I was recently invited to participate in a survey of Episcopal churches across the country described as “bounce-back” communities. These are churches whose membership has bounced back or grown since the pandemic. At Saint Anne's, it has been a joy to welcome new members and renewed energy post-COVID, and I was looking forward to sharing our experience. But the survey questions were not what I expected. There were questions about how long someone is expected to be a member before participating in aspects of community life beyond Sunday mornings - is there a requirement before showing up as part of the garden crew, or coming to a book study or game night, for example. And questions about membership and church doctrine that didn't seem to line up with the ethos of the Episcopal Church, including whether someone who does not fully subscribe to the Nicene Creed may participate in church ministries. 

I found myself wondering what assumptions about a church community these questions reflected. I also found myself wishing I had different questions to answer. I wanted questions that would allow me to accurately paint a picture of a community like ours, where authentic, messy, presence with one another is one of our highest values, and discussions over differences in beliefs is joyful and enriching.

What would be really neat, I thought, was if everyone had been asked to share a Mary Oliver poem that reflected the community the priest was writing about. Is that very niche? Yes. Would it be fun? Also yes! If that question had been asked, I would have shared, on Saint Anne's behalf, the Mary Oliver masterpieceThe Summer Day:

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Of course the line "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" is the most well-known part of this poem, and it is beautifully evocative. But my favorite lines are: "I don't know exactly what prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass..."

We don't all think alike at Saint Anne's. We might not all subscribe to the creeds of the church in the same way. We might not even attend church for the same reasons, and chances are pretty good that each of us prays in our own way. But we do pay attention - to each other, to the world around us, to Spirit, to the way our own spark of the Divine glitters in the sun. And somehow it all works out.

My prayer for you this week is to have some time to fall down into (or at least look at!) the grass, to be idle and feel blessed - and to know that this - no requirements, no hoops, just authentic presence - can be prayer, creed, and belonging all rolled into one, if you'd like it to be.

Blessings,
Jennifer