March 1

    As a junior in college in 1975, I had the opportunity to visit the Taize Community in southern France.  In the summer, thousands of young adults from all over Europe went as they still do  today to camp out in tents and to spend a few days or a week there in order to experience God’s presence. Worship was a memorable experience.  The church holds over 2,000 people and was built by German Christians as a sign of reconciliation from Germany to France.  (Brother Roger Schutz, the founder of Taize, hid Jews in his home during WWII). The church had a huge organ and we would sing  simple songs and Psalms together in various languages, which was helpful for people like me who did not know any other language but English. 

     Something really good happens when people fervently pray and sing together, seeking God’s will and presence in their individual and common lives.  I have been blessed other times during my life in which worship together seemed to come alive and take on a life of its own.   When we come focused on God, praising and worshiping God together, the experience is palpable. Worship in the chapel on Ash Wednesday and the last couple of Sundays had some of that indescribable feeling of transcendence and nearness mixed in. It seems that God can do  something with us and in us when we come together focused on Christ in our common life. May our prayers together rise to be our living sacrifice of praise at TUMC.