Coming Home - aka - Re-entry

As great as the FDLC week was, though, I was tired of being away from home, whose name is Stella, by about halfway through the week. I don't know that either of us realized that the longer we were married, the more we would miss each other when we were apart. So, there was great joy when I got back to Memphis.

I flew in and arrived in Memphis about 3 on Saturday, and had a 7 pm wedding to attend. Two of our choir members were getting married (to each other). This was the first wedding Stella and I have attended since our own. It was really neat being there, seeing the happiness on our friends' faces, and having an inside scoop on what that feeling is like. I've sung many weddings, but being at this one with my wife, in the same church where we got married,at the wedding of two of the people who sang in the choir at our wedding...it was a truly beautiful experience. The couple had been taking dance lessons at the same place we have been going, so we knew to expect something. Their first dance was great. And then the father and bride dance was well-choreographed as well! Reflecting on the evening, it was as though the dance began with the entrance procession, and continued as we all joined hands in the great dance of the Trinity (perichoresis) in the sacred liturgy of the marriage rite and eucharist, and extended beyond the walls of the church into the reception. This was the first time, as well, that Stella and I had been somewhere where we could dance, so we did. We danced with each other, and we danced with other friends. Finally, we joined in that great communal dance known as the Macarena, which, by the way, is about 2 hours too long - I was actually substituting baseball signals for the real moves out of sheer boredom and exhaustion!

The next morning, however, when I served as cantor for the 8 AM Mass, I had something of a jolting return to liturgy as it usually is 'out here,' with about 1/3 of the meager assembly even moving their mouths to the songs. I formed the opinion that we really should only have one Mass on Sunday, so that all the people will be 'gathered together in one place.' It will never happen, but I think it would be altogether grand. Then we could do the rest of the liturgy, which is currently squeezed out due to the commodification of liturgy that has taken place so that we can 'drive through' on Saturday evening, or anytime Sunday morning. McEucharist. If we only had one Mass on Sunday, we could celebrate Evening Prayer I of Sunday on Saturday evening, then Morning Prayer during the current 8 AM Mass time, followed by Mass, followed by, perhaps, a larger coffee and donuts period, after which we might have several different catechetical gatherings, including some for (gasp) the adults! Then, where many parishes have the Sunday evening Mass, we could celebrate Evening Prayer II of Sunday, and thus we would fully express the Sunday liturgy of our church, with all its rich diversity of text and song. A man's gotta dream!