The Way We Were – the Things We Took for Granted

As I paged through some of my Flickr albums today, I began to take note of the things I had recorded in photos that seemed so common and unimportant at the the time but which, now, we miss utterly. I will share some of these over the next few days and maybe you can think of how your own life has changed since the middle of March, 2020.

It is Sunday and, once again, Chapelwood has delivered a service online as a way of reaching out to those who are not yet brave enough to venture out even for the limited in-person service they have offered for the last few weeks. But there are things you miss about the live service.

Being in the same room with a couple of hundred singing, praying, preaching Methodists offers an atmosphere – maybe more accurately an emanation – comprising the combined exhalations of the people in the room. On first noticing it, you think that maybe you are smelling your own breath. But none of the mingled scents match up with last night’s dinner or the morning breakfast. You have not had a garlic bagel. No onions, cilantro, spicy border dishes or chewing gum. It isn’t exactly halitosis, nor is it particularly unpleasant. But it is perhaps a little more intimate than you expect in a worship service.

But, on the other hand, maybe the shared breath is indicative of the very foundation of our lives and the need we have reaching out and establishing the intensity and depth of our community. It is the same breath we read that God breathed into the dust of the ground to create life.

It may seem musty, stale, unpleasant – even unhealthy – until it is gone. But you find, that for now, the virus has the upper hand and we must stand back. Methodist breath carries droplets that, in a crowded sanctuary, carry the threat of coronavirus. It is an intimacy that you miss when it is taken away.

There is still the yearning to reach out the hand of fellowship to your sisters and brothers in that experience of oneness under the rule of one who taught us to live simply, to live in community, to love, and to share.