The Branches of God

People sit in the same spot on the same pew they first chose fifty years ago.  It's been some time since this was the kind of church anyone attended to be fashionable or impress anyone.  We sit between the governor's mansion and the state capitol, and that's the kind of place we have in the history of Mississippi, never the seat of power, but close enough to it to have an influence, a reminder to those who do make the law to be just, and remember the example of the Christ.  The pastor who would have baptized me resigned his post rather than bar the door to people who were not white.  Another pastor became a Christian when he met Nelson Mandella while they were both in prison.  Pastors leave our church to become bishops and teachers.

In her pews, I have sat behind governors, lieutenant governors, senators, congressmen, lawyers, doctors, and professors of every sort, the rich, the poor, indigent, indulgent, athletes, old, young, hale, the infirmed (both mentally and physically), infants, immigrants, centenarians, artists, actors, musicians, mentors, companions, fellow travelers, friends, lovers.

They practice words they've said ten thousand times before:
     Praise God, from whom all blessings flow
     praise him all creatures here below

Look not with your eyes but with your heart at the people in the pews, and you'll see green tendrils grow from their fingers and their feet and their mouths and their ears, through the pews reaching out and to and through each other, some branches decades old, some the bright green shoots of youth, a mat, a net, a mesh, holding each to the other, through the years, through their lives, even when they're absent for many years like I was.  They become a broad, ancient, wide-reaching tree in the garden of God.

The branches and tendrils reach out from each other through the windows and doors, out into the city and countryside, taking root in the homeless and the hungry, the young and the old, the harried and the orphan, the forlorn and the forgotten.  They reach out to places of music and art, philosophy and discourse, broadening the reach and scope and influence of this old tree, seeking any human soul it can touch, and heal, and improve.

A church isn't a thing you sit in; it's the people you sit with.  It's a place people go to connect together, making themselves stronger and extending their reach out into the world.  You can't see them, but the branches of God are all around you, reaching for you in your greatest despair or proudest victory.  Sit very still, close your eyes, and feel the roots, the tendrils, and the branches reach out from you to the souls around you.  You are the branches of God.