BECOMINGS: ON PRIESTHOOD AND PANDEMIC

Photo from Unsplash.

It started before
ordination – postponed, half-planned, panicked,
no retreat in cool walls with comfortable, now-familiar silence,
but at home; spiritual accompaniment from clinging four year old.
A new prayer book to try to slip into a new prayer.
Your will be done, Lord, but soon, before the numbers rise like water,
before we are overwhelmed. Again.
Sink me with your sent-down Spirit.

And then, no packed laughing cathedral,
no clustering carefully chosen hands,
no chrism cross on ready palms.
We anoint ourselves, our first priestly act, 
blessing the over-scented oil and whispering to each other 
with tear-filled eyes.
I wonder if those resurrection day women did the same,
the un-needed ointment poured out in joy.
Perhaps.

There have been no hands of blessing laid on newborn heads,
no baptisms.
No bread torn with abundant glee,
no children to shout Amen as they jump the communion line.
I distribute the tiny wafers in silence,
crossing the air with each, in unspoken benediction.
I have taught my unmasked eyes to smile.

I have taught myself to look into the green dot of a camera lens 
to imagine the people behind it,
and those behind them,
the ones alone,
the ones working,
those who just can’t do it right now.
I have taught myself to bless people 
with a transition between images over the words of a hymn
as much as I thought I could bless from the pulpit or in the soup kitchen.

I have blessed Christingles in giddy Christmas-Eve homes
from an empty church,
and hoped that it would mean something.
I have felt the weight of this priestly yoke,
as I take bread and wine for all,
never thinking set apart would feel so alone.
I have sat in the garden,
where, sometimes, I think God walks,
and prayed.
I am uprooted
and I have started to grow again.

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