Church?
Chapter 9: An Assembly of Life
This is week nine of nineteen.
Each week, one chapter of my book, Trusting How We See.
Ancient rivers know
what temples have forgotten:
how to simply flow.
The root of the word church was never a building. It was an assembly of all of life.
Look around. Rivers assemble. Roots find each other underground and pass nutrients to strangers. The Milky Way is a congregation of two hundred billion suns. Geese fly in formation because no single bird can make the journey alone. A baby beluga surfaces to breathe beside its mother.
Gathering is what life does, at every scale and in every form.
And as far as we know, in this whole vast universe, we are the ones who get to be alive.
The morning sun beckons us from our slumber. The smell of fresh coffee steams from its pot. The purr of a cat on your chest. Bees buzzing on a honeysuckle bush. The sound of uncorking a bottle of red wine in the evening. A gentle kiss on your neck. Falling asleep next to the love of our life. Struggle and hope, often in the same week.
Can you believe the lottery we’ve won, to be alive for this brief gorgeous moment? Ours to see and smell and taste. To take a deep breath and let our senses take in this delicious feast, called life.
And we get to be assembled with all of it.
Somewhere along the way, the gathering got a name and a roof. The gathering got smaller. It needed a building. It needed a door. It needed a roster of who belonged inside.
Who gets to claim the gathering?
We all do. It’s ours to live and feast on.
Wherever life finds life, assembled in a living room, on a trail, at a table, under open sky.
Isn’t that the oldest church there is?
P.S. If you’re looking for a space to reconnect with this grand gathering of life, or if you’re sitting with your own questions about meaning, presence, and what comes after the religion you grew up with, I have a few open spots for one-on-one spiritual guidance. If you want a listening ear and a guiding voice in your own season of struggle, hope, and wonder, message me. I’d love to talk.