"Respiration.............."

With isolated thunderstorms yet in our forecast for the next few days, Monday was hot and muggy, a sky full of huge, white fluffy clouds that permitted the sun’s heat to sit on us like a heavy blanket. With the park still off limits, I decided to just drive out to the church and utilize the gym’s running track for my “daily” three-mile walk. The place is locked up, but almost never void of human presence. A staff occupies some offices on the upper level and a day-care operates on the lower. Other than a custodian, a secretary, and one or two others who manage administrative tasks, though, rarely will one encounter one of the assistant pastors, their duties taking them elsewhere, hither and yon, ministry, visitation, and situations that arise. Life is more than a Sunday sermon. Community requires connection, reaching out as well as drawing in... This morning a friend posted on Facebook that “Churches are individuals, each with its own character, personality, strengths and weaknesses”, a view I’ve long held, myself. Doesn’t that, though, identify the Body of Christ as being susceptible to its own humanity? It occurs to me that, in spite of our “intelligence” distinguishing us from all other beasts created in Genesis, the only thing that keeps us from exhibiting the “animal nature within us” is a willingness to yield ourselves unto a union with God and our neighbor. While a theology will always be a part of our faith, if it isn’t a work in progress, all we have is a religion. Meaning is in a flow, coming to us and through us from a Father who originally designed us in such fashion, His grace, love, and compassion intended not to just fill the vessel, but to overflow it. Losing one’s “savor” is a condition leading to divine rejection and it doesn’t just apply to the hypocrite in our midst. Any of us can develop it in our stumble down the road, indeed, a congregation, as a whole, is not immune. Jesus didn’t escape the tomb only to be locked up in another. No matter the weather, He lives! The question is: is He alive in me?……