I reached for my purse this past Sabbath to grab a tissue. The sermon brought tears to my eyes. It was a simple concept about finding your place among the congregation. To be more exact, the physical place where you sit, if you are a “regular”.
I sit in the fourth pew by the window. I am next to a gorgeous stained glass window where the light streams in and forms a rainbow on my prayer book.
Unless it’s cloudy or rainy. Yet, even then, God speaks to me one way or another as I pray.
Yona was giving the sermon. She told her personal story about being a newcomer 30+ years before. She wasn’t sure she’d like it, doubtful that she would fit in, skeptical that it could ever feel “right.”
It all started with a life cycle event. Her thirteen-year-old son was becoming a Bar Mitzvah. It was to be his day to shine. Yona arrived early that Saturday morning to be sure she could save seats for her close family and friends.
Being a “newbie” she didn’t know about “regulars.” Regulars are the folks in the congregation who come every Sabbath, every holiday. And those regulars typically sit in the same seat every Sabbath, except when an excited mother, like Yona, has staked out her territory.
And then the regular finds another seat to sit in that’s not the same, but oh well!
It didn’t take Yona long after her initial introduction to the Sabbath to become a regular. Thirty years later, she could tell you who sits where. She remembers where beloved congregants used to sit before they passed on.
I have had a lot of Sabbath homes over my past thirty-plus years. If you gave me a regular’s name, I could still point out their place on a seating chart.
What a blessing! To remember where a friend sat in 1998, even though I can’t remember what I was supposed to remember an hour ago.
Sure, having a spiritual home within your heart is important. But being at home, with your own place among other worshippers on the Sabbath, under a roof with four walls surrounding you, is positively heavenly.
Susan Diamond
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