What is it for again, this church stuff?

Once, Paul Ingraham the bookbuyer from Prairie Lights in Iowa City came to the Unitarian Church in Davenport. He was telling us about his favorite books, something he did twice a year, and selling them too.

Paul looked at me and handed me a book, The End, and said: “You don’t yet know this book, but I know you. You’ll love it.” He was right.

“I know you.” To be known. That is what church is all about, yes? To know and be known. To know another — despite the vast space between us — and to know one another’s loves and joys and triumphs. To laugh together. To work to create something out of thin air. And to know one another — despite knowing how fragile it all is — and to know their tumors, to know their headaches, to know their grief. And to sit with them, silently, holding a hand. To know their loss. To know their fears. And to say: I’ve got you. I have your back. Here is some soup, here is a shoulder. Cry, for the living and the dead, just cry. And know what we know, that all of this changes, all of this ends, one day. The miniature moments hold enternity, hold life and life abundant. We are in the midst of it, even now.

Church is simply a place to practice what it means to be human (according to James Luther Adams). To practice what it means to be human is to seek after gratitude, to strive for generosity of spirit, of resources, of mind and of faith. To seek after joy in the simplest things, not to begrudge the world and its sorrows, but to rejoice in it. To seek after reconciliation and forgiveness and to seek the other’s well being and power.

To know and be known. To practice being human. That’s it. And to increase, in small ways and large, the generosity of our spirit and our faith.