In this place

Did you know the word “Conspire” means to breathe together?  Take a breath, now blow it out again.  There! You have just launched a conspiracy.  You can hear the word “spirit” in there too – to conspire – to be filled with the same spirit, to be enlivened by the same wind….

What happens between us when we come together to worship God is that the Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us, knitting us together through the songs we sing, the prayers we pray, the breaths we breathe.

                                                                        Barbara Brown Taylor,  Home by Another Way

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Tomorrow I will gather together with the saints and sinners who make up

Lostine Presbyterian Church

We aren’t sure who the saints are, nor the sinners

We just know we are there

Together

It is a motely crew that gathers in this small church

In the middle of nowhere,

the center of the universe (the motto of a local brewery)

sometimes only a dozen people may show

at other times, a goodly crowd

retired folk

hard working farmers

young people, trying to scratch out a living

in place with more beauty than jobs

children whose energy fills the room

and who find hiding behind the pulpit

is great fun

some are conservative

some are liberal

some are born Presbyterians

(fourth generation members of the church)

others have straggled in from Methodist, Episcopalian, and Baptist Churches

and everywhere in between

we have people who know what they believe

and people who wonder if they believe

we sing, a lot

we praise God in spoken liturgy

and we approach God in moments of silence

we talk and we listen

and we pray, a lot

we pray for ourselves

we pray for those we love

we pray for those whose friends and families have asked us to pray for them

for literal strangers, whose needs have somehow found their way into this space

and we breathe

for the air is permeated with Sacred

we breathe in, and we breathe out

and the Spirit moves

between us

“the Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us,

knitting us together through the songs we sing,

the prayers we pray, the breaths we breathe.”

It is indeed a conspiracy

A conspiracy of love

That comforts the afflicted

And afflicts the comfortable

That soothes the tired soul of the farm widow in her 90’s

And lifts the soul of the single mom

And enlivens the very young (as if they need to be enlivened)

And in this place

All means all

And love is simply love, no strings attached

In this place

As our sign says,

we do grace

We do real

We do mistakes

We do  “I am sorry”

We do laughter

We do family

We do hugs

We do love

Tomorrow I will gather with saints and sinners

“to be filled with the same spirit,

to be enlivened by the same wind”

and as that wind blows,

I will become connected to all others in that place

through God.

And I will become connected to God through those people

and I will never be the same.