Praise & Worship-at-home…

Trying to praise and worship the Lord at home is difficult.

Traditional church used to make it so easy for me!

I’d trot off to mass on Sundays and Holy Days and all at once I’d be in another place that smelled faintly of incense;

A Sacred, Holy Space.

WorshipStP

Now, with the churches closed down I am cast adrift…

When news of live streaming came I told myself,

“If you can tap into a yoga class at home…surely you can have a go at praise and worship…?”

Deep in my heart I harbored doubt…

My parents hadn’t instilled in me the pray-at-home ethic…we went to church and left God there…where He belonged.

Without the discipline of scheduled services in a nave that had been set apart, praise and worship could very easily slip right off my table…

WorshipTable

However, something had been tucked away in my heart for just this moment.

I had followed my paternal grandmother up the hill to morning mass every day when I visited as a child…

I marveled at the straight seams in her stockings…

and while I marveled I learned about devotion.

I didn’t realize how much of her had rubbed off on me until I began attending mass after college and started calling my own worship shots.

I fell in love with Jesus…

the rhythm of the liturgy…

the bells and smells.

I never looked back.

And now I was being asked to virtually attend mass at home,

not only that, I was being asked to do so via a medium I wasn’t at all familiar with…

Facebook!

How could I?

My home did not smell faintly of incense,

nor could it be described as Sacred or Holy.

But those are excuses that may have held water during my Wildflower Academy days with four young children hovering around my knees.

I’m at Footlights now…

I can light candles and burn incense and the fields and woods and trees and exquisite single roses

AlleluiasRose

couldn’t be more Holy or Sacred to me.

Church has been deployed,

The people have left the building,

and if I wanted to fully participate in my favorite season of the year I was going to have to follow my grandmother up the hill.

Streaming church was rough at first but Hubs and I persevered.

We don’t sing hymns during our daily devotions,

We don’t shout ‘Amens’ or ‘Alleluias’,

We don’t wave our arms in the air and sway with our eyes closed,

We just don’t consider ourselves evangelicals…at least we didn’t!

But now, with an extra hour in bed on a Sunday morning,

pleasantly distracted by my pot of tea and trio of cats,

we have grown used to an empty sanctuary on my laptop waiting to be filled with prayer and organ music as fellow parishioners join us in the comments.

After four weeks we’re singing along.

Yesterday Hubs made palms from Iris leaves.

WorshipPalms

On Maundy Thursday at the end of a beautiful service we sat in our quiet place on the front porch, our Gethsemane, where we kept watch with Jesus and felt warmly connected to our church family at St. Peter’s, McKinney.  

And when the solemnities are over…

On Easter Sunday…

with freshly baked bread,

an Italian Wedding Cake and

chocolate eggs for anyone who joins us virtually as we all Shelter-at-Home,

we’ll sing out

“Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”

“The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!”

And that something that had been tucked away in my heart for just this moment will wave her arms and gently sway with eyes closed

in Jubilation!

 

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