Mar
31
“In this moment, we have each other.”
Filed Under general, Messiah College Philadelphia Campus, me, learning |
A few weeks ago the RA staff organized and planned one of the campus’ weekend Gatherings, a time when the entire MCPC community comes together for corporate worship, fellowship, and engagement with a speaker working in and contributing to the city. This week we decided to prepare a time for reflection, complete with old hymns and readings and prayers from members of the community. We carved out time to allow Dr. Peterson to lead us in communion, an opportunity for a moment of pause and sacred space for God.
The problem was this: nothing was going right. The worship team didn’t have a schedule of the evening, and was missing cues left and right. The readers didn’t want to use the microphone and scurried through their words like a schizophrenic at a dinner party. Sitting in the front row, my hands gently kneading the knees of my corduroy pants, I was running through the rest of the schedule: reading reading prayer song close. But what if the next reader forgot to bring their stuff? And I didn’t see Paula come in tonight - what if she doesn’t show up? My mind was racing.
Needless to say that by the time Dr. Peterson stood to start communion, I was horribly and irrevocably distracted. The rest of the Gathering was a bit of a frenzy: Paula did show up and read (again, WAY too quietly and WAY too quickly for anyone to understand); the worship team sang their song but didn’t know when or how to end; and I had to excuse everyone, awkwardly, and finally collapse, angry that nothing went the way it was supposed to go.
It wasn’t until this weekend that I remembered something that Dr. Peterson said to us that night during communion, reflecting on the group of students and educators gathered in that small, makeshift chapel: “In this moment, we have each other.” This weekend, of course, it was hard to ignore this fact: hours spent working side-by-side in a local community garden, building containers out of old tires, tearing down old fences; hours spent riding an open-air trolley through North Philadelphia looking at murals and feeling the conspicuous stares of local residents; hours spent side-by-side listening to one another’s stories of Brotherly Love. Somewhere between that snake Lauren found in the mulch bed and Bethany’s story about erotic text messages, I realized that I love these people. All of these people. Sure, some of them are annoying; some of them are confusing; some of them are merely unaware. But, as Dr. Peterson suggested, they’re all here. And they’re all contributing, in ways large and small, to this thing I’m doing in Philadelphia: learning, and growing, and discovering. They’re making this place home.
Last night, in the swell of nostalgic eupohoria after our storytelling event, Ryan Wilson told Lacey and me, “I wish you guys were coming back next year.” Me too. But I only have right now, and these people, and for that I am eternally grateful, resting contentedly in the moment and the promise of the next two months.
Comments
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Just randomly stumbled over to your blog. As a former English major at a Christian college, I appreciated checking in on the scene. Pax.