At Trinity

"Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name." — Psalm 100:1-4

I was at Trinity this morning and it was good to be there.

Last Sunday I was not, and the Sunday was good too, but a different kind of good, the way a meal at home is good and a meal at someone else's table is good and neither one is better but they are not the same thing.

The hymn this morning was one I have known since I was a girl and I sang it without looking at the book because the words are in my body now, not in my head, the way the Lord's Prayer is in my body, the way the creed is. You say a thing enough times and it moves from your mind to your mouth to whatever is underneath both of those, and then it is yours.

Edna was in her pew. I was in mine. Pastor Holloway preached on something I have already half-forgotten, which is not a comment on the sermon but on the fact that I am seventy-seven and Sunday sermons settle into me the way rain settles into the garden, which is slowly and without announcement.

I shook hands at the door. I drove home. I put on the soup. The day is doing what Sunday does, which is carry me from the morning to the evening without asking me to do anything remarkable, and I am grateful for it.

The Fourth is yesterday now and it passed the way it always does, which is loudly for everyone else and quietly for me, and the dogs are settled again and the town will go back to normal by tomorrow.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.