured for centuries, even while the world drifts from mystery and faith to deconstruction, rationalization, and what today is called fake news.

As a person of faith, I needed this affirmation today. I needed to speak it and hear others speak it. The world I live in seems so shaken… by politics, 24-hour news cycles, bombardment of messaging and face book and email and instagram and twitter. Life seems like a Tilt-a Whirl. I can hardly hold on. Remembering and reciting the Creed brought me home.

This afternoon as I sat in a chair overlooking a beautiful river, I prayed. Lord, make me a gentle spirit. Give me kind words. Let me love fully and forgive endlessly and always remember that you are maker of heaven and earth. You are creator, begotten, Lord, Savior and even in this Lenten season when I know the suffering that comes, I also know Resurrection is right behind it. Be with us, Lord. Amen.

---