Sunday, March 22, 2020

Online church on a dreary Sunday




With the combination of social isolation and dreary weather, I’m realizing how much weather affects my mood. Kind of down today, because it’s been a dull, rainy day—not particularly chilly but not warm and comfy either.

I thought it would be lovely if we went to church as a family this morning, even in our pajamas. I guess I had a vision of us gathered around my computer screen, devoutly praying, listening intently to the sermon. Didn’t quite work out that way. Jordan did not sleep well—until eight o’clock in the morning, and so was asleep. Christian pulled up Facebook on the big TV in the back room—I have no idea how to do that—but kept getting the end of the nine o’clock service, so he came out to ask me how to get the start of the eleven o’clock. Right in the middle of Todd Prickett’s amazing rendition of the Our Father. Now I have to go back and listen to that again.

Long story short, I pretty much went to church by myself, although Jordan came out about halfway through and watched the rest. The church has changed its website, and I couldn’t figure how to get to live streaming, so I pulled it up on Facebook. I don’t think it was Facebook—the problem is on the church’s end and has something that I don’t understand at all to do with band width, but the visual freezes for brief periods and then the audio disappears, so lovely as the service was, it was sort of disjointed. Sometimes when the video freezes, it captures people in the most unflattering poses—like Russ Peterman with his eyes at half-mast this morning.

At the end, there were dramatic and beautiful shots of the interior of our sanctuary. We are so privileged to worship is such a beautiful setting.

At the suggestion of Dr. Peterman, Jordan took a picture of our worship site—my desk. I am not sharing that. Next week, before church, I will “landscape” my desk and take the picture myself from a better angle.

I laughed at a childhood friend in Michigan who posted that she had showered and dressed to go to online church. She’s married to a retired Episcopalian priest, so I guess that makes a difference. I was in a T-shirt and sweats.

The City of Dallas tonight has issued a shelter-in-place order, which is pretty much what we’ve been doing, but I know a whole lot of the world hasn’t. I’m waiting for a similar order for Fort Worth—it can’t come too soon. Christian still has to go to work which, to me, is a double-edged sword—because he has an autoimmune disease, he shouldn’t be exposed, and I don’t want him to bring the virus home to the rest of us. I do think Jordan practically hoses anyone down before they come in the house.

I have now been in the cottage eleven days without seeing anyone but family. Yes, I get a little down sometimes, but generally I’m content. I’ve spent several days working on the neighborhood newsletter—for some reason information came to me in a much more scattered manner, and it was hard to pull together. But today I’ve proofread it and turned my attention back to my next project, a food-oriented book. Made some notes and read a bit in a book on the food revolution of the Fifties—think TV dinners.

As I write tonight, I’m waiting for a gourmet dinner from  Christian—a Mexican chicken casserole of some kind. Getting hungry.

No comments: