Sabbath Rest and Reflection

It is early afternoon on Sunday and I am gently bubbling in the liturgical afterglow. We were summer scant today, seven in the pews, and many gone who normally fill the Sunday tasks. So I was priest, preacher and acolyte to myself, and altar guild after service. Took communion to my healing shut-in, who, praise be, thinks she will be among us again soon. So now all is tended and tucked away, the worshippers fed on word and sacrament, coffee, cake and fellowship and sent out to be the church in the world. I am a bit weary. Sermon-writing Saturdays after a full work-week take an energy toll, even when supported by spirited RevGals both blog-ly and physically present, to provide encouragement, inspiration, distraction and a good laugh. But if a long day of sermonizing is the price of admission to preach and celebrate the Eucharist I will pay it joyfully. For the Spirit had my back today. The 1752 words of the sermon became more than they were on paper, came alive, took flight. Not of my doing. I allowed, enjoyed and marveled at it all. Twenty-two minutes, the person whom I asked to time it told me. Worth every minute, she said. Unsolicited. And when we got to the Lord's prayer in the service, I thought I just might levitate, the prayer was so immediate and vibrant and real.

My healing shut-in person has been struggling, we have been praying. She tells me just this week, she not only feels better physically but has this sense of Presence-with-her that she has been missing for a long time. She says that just this week she needed comfort and felt drawn to the Lord's Prayer "for some odd reason." I got to hold the baby I baptized on Easter, who is her youngest granddaughter, and to preach an impromptu children's sermon to the baby's big sister "almost five" who asked what my OneEpiscopalian bracelet meant.

Here I have been looking for bread and eggs and fish, but God has given me God's indwelling Spirit. Imagine that.