By Kate Noonan
Welcome back to the world. We’ve opened up. You can tell by the scurrying frenzy displaying itself in the awesome amount of traffic both around town and on the highways. I wonder where we are going, enmasse, in such a hurry? There some great attraction we are headed to that alludes me.
I’ve found I miss the slower pace we had adopted. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled to have more freedom. I am excited for restaurants, schools, libraries, nursing homes, hospitals, churches and the like to open their doors. Being sequestered at home got old.
The screeching halt of our lives caused by the pandemic allowed me more time to be with God. I adopted a daily meditation practice which changed my life. I watched online church services from all around the country. In some ways sitting in front of the computer at a service was easier than attending in-person. And then there were the days I played solitaire in the middle of the service feeling disconnected and unsatisfied.
I’ve headed back to in-person services. I recently assisted at a baptism. As a chaplain at a nursing home I’m once again transport residents to religious services. I do individual in person spiritual care. My multifaceted ministry feels better live. Witnessing the power of God in worship and through other people is both inspirational and humbling.
One of the joyous experiences of community is being known. I gain a clearer vision of myself in the eyes of others. Their vision illuminates both my worth and my growth edges. I’ve felt community wrapping itself around my humanness and loving me into wholeness.
More often than I care to admit, my head is not a safe neighborhood. My busy ego likes to inform me of innumerable things I should have, could have or to need to do. My interior dialogue is unkind. The harsh internal voice I hear I would never use to address someone else. An acronym for ego is: Easing God Out. My ego is most certainly not the voice of God. My chattering mind often obscures the glorious possibilities born of faith. I need voices that are not my own to help me see the love I receive, the love I give and to quiet the voice of my ego.
Dorothy Day, the famous Catholic activist, wrote: “ We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” We are still coming out of the long loneliness of the pandemic. How about making a visit to your faith community as an antidote to the loneliness? Come to celebrate, come to lament, come to be with God in community. Each congregation is the sum of its parts and it needs you to be whole.
