Church Cancelled Again!

For the second time this month, and maybe only the third or fourth time in what I know of our church's history, a weather advisory has caused a cancellation.  Both times I was scheduled to play the organ.  Last time, my Christmas music will need to wait a year.  This time, I'll just play what I practiced next week.

Last week I had little enthusiasm for leaving home and going to church.  I had no duties; Jim was ushering.  We had missed church services for two weeks due to the first cancellation and then the trip to Houston for Hank's memorial service.

I sat down, listened to Carolyn's lovely prelude,  and looked around me.  I saw so many people I knew and loved.  I saw parents snuggling with children.  I got tearful and felt grateful for our church community and was so glad to be there--even before the service started!  Later it was good to sit next to my husband and to sing with him and pray with him at church.  The sermon made me think about God's going with us as the "I Am."

And then there was the evening Mosaic service with the baptism by immersion of six young people from two families.  Again, it was the spontaneous gesture of support of one father to his 7th grade daughter--an arm around her shoulder as she waited her turn to be baptized--that brought tears to my eyes.  Why?  I'm not sure.  Jim says maybe it was the thought of a Christian family trying to raise their children in faith in somewhat uncertain circumstances.  I thought maybe the idea that they are all so young and have so much ahead of them and so many secular influences in their future as our own children have had.  It was a gift to all of us that they were willing to be baptized and the immersion was a dramatic touch.

In retirement, I think about how good it would be to live nearer our children and grandchildren on the East coast.  As long as Jim keeps working and his mother needs us, we won't move.  Our church is our community and that too would keep us here.

I read a quote in the Economist (a gift to Jim from Laura and Michael) from Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian polymath, as it calls him:  "It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport."  I don't agree with the quote, but for today, I'll enjoy being home, looking out at the white world, and try to think of God!