When Christians speak of the mystery of the incarnation, this is what they mean: for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, God has decided to be made known in flesh. Matter matters to God. The most ordinary things are drenched in divine possibility. - Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World
We moved this weekend, 3.4 miles down the street, to a lovely little condo situated on a suburban lake, within walking distance of the grocery store and a Greek restaurant and a sports bar where Todd is already planning to be for the Manchester United game this afternoon.
Thursday night before we moved, we asked a few close friends to come over and ask a blessing on our new home. I wrote up a prayer service, borrowing heavily from varying traditions, including our favorite prayers and Scriptures, boldly or brazenly writing down exactly what we wanted our friends to pray. They showed up and we prayed in each room, even in the bathrooms, friends standing in my shower, sitting on the toilet and the sink, crowded together and asking God to make God's presence known even here. In the kitchen we served each other bread and wine, sharing the Eucharist (it means "thanksgiving" which of course it does, you know?) for the first meal in our home.
Friday night people came to help us move. They paraded up and down the stairs and each time there were new people added to the train until thirty-five people were there and the truck was unloaded in as many minutes. Josh likened it to an Amish barn-raising and our new neighbors said "we saw all those people and thought this must be a church."
I tried to write last week about finding God in pain, in this hard, dry place that is certainly holy. And now it seems that if the worst of it can be holy, the rest of it can surely be as well.
Each box carried down all those steps and back up more was a blessing, sweat poured out for us.
I went to sleep Friday night in a bed assembled by friends who wanted another task, on the spot where 24 hours before people who love us had formed a circle and prayed for our rest.
I will stretch out regularly on my couch, placed and replaced and just two more inches to the left and no, that's not it and yes, there by someone who just gets me and saw me spinning among the chaos and directed me: "come tell us where you want it."
And I will look through windows that were washed and use bathrooms that were scoured by a friend I have failed before and will fail again and I'll think about grace and whose feet I can wash today.
The shower curtain in the bathroom will make me think of my friend, she who gave up two Saturdays in a row to help me pack and then unpack, who has made nearly every tedious task of the last four years bearable, standing in the shower curtain aisle at Target with me, longer than was reasonable, patiently saying to each one I pulled out, yes that looks good, and saying it again when I pulled the same one out for the third time before I decided.
The hideous yellow stain on my carpet, the mark that threatened to dampen my enthusiasm for my new home, now reminds me of the three women who got down on their knees to scrub, each with their own secret remedy, each laughing at defeat and suggesting that we leave a box on top of it.
The leftover beer in our fridge, intended as a mea culpa for showing up after the heavy lifting was done, but mostly reminding me that we have people who will sit on the floor between the boxes after everyone else has gone home and drink good beer and make plans for living intentionally and well and in the way of Jesus with us.
I don't know where I'm going with this, except that it seems important when we encounter God that we stop, gather up some rocks, and build an altar. A reminder that something holy has happened in this space. Sometimes we just wake up like Jacob did and need to announce, "Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!" (Genesis 28:16)
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