Roamin'...

I have recently and quite appropriately been called a “Roamin’ Catholic.” I suppose this is indeed a proper title. After having spent almost 20 years at a specific church and very involved with the choir, prayer committee, and often other activities, I have left my church. I have left my home, my soft spot to fall.

I am now, this Lenten season, on my personal journey to find a “new home.” I have taken with me on this journey, the pain that has followed from my previous home. But I know with God’s helpful hand and his miraculous direction, I will indeed find a new home. I share the words below from a song recently sung during a Sunday liturgy. It is by Whitaker, entitled "In Every Age". They speak to me …

Long before the mountains came to be and the land and sea and starts of the night,
Through the endless seasons of all time, you have always been, you will always be.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge.
In every age, O God, you have been our hope.

Destiny is cast, and at your silent word we return to dust and scatter to the wind.
A thousand years are like a single moment gone,
As the light that fades at the end of the day.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge.
In every age, O God, you have been our hope.

Teach us to make use of the time we have. Teach us to be patient even as we wait.
Teach us to embrace our every joy and pain,
To sleep peacefully, and to rise strong.

God, you have been our hope, you have been our refuge,
You have been our hope.

During this same liturgy, I was feeling quite alone. I looked around and didn’t see anyone I knew, which was new to me, having been so long with my previous church and knowing so many of the special people in the community. But then the hand of God did reach out to me. At the “sign of peace” a tradition during a Catholic Mass, I heard behind me a voice that said, “Sharon!” I turned and it was a former member of my other church, smiling from ear to ear, and she blew me a kiss. My little piece of home had followed me. I admit I wept with the softness I felt. Dinner followed Mass that evening, and a renewal of an old friendship made new.

In every age, O God, you have been our refuge. In every age, O God, you have been our hope.