March 29th

The Spaces Between

The Spaces Between
Shortly after MCA’s Annual Delegate Sessions, Ruth Bergen Braun shared photos on Facebook of people interacting, praying and listening to one another. Apart from the surprise of seeing a photo of me with my hands in the air (what? I don’t speak with my hands!), it brought me joy to see Ruth’s caption, “The real "work" of gathering - conversations and more conversations.” Exactly what I was thinking!

I’d already decided that I was going to write about “The Spaces Between” and how difficult, yet gratifying, it is to get people to find their seats after a break. People wanted to engage with others! This shouldn’t come as news, because God created us to be in relationship with one another, to yearn for connections and to live in community.

Joining together at regional church gatherings creates spaces for this to happen: when we worship together, listen and focus on the laments and joys of our shared journey, we build community. When we learn of heavy hearts or of new-found hope and energy and bind that in prayer, the roots that we share grow deeper. When we explore new ways of thinking and being through interfaith relationships, through friendships with indigenous peoples, or through our schools, seeds sprout and the future of the church grows brighter. When we hear about decisions being deliberated in congregations and find commonalities amid differences, trust grows. When we find ourselves in conversations over a cup of tea about our love of gardening, food, curling or grandchildren, relationships live and breathe. Through this all, we discover points of intersection among our lives, our faith, our concerns and our callings.

Isn’t this what being in community is about? My ADS experience may have included only a handful of these encounters, but collectively, among all those gathered in each corner of the church, in deep conversations, in nods of understanding, in smiles and laughter, the church grew. I envision God looking over our gathering, blessing each group of two or three or more. I picture God’s joy for this time where we were living and being the community that God calls us to be.