With you

Yesterday, we went to church.

The pandemic has impacted us all in so many ways as we weigh public health with all the other things that make life sustainable.

For people of faith, the loss of weekly mass in person and together created a hole to be filled. Churches found many different and innovative ways to fill and overcome the gaps. I find myself close to God often, but not always in a building. Church buildings being closed was not one of the things I grieved. However, going to our church, the same one I shared pews with friends and my grandparents, is now a place I find comfortable. As a child though, it was a place that felt less affirming and less engaging.

At some point, I have learned how to sit in it and how to find the beauty.

My children have not had to sit weekly in a pew. Mostly because of scheduling and mostly because I find God so often in my everyday life that church hardly occurs to me. The idea of worship seems sharp and dangerous to me, but reverence, humility, and grace seems necessary to fully live one’s life. I am twelve years into parenthood and still trying to figure out the balance.

Yesterday, my second born, received her first communion. We sat in a pew of our own with our household for this weekend: her Dad, two of three sisters, a grandmother, and myself. so much was different from four years before when her sister received– no hair appointment, no congregating for classes, no volunteering together in the basement, no shared meals, we didn’t even ask for H because honestly I don’t like the idea of the inside Mass right now. Loss accompanied gain, but there was still grace, reverence, and humility. Church was still church.

Now my favorite part of Mass has always been a part of liturgy where we pause to greet and shake hands with those surrounding us saying to each other, “Peace be with you.” Waving with gusto to those across the aisle with huge smiles. Taking the time to see other people. Holding my hand for a moment with their soft hands, calloused hands, firm grasp or dainty, their outfits that I take in, the wisp of their scent, and to find God in everybody.

There was no hand holding or shaking. No wishes of peace to each other.

And I almost didn’t realize the loss I was so focused on wrangling children and trying to coach a smile or one family photo. Which is hopeless– my people are show up, but not with the inner strength to smile through their uncomfortableness they have in church these days.

And so, hours later, when I realized my own loss, I sent my warm thoughts and hopes of peace to all the bodies that shared that room with me. Peace be with you.

I whispered in my head the prayer as we have an email saying H will miss a trip to Florida. It is not our time and while I would choose family and memories over school every time– I can’t expect her mother to support it. We’ll mourn again. She doesn’t have traditions that came before her or a sense of extended family to navigate with H. She doesn’t want H to have grandparents in the way that I do. It is heavy and sad and a loss, but it isn’t fixable. H will have to decide herself how she feels about the people in her life– I just have to live with it either way. I’ll keep the light on always. Peace be with you.

To a whole country watching a murder trial that hold so much heartache and fuels outrage that is warranted. A knee. A neck. a life given no mercy. A man who should not have been able to do this. To everyone watching and to hoping this loss with bring us finally to true change. Peace be with you.

To my Ex who hurts and makes others hurt. May you pay your pound of flesh and end the destruction. For M. For your little H. For their mothers. May we have peace from now on. Peace be with you.

To all we have lost and rebuilt and shuffled and learned from these strange times. May we hug soon. Peace be with you.

I will start my day with the ritual of coffee brewing and small feet shuffling down the hall. I’ll let the hum of iPads and make believe and later the groans over chores fill Sunday. I’ll try to not let myself spend such long gaps between time in pews. And I’ll remember to wish us peace and remind myself that even though the two people I wish saw us as a part of God working on things in our children’s lives, but just never do, that there is enough grace in the world it won’t matter. And I will work of acceptance and trust of the fact that just has to be leading somewhere I can’t fully see yet.

Peace be with you.