In the Midst

               Ordinations are a big deal.  They involve: bishops, rehearsals, vestments, bulletins, choirs, rows of clergy, hotel reservations for family, plane tickets for seminary friends, chartered buses for church members, liturgical preparations and more.  Not to mention the mountains of essays, hours of interviews, years of seminary and copious amounts of prayer.  It is a life-changing experience one never forgets. 

                So I was excited on Friday to get to attend an ordination at our own church.  The assistant priest or curate who came to our church right in the middle of a pandemic had completed her time as a transitional deacon and was getting ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.  Much would be different.  Instead of a filled cathedral we would be on lawn chairs in carefully spaced circles outside.  Instead of bulletins we would find the responses on our phones.  Instead of singing together there would be a cantor inside the building with a microphone for us to hear him.  Seminary friends, former parishioners and family would follow a link to a live stream online.  But we still put on our vestments, wore our red stoles and processed with the Bishop. 

                We sat under a clear October Colorado sky and said the responses under our masks.  The Bishop preached a great sermon and everything was beautiful.  And even though there were many aspects of a typical ordination service missing, there were also many added sights and sounds unique to this experience.  The bishop’s inspiring words about calling and a persevering hope that love will win occasionally had the background music of a car driving by with the bass turned way up.  Claire’s ordination vows were spoken over chatter from patio diners at the restaurant across the street.  As the cantor sang, joggers and dog walkers looked at us from over the chain link fence.  The bright red vestments made those driving by turn their heads.  It was an ordination just as it should be … right in the midst of life. 

                Our sturdy churches hold stunning art in their stained glass and perfect acoustics for singing which makes for powerful worship, but our ministry is predominantly done out in the ordinary, in the midst of the chaos, beside the preoccupied and next to the distracted.  During these days of social distancing I have been meeting pets, seeing art work and getting college dorm room tours over youth group zoom meet ups.  Instead of youth group lunch after worship I am meeting up with teens in their neighborhoods for masked walks for catching up and thinking about God together.  Our relationships are no longer dependent on our building and we know more about each other’s daily lives. 

                School is also a very changed experience in our house these days.  I hear the teachers teaching, I listen to my kid’s responses and their classroom is sometimes the living room, sometimes the back porch and sometimes the desks we set up in their bedrooms.  Worlds have converged.  Some days it feels stifling, some days I feel like I can’t spend one more second in the walls of my house, but some days I see the ways in which these circumstances have deepened my relationships- relationships with my kids, my husband, my church, the kid’s school, the teens I work with and my friends.  Sometimes turning inward actually broadens our horizon.  Sometimes being forced out of normal circumstances challenges us to clarify our calling and focus on what matters.  And sometimes when we are pushed out of our familiar spaces we find that we are right where we need to be and right where the Holy Spirit is busy at work. 

photo by Steve Starr