February Communion

Your Spirit is ushering this needy procession to the altar.

I join the procession with those whose hearts are bowed, humbled by Your perfection and love. Rows bow, in desperate need of that moment of knowing Your glory in their hearts. The sight of it is like no other.

Who can be unaffected? Who is qualified for such a thing? He wants us, but our spirit cries out for Him.

There is no scale of justice, but my sin is gone as if fire had burned it, it will cease to exist.

I will stand and walk to the altar of your Son. I walk with assurance-I enter Your presence because of Jesus.

“The body of Christ broken for you, remember that He loves you.”

I don’t go on my rooftop enough. Today was unusually warm for February in Beirut, 84F, 26C. In the late evening, when the sun has completely set and the clouds block the light from the stars and moon, the city, from my rooftop, looks like an extended and intricate set for a play. It feels as if everything is so close that I could reach out my hand and touch it. The light is muted and the building walls are a smudged grey in the dark. I’d like to think I could paint it, if I tried.

Something about living here makes me feel that I’m not missing out. I understand when I am doddling and thinking on the roof that I co-exist with more than 2 million others. The hospital’s AC was running on the rooftop and muffling all of the city noises tonight. Or, have I finally developed selective hearing? I don’t know, but it was extraordinarily quiet, and beckoning me to come, walk about and exist with 2 million others.

I’m getting used to this place, more than before; it feels aady (normal). Indicators of my adjustment are the things or places I find peace and solitude, like an over-crowded café or, my rooftop. It’s okay now that there is no comprehension of a line at the register of the grocery store, that people run into me on the sidewalk and that taxi drivers obnoxiously pursue me for want of business.

Each day I wonder about the phases of adjustment I have gone through. I hope I have never been too critical or judgmental. I don’t want to just get by as if my time here is so temporary, and I don’t want to want more than the city has, I just want to love it. I know I have evolved and that I have evolving yet to do.