“One Body”

Day two- July 17, 2010

Northampton

After a blessed night’s sleep we spent our first full day of touring in the Cotswolds. Considered somewhat the ideal of English country culture, the region is renowned for its natural beauty and quiet villages where time seems to have stood still. Rolling hills, yellow with ripened wheat, striped with green rows of trees, green pastures where sheep, cattle and even rabbits graze. It really is as beautiful as it sounds.

We stopped in three Cotswold towns: Bibury (pron: BYE-bury), Cirencester (pron: SHY-ren-shester) and Burford. Each town is filled with lovely, well-kept homes,tidy, narrow streets and winding waterways. Each also has a lovely parish church and each church is a treasure.

From the small parish of St. Mary in Bibury to the larger St. John’s in Cirencester, and mid-sized and very vibrant, youthful feeling St. John’s Burford, each church is a unique expression of beauty. Of course they are old…our 150 year old St. Mark’s Church seems newborn in comparison. Travelling with architect and architecture professor Michael Conner, chorister Anne’s husband, is an added bonus. His exegesis of churches and local buildings is a great asset along our pilgrimage.

At St. Mary’s, Bibury, we found the Gospel reading from the past Sunday’s liturgy sitting on the lectern. It was the same reading we heard at St. Mark’s on the same Sunday. Sharing the schedule of lessons with the broader Anglican Communion, and most other Christian denominations, is a subtle reality easily glossed over in our common life. But the young people with whom I am traveling picked up the deeper significance immediately…”We are united,” said Harris. This simple observation, this profound truth, this hopeful prayer for the church, settled deep into me for the rest of the day.

We are one body.

We are one body. Is this a present reality, a hopeful prayer or a desperate, broken plea for survival in the midst of crisis...or perhaps all three?

So we continue as youth and adults, singers and hangers on (I among the latter) seeking to be one body. And we do so knowing that we are all very different from one another. Young, old, experienced and not. Our hope is that the strength of our voices and the conviction of our hearts may somehow mix with the Grace of God and provide a glimpse of the depth and diversity of God’s own voice. And perhaps, just perhaps, in the days to come we will find that sacred moment where pilgrims from Texas, from England and from all over the world will stop, take a deep breath in, sigh gently….and become the One Body that might provide a small measure of God’s Peace.

-Jonathan