Today I Am Filled...With Spirit

Charlotte and I drove down to Denver today from our mountain perch in Evergreen. We were doing something new in our marriage - going to church - and no one was dead or getting married. We were just going because the Spirit was calling us to go. Or we were just curious what Pastor Nadia was up to at the House For All Sinners and Saints. Or Spirit and curiosity might be the same thing. Who knows?

We drove around the block a few times just so we wouldn't be too early. BTW, the service started at 4 PM so everyone out late last night had time to recover. Finally when we saw the guy with the conga drum go in, we figured that was our cue. It was gray, cold and snowing as we dashed from car to the main entrance of peeling white paint.

Its an old red brick church from 1902 on the corner of Bannock and 5th. With a stately steeple that has presided over who knows how many Sunday Potlucks in the basement. Now it is mostly used by the local Native American community who are kind enough to let HFASS use it on Sundays.

We enter to incense and a sense of purpose. The photo shows a collage that was created over several Sundays of Advent. In person it is just about life size. It served as the backdrop for the alter (card table) in the midst of circular pews (chairs). The inside is empty of its past - no pews or formal alter or cross or statues. But it might have been the holiest church I've been in. It was filled with purpose and belief. Not just folks going through the routine Sunday abulations, but folks really conspiring to find god.

Readings, singing, prayers, incense, and Eucharist (the Greek noun eukharistia (εὐχαριστία) derives from eu- "well" + kharis "favor, grace". Eukharisteo (εὐχαριστῶ) is the usual verb for "to thank" in the Septuagint and New Testament, see Wikipedia for more}. Charlotte cried. When she prays, she let's it all out.

The sermon was great. About how everything changes with god. change in the world. obama. materialism and being tired of it. Psalms 62:10.

As for me, I didn't cry. I was kind of tense actually. I get tense in new situations. And conspiring to find god, to let god in, to feel well, in favor and with grace, to participate in worship with actual people, these are new situations of a very heightened sort for me.

But I was glad to be there. Glad to be there with Charlotte. Glad to receive communion from Pastor Nadia.

Glad god was still there after all these years, letting me in.

Namaste.