Sunday Sacredness....is it possible?






There is a universal intelligence that we call God or Soul or Spirit or Consciousness,
 and it is everywhere and in all things.

                                                                                  Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

As a child growing up in a small town in Western Kentucky, Sunday was always a sacred day.  We'd get up early and attend the Trinity Gospel Tabernacle for Sunday School and Worship.  This church did not have a worship bulletin like we do in the Presbyterian Church I now attend and you never knew what was going to happen once the morning began.  Instead following liturgy from a paper, worship was a burst of energy filled pulsating rhythm from Stanley on his drum set.  Mr. JD. was at the guitar and Lorene and her daughter Linda Sue finished out the musical leaders on the piano and organ.  The music was loud and people clapped their hands and raised them in the air and slapped their tambourines.

The choir dressed in their array of Sunday best ranging from the purple hat on my great-grandmother who I called "Fatma" to the high collared priest like dress that Sister Agnes wore to match her Pentecostal piled hair.  The men typically wore a white short sleeved shirt and solid colored dark pants.  Everyone was conservatively dressed, cause that's what the Lord would want....no make-up, no earrings and heavens no---girls better not be wearing  blue jeans or anything with legs that might look like a man's attire, cause if you did----the church phone line would burn up with chatter after the service. They'd clap and dance and sing and testify and in a small town, Sunday was the best entertainment day of the week. I always looked forward to the show.

What I loved best was my Sunday School teachers Ms. Ethel Mae and Ms. June.!  We'd study bible stories, drop our nickles in the basket, listen as they prayed and then we'd get to ask questions.  Looking back after teaching Sunday school some, I dare say, I must have been a challenge.  Every Sunday I'd ask..."Ms. June, where did God come from?"  "How did God get the rib out of Adam?" or "Why did Jesus have to die?"  They always came up with something that left me content.  Basically it probably wouldn't have mattered what they told me....the most important thing was that they loved me and put up with me and showed me about faith.

Worship was a blast of chaotic energy that started slow and built to a frenzy ending with the hell fire and brimstone sermon where the preacher would talk so fast, spit would fly out of his mouth.  I knew it would be over when the altar call started where there would be talking in tongues and Holy Ghost shouting.  To tell you the truth, what I experienced during that time was a bit of "fear factor" God.  When I'd select my chair--old movie seats from the theater, I'd always make sure I was sitting between two "non shouters" as we called them.

A "shouter" was someone who'd get up and jump around in the spirit, they'd jerk like they were having a convulsion and then from time to time they'd shout out their pentecostal hair-do and fall to the ground where they'd 'waller in their spirit trance."

The best part of Sunday was going to my fatmas house after worship.  Stores were not open cause it was illegal then and sitting around her house with the smells of ham, green beans and chocolate cake was the highlight of my day.  The family would gather around her table and we'd talk and laugh and eat.  Afterward, everyone would sit on the front porch and visit with neighbors (and I'd sit hidden at the side of the porch so I could eavesdrop) and then take a nap before Sunday night worship.  Looking back on it, I'll say that it had a sacramental sacredness about it that is sometimes hard to capture in our chaotic way of living.

Many years have past since then and in the busyness of life, Sunday's have lost that "special feel".  Many of us go to church out of duty and more often than not, we don't get much out of the services. After being a child of a minister, a regular goer, an employee of the church and an on occasion--preacher herself, I find that I most often find the sacredness of the Spirit scattered throughout my daily mundane life than I do inside the worship space.  Sometimes it may be a bird that lands on the branch outside my window, or a song I hear on the radio, or the crocus petals starting to push their way out of the dirt opening their faces toward the sky.

Barbara Brown Taylor, a former Episcopalian priest said it best in the title of her newest book, "An altar in the World." I think her title sums up the wonder of what can happen out from behind the walls of the worship spaces.  When we look, when we open up our eyes, we are able to  catch tiny glimmers of the Holy slung in amongst work and dishes and dirty clothes and lawn mowing---  When we listen with ears open to Holy Whispers,  the energy of the Universe will bring us utterings of sacred  sounds-- the sound of rain on the window, or children laughing or even the cracking of leaves under our boots in the woods which reminds to to open up to the Mystery---

The energy of the Universe or God as some of us call IT---comes to us, rushes over us, mixes in the air we breath and we experience IT----wonder and amazement and sacredness and awe.... all mixed in with the ordinary elements of our day-to-day living.

Take just a minute to open your eyes, feel the wind on your face, smell the grass as you walk...there is a Spirit beckoning each of us toward goodness and mercy and grace and if you listen, and watch, I promise you that you'll discover it.  This Sunday Sacredness can be found in church communities or synagogues or mosques---but others find it like  when you are out tending sheep like Moses when  you look out and there in the midst of sheep baaing, and dust flying and sweat and dirty feet---the sacredness of life comes and a bush burns and it's Power ignites within us calling us to untap our God given potential and step out a bit further on the journey.

We just have to open our eyes and acknowledge IT.

The World is our Altar and everyday is Sunday!  
Open to it and Experience IT.
May it be so for everyone of us!  Amen.