Morning Worship

This morning in worship at church I was reminded of a childhood memory. (I've been thinking back to my childhood a lot lately, and have been pulling up, almost redeeming, all of these great memories. Each time I think of one I consider it a favourite, but there is getting to be too many for favourites...!) What triggered my memory this morning was seeing the kids in the few rows ahead of me. They were sitting with their parents, some just beside, some sitting right next to mom or dad, putting their small weight on dad's arm or mom's lap. Then there were the little one's, probably around or under the age of one, just being held close to mom or dad or maybe having been passed to another, spreading the joy and care of the little one.

All this reminded me of my own experiences as a child, being able to be in complete comfort and rest sitting beside my mom or my dad, resting my small body on their presence. Sometimes mom and dad would encourage me to engage and sing, to hold the hymnal or do the actions with the kids songs. Sometimes mom and dad would get me in trouble for acting out or being distracting. Sometimes they would just let me close my eyes and rest on them. Sometimes mom would have some gum for me to chew in her purse, or even better a pad of paper and a pen which I could write on or draw pictures. Sometimes I would play a finger game with dad, the one in which I would try to quickly put my finger under dads thumb and he would try to catch it.

Why did all this come up, why did all of this mean something to me today? This past year its really been on my heart that our morning worship service is corporate, that we are there together as a group of people: we sing together, stand and sit together and the musicians play together. But I often wonder how together we are? And it's not so much a question of are we together, but that I've been feeling like whatever together we have, there should be a little more or to a greater degree. Often I see people raise hands in worship, I do this too sometimes. And yes, as I said we sing together and in a sense raise hands together. But, when the music is playing and we are singing, I more often have the urge to put my arm around the friend beside me and praise God together in joy and friendship... or let my arm be a comfort, of love and solidarity, or sometimes I long for the arm of another to come around me when I'm feel low and dry and broken. I've had this urge over the past two years, but few times do I follow it through, it just seems a bit foreign in the usual ritual of morning worship, to be able to do this casually and naturally.

I guess seeing the kids resting and being with their parents this morning reminded me of this comfort of love I had during worship as a child, and of the longing I've had to be more at one with the people around me during worship. One of my favourite times of my day here at university is before meals, when we all hold hands and have a reading together and then pray together (not your typical university, I know eh?). It's a ritual we all participate in whether we are having a bad day or a good day, whether we listen to the prayer or not. But it brings us together. We are not islands, and even if we sometimes feel like we are, we are still connected by the embrace of the sea.