I have a lot of posts in the queue in my brain waiting to be written, stemming from a night of homeless ministry in Lima, some random thoughts, and the 4 days of our Parent Vision Trip last week. However, it might take a while for them to get written down since this is the first day in…10 days, probably, that I’ve had a minute to sit and just be. To let my brain rest and absorb and contemplate and organize.
All day, I’ve thought I was going to be writing a Music on the Race post. It’s been a while since the last one and I had a song powerfully come into my head during our last night of PVT.
But then after dinner, a squad mate and I dropped in for a few minutes of the Holy Thursday mass at the church next to our hostel.
It has been two months since I’ve gotten to go to any church service and four months since I’ve been in a “traditional” church service. That’s a long time. We do plenty of worship and reflection and even held our own Ash Wednesday service after ministry at the Starfish Foundation in Ecuador. But for me at least, there is something so special about being in a church.
When my parents and I were sightseeing in downtown Lima, we took some time to sit and pray in la Iglesia Santo Domingo, a truly gorgeous edifice. It was so refreshing and peaceful inside, compared to the hustle and bustle of downtown. Some combination of my love for architecture and my growing up in a church that had its own building makes me feel so at home in cathedrals.
So today, as I was rejoicing in the columns and altar and pews and the recitation of the Lord’s prayer, I realized I had to write about this. How beautiful is it to set aside places for God. How meaningful is it to have a sanctuary where the statues and paintings are all covered in Maundy Thursday remembrance. How amazing to see the depths of human creativity being used to glorify God. How precious to hear a roomful of people praising and thanking our Lord.
I value my varied experiences in tiny churches, house churches, pizzeria churches, outdoor churches over the Race. They have been meaningful and taught me a lot in their own way. But I have missed the feeling that comes from witnessing a crowd all participating in sacred rituals because they love God that much.
I have missed that feeling of home that church provides me.
