58.4

I went to graduate school at Louisiana State University (LSU), and most graduates of the stained-glass program there major more in full-bodied color than in the narrative.

It was a short time into the pandemic when I first heard the opening sentences for the morning prayer liturgy in the Book of Common Worship (BCW). A former seminary classmate invited me to join an online prayer group working to connect church musicians and pastors in that uncertain moment. I was intrigued.

A ninety-year-old church elder reads a Sunday Call to Worship while her cat appears from offscreen and walks across her Zoom box, landing contentedly in her lap.

Worship finished and I stepped into the light-filled narthex. With the postlude still swelling in air, a parent caught me on the way out. “Weren’t the stars a great idea? My son never sits still and pays attention in worship, but he was happy to cut and paste shapes for an hour!”

My grandmother Ruth’s favorite word was “togetherness.” When she said it aloud, it was never just a word but rather a monument to the effort she put into gathering her family, flung across the world for a time, into a single space.