The Return

 Since North Carolina Governor Cooper imposed the stay-at-home order, my husband and I have been attending church by facebook in the comfort of our living room. It was different, but it was still the body of Christ meeting with each other. I learned that "Church" does not refer to a building. The church I attend is the meeting place of the congregation. We are the church.

Here's Littlejohn United Methodist Church where I am a member. It's a small, family oriented church with a storied history dating as far back as 1775. 

The governor announced recently that North Carolina would be moving into phase 2.5 of the CoronaVirus safety measures. Our church chose to reopen, although under strict guidelines.

We didn't greet each other at the door. I missed that most of all during the six months absence. 

We didn't pass the peace of Christ to each other.

We didn't pass the collection plate either.

The choir didn't sing. 

What we did was sit in pews that were designated as socially distant from one another. 

We waved at each other.

We wore masks. Strange how I could tell someone was smiling even if the mask tried in vain to hide all emotions.

The congregational hymns were played from the minister's personal sound system. We could not touch the hymnals, but that didn't matter. The songs we sang were the old familiar ones, comforting us all. Okay. A mask might muffle the noise, but let me tell you when Victory in Jesus started playing, none of us could resist joining along. The result was a quiet, prayerful sound that I will always remember.

Years ago I interviewed a man a hundred and five years old. His grandmother, a former slave to a family in our same congregation, raised him. She told him many stories that he passed along to me, but the one that stuck in my mind was the blanket singing at the little black church back in the woods. Once a year the congregation of slaves and freed blacks draped blankets outside the church building to make a path that circled around. Then the congregation walked around the church seven times, as in Biblical Jericho when the walls came tumbling down. I thought the blankets were to delineate the path, but no. He explained they were to muffle the sound of their singing as they marched.

Slave owners, fearful that secret messages were being passed by the slaves in the fields singing as they toiled, would not permit any singing. None, and that included Sundays. 

The human spirit can adapt, and these people did. They sang on and on and on, only they sang into buckets, or blankets. Faith can move mountains.

So last Sunday when I was singing into my mask, I thought of those who had their songs muffled nearly two centuries ago. What God has set in place, let not man put asunder!

Catch of the day,

Gretchen