st. david's day

Those of you that read this blog on a regular basis know about how our beloved church was burned by an arsonist in November. So very much has changed since then, but its fun to celebrate those things that remain the same. This weekend we celebrated St. David's Day. Normally we pull out all of the bells and smells and have a neat service and dinner. We did the same thing this year, but a bit differently. Instead of holding our service in a glorious nave we celebrated in the shelter house at a local park. Instead of an elegant sit down dinner we had a BBQ potluck. Koolaid instead of wine. Paper plates...no china. But I have to say it was one of the most touching and moving services I have ever attended. Mostly, because we were celebrating in our community. A friend of mine said that when the church burned down we "lost a building and found a church". I couldn't agree more. We had crosses for the first time in months (worshipping in a Jewish temple has halted that practice out of respect). Streamers and torches. Its just stuff...but its our stuff. I was looking around and saw laughing and smiling with reckless abandon, bag pipes screaming their songs (we are a Welsh heritage congregation), and historical civil war re-enactments (don't ask, I have no idea how that fits into an episcopal celebration of heritage, but it was fun). We were all still together. The building came down this week. And we were still together. Smiling. Eating. Singing. Worshipping. Eating. Laughing. Praying. Eating. Celebrating. Being. Together.