Written 9/11
2022
A great place to meet someone you've only talked to online is at church... theirs, or some new place for both of you!
Today I met up with a Twitter mutual at her Orthodox church. This is now the 4th Orthodox church I've visited. Each has been slightly different (this one had pews and no rugs and stained-glass windows), but what I've loved about the services has remained true and steadfast.
I really do love the Orthodoxy churches, especially the A Cappella singing and long scripture readings. I've been having a hard time sitting down to focus on scripture reading these days. I just can't. A thought struck the other day: most people didn't use to read the Bible, but had it read to them. We modern Christians have been taught that we need much alone time to read and study. And I'm not necessarily against this. It just isn't working for me these days...
And yet I could sit and listen to just about anyone read passages to me for any amount of time.
Just for this I've considered joining the Orthodox church. And yet deep down I know that most of what I love about Orthodoxy would be lost to me if I were a member:
The feeling that I can belong even as a stranger, that I'm welcomed and wanted and that there are no cliques here, that someone will bring me a piece of bread so that I might also join their communion. This last part touches me greatly. I've visited dozens of churches of all denominations, and always sit out the communion. It is only the Orthodox churches that have made me feel as if I ought and should join them.
Just as they so often chant, "God is good and loves all mankind" so it feels they truly believe every person is deserving to sit beside them and to belong to our Messiah.
Today they read passages about John the Baptist, and how his head was served on a silver platter for the amusement of Herod's household. The priest announced, "At today's potluck there will be no plates. We do not eat off plates today to remember that John's head was cut off and put on a plate."
On my way home from church I passed under a bridge with many American flags draped over the sides and a sign that read "Never Forget!"
Forget what? It took me a moment to leave thoughts of the service to recall that this is a 9/11 slogan, and even why they might be hanging that up today.
A tad annoyed by the sight, I thought to myself. Why is it so important we remember a couple of tall buildings fell in NYC? Surely, we don't "remember" because of the people that died. If we did, we'd all be outraged over the innocent currently imprisoned underground the Land of the Free and Brave.
Or we'd remember he whose head was served on a silver platter today longer ago so that we would all know the Messiah and so that none of us might perish.
I thought back then to another part of the service, the very end, where they held a memorial. The funeral had already happened, but they had a liturgy of remembrance, calling for none to forget the deceased man.
The priest said, "It is not so you all don't forget that we hold this service. Your memories die quickly, as you too shall. It is for an anti I-do
-not-know-you. Jesus remembered Lazarus' name, but the rich man's name is forever forgotten. When we ask for this man to be remembered we are asking that God not say He never knew him."
And so, I look at the bridge and the men holding American flags, and I'm glad that I'm forgetting. Perhaps they too will forget war and vengeance, and instead remember how to sing, and join voices to shout, "Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
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