by Lisa Neef
[This is the final part of a series of six reflections on finding Christian Community in a new city. You can view Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here and Part 5 here.]
December: God is full of surprises. With an Italian couple from the Crazy Bible Study, I’ve been attending the local Catholic church. It is here where I’ve found –for the first time since I left Toronto, and flying obscenely in the face of my 22 years of good Lutheran upbringing– reverence for the God who gives and takes away.
The people who attend are not all white, and not all couples, and not averse to talking to strangers. Worship is steeped deeply in scripture, and it is beautiful to know that every other Catholic on the planet that Sunday is reading the same passages.
The mystery of God, for what seems like the first time, is considered, meditated-upon and basked-in. And, when I come for after-church coffee, and find that they all look like they just fluttered in from the cold, to seek solace in a house of prayer, I find that God smiles, then laughs, shakes my face and says, “I am with you; you are home.”
One Response to “Ten Thousand Coffees (Part 6)”
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hey lisa,
i just stumbled across your series on this blog through a friend’s reference on facebook and am so thankful for your postings. i myself have been on a journey since january to find a church i can call my spiritual home and have been feeling rather alone and frustrated at the whole process and helplessly so. it’s frustrating when you know that things like this take time but you just can’t help but be impatient about it. thus i find your words of encouragement and challenge in the last few parts of the series deeply refreshing, both in knowing that i’m not alone and in the reminder of the bigger picture of what God is trying to do in me, and in us as a larger body that is to be the expression of who he is in the world.