It's been five Sundays

I haven't been inside a church for five Sundays.

I really don't know if I've gone that long without being in a church on Sunday before.

When I was a child, my mother and I went to my grandma's Pilgrim Holiness Church and then, after that, to Anawalt Methodist Church. My father went there too. He had been a free-will Baptist (whatever that is) but wouldn't endure the Pilgrim Holiness Church. But when my mother and I left there, after the preacher prayed for my sinner father, sitting in the car outside, reading the Bluefield Daily Telegraphy's Sunday edition and 'smoking cigarettes', my father joined us in the Methodist church, claiming "Methodism can't hurt anybody".

I didn't go to church in college until I met the Episcopal chaplain and started going to his 'house church' services.

But, from that point on, I've never not gone to church for 5 Sundays in a row.

Yesterday seemed to stretch out to 72 hours. On and on it went.

I did virtual church, but that is finally not quite 'church'.

I tell people I became a priest because it meant I'd have to go to church.

Now, I'm not sure.

Maybe I would go to church even if I wasn't ordained.

I sure miss it. The hymns, the peace, the people.

Most of all the people and their hugs at the peace.

No hugs these days except from Bern and our dog, Brigit.