THESE PLACES LIMITLESS

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Psalm 122.1, 7

I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
Peace be within your walls
and quietness within your towers.

In this time, we are adrift from our sacred spaces.
What made us glad, what was sanctuary
is closed and locked, and its haven, its safe destination
is not safe.
This space where you and I meet,
sometimes face to face, looking at each other through windowpanes,
and other times, just words on a screen 
and a hello through the electronic void.
We wonder, are these truly sanctuaries
are these the places where God is,
where a creator rests and sings and invites us to 
be calm, be joyful, be together...
and yet 
we find calm here, and we find
each other here, 
and we are somehow more than just
words on a screen here, or windowpanes built out of code
our hands may only meet the cold wall of the monitor
but somewhere beyond that we are in sanctuary here
somewhere within that we make peace here
somehow there is a new place that is peaceful here,
as we pray the familiar words and the unfamiliar
as we allow the beauty of the ancient liturgy to move us and through us
in this new liturgical here
and so afterwards
we can step out of this claustrophobic, limitless space
where our loved ones gather
into the summer air under
the limitless sky
that our loved ones share
and these places – limited, limitless, window and sky – 
might actually be where 
we are in the house of the Lord –