The Mystical, Communal Heart of God: Notes to the Church on a church-less Sunday

Sometimes, God's call of us is simply to make a phone call or two.

To connect with those on the margins of our consciousness and perhaps our consciences. Those who may particularly need -- or at the very least appreciate -- a listening ear midst snowbound isolation. To remind ourselves, on this church-less Sunday, that, while a community gathered to praise God can be a radical act in today's get-mine, got-yours world, this blizzard's aftermath can draw our ears into individuals' hearts ... and, simultaneously, into God's own.

Into the mystical, communal heart of God: beautiful ... intimate ... welcoming of the terribly alone. A Spirit-fire, comforting in its warmth yet searing in its solitude, challenging us to go inward not just from our chokedamp world, but with it -- even, within it.

Into the mystical, communal heart of God. What a need we have to go there -- what a desperate need -- as we quietly beckon others to join us 'round its hearth. That deep center of our connected creation, when extremes would compel us ever away:

• Global warming -- no mystery, these Maryland snows measured in feet, not inches.
• Political pundits -- heat that scalds, when light is so sorely needed.
• Wage gaps -- ever widening, in a world that idolizes wealth without work, as well as none for those who don't.

Yet, as we stare out today upon "the hoary frost of heaven", the only extremes I find our God of grace and compassion is interested in is the cold outside and the warm inside. How cold it is when we compare our churning, grimy, and -- let us say it -- shamed and shameless selves to what appears so beautiful and clean and ... calm, outside. And how warm and welcoming and purifying all can be, when we turn ourselves contemplatively back to the fire within.

The fire that burns within each of us. Drawing each of us to, then with, then within, the mystically communal heart of God.

May it be so for you, Super Bowl clamor or no, this awe-full and grace-full and church-less Sunday.