Going Off the Air

As mentioned in a previous post, our church home for the past seven years since moving back to NH is going off the air. That may strike you as a mixed metaphor (a home and a TV broadcast), but confusing images seems suitable. The event is so jangling, so dissonant, that the only way to describe it may well be to compare apples to elephants.

I found myself driving home from work tonite realizing that soon, for the first time in a long time, I'm going to have to think about where, and with whom, I will be worshiping on a Sunday morning. For many people I suppose that an odd choice (I suspect most people don't worry much about what to do on a Sunday morning), but it makes sense when you realize that throughout my adult life my most meaningful relationships have always been found through the churches we attend. Work relationships were good, because I get along with most everyone. But the friendships I formed at church have always been the most important and significant. It has been at church that I formed the most foundational aspects of my identity, and at church that I perform what I believe to be my most important labor outside the work I do with and for my family.

 Tomorrow is the day we throw the going away party.

We will gather for a final worship service, to hear the Word, to share the Meal, to make our offerings together. Then we will gather on a high grassy ridge overlooking the Merrimack Valley and have a picnic. We'll eat, and there will be talking and laughing, likely some crying, and more eating and talking. We are good at talking (and eating), so that also fits.

We have plans to meet again periodically through the summer on Wednesday afternoons, as has been our custom over the past years, but these will not be worship services. That part of our fellowship officially ends tomorrow.

I'm still unsure this is right. I think it is, but feel it isn't, and I don't know quite what to make of that. I have no fear or worry about the future. I am confident that it will turn out all right. I just don't like the way the notes are sounding right now. The chord seems all wrong and I can't sense how the composer will resolve the piece.

I have given some thought to why this is all happening. Stay tuned. Analysis later.