I keep figuring on seeing some kind of chainsaw-bearing psychopath two pews back or something.

Honestly, I'm just really guilty because I haven't done squat for Lent and all in all I'm figuring on an all expense trip to hell, anyway, so it only makes sense that I'd be going to church on Good Friday, the 13th. God has all this time for me and I'm ignoring God claiming higher priorities. 40 days in the desert and all I can find for time for the whole season is 40 minutes, after lunch.

I'm a rotten Christian.

I'm too busy to talk to God. The only time I pray any more is to ask God to do something for me. I haven't thanked God much for all the miracles s/he's put in my life lately, like the job, my one year anniversary, a one year old girl, therapy for Russell, etc.

It doesn't help that I have to drive 25 minutes to get to services on Sunday, and attempt to coordinate to get 3 heel-dragging family members to go with me. It doesn't help no, but I guess the one thing I've been avoiding in all this is saying goodbye to this church that I got married in and this church that has held me and my family in the light more than once. I love the community of my church. I also don't want to say goodbye to Canon Marcia, who married us.

And I know there are other Anglican churches, but frankly, nothing that could compare with the sense of coming home that that church has given me. I had been searching since my childhood for the same sense of coming home that my tiny church had given me.

St. John's is a tiny church -- maybe almost a cottage with pews, but I had always known nothing but kind people there and a sense of God so deeply within the people that it permeated everything and everyone they came into contact with, including me. I had searched for that sense of community for nearly 20 years and finally found it at Trinity.

And now, we're leaving to a new place again.

Church is a community of people and the churches I've always felt at home in are the ones where people really do practice what they preach. In 37 years of looking, I've only found 2 that have those kinds of communities. It's not something you can quantify, but you know it when you see it. For me, it's like this enticing sweet scent that you know but can't place, but when you do place it, it makes you whole.

I know that spirituality is more than a place and more than a community.

But I also know that a sense of place and community have deeply strengthened my relationship with God and both of those are hard to generate without the support of others.

Pick flowers, hunt for eggs, and enjoy the scent and spirit of this season of rebirth and light.