A Different Worship Rhythm

 

Moira River, Sunday July 12th Photo: Ruth Mundy

I'm old-school enough (or is that just old?) that I still appreciate the rhythm of what was once was called "The Lord's Day", the Sunday morning worship experience which was its sort of holy metronome, counting the beat of our spiritual lives. That had changed for most Canadians well before COVID, by absence, while the pandemic has thrown the rest of us out of kilter. We're recording our worship services at weird and wonderful times and folk can watch when they choose, where they choose, and presumably with a drink in hand...if they choose!

I provided the worship reflection and prayer for our congregational home the past couple of weeks and recorded it mid-week, outdoors. Why do so in an echoey and empty church sanctuary.

This morning we got out early for a paddle on the Moira River, north of Belleville where we experienced a measure of the silence and solitude about which I spoke. The congregation included a heavenly host of dragonflies, blue herons, kingfishers and a couple of muskrats. The beaver which slapped its tail nearby broke the silence in a way that we nearly baptized ourselves.

At one point Ruth offered "this is worship!" and she was correct -- as she always is, of course. We weren't worshipping what we saw, but what we saw and heard and experienced through all our senses ushered us into the presence of the Creator. For so long Christians have been suspicious of animism, as an inferior and even demonic form of worship. Indigenous peoples around the world have been converted and punished because they experienced the Creator in all things. Perhaps we can humble ourselves to appreciate what God had done and continues to offer through the multiplicity of creatures around us, the water, the air, the grassed and trees of the Earth.

I'll be there when Sunday worship resumes, but I'm appreciating the different rhythm in which I celebrate the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer in the beauty around me.