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all over the place

I was a Greeter today. I greet or ush(er) about once a month, which is fun because I know just about everyone and I feel like Miss Popularity.

I've been watching this one couple that I don't know. They usually arrive separately, hit the ushers pretty much at a run, grabbing a bulletin without stopping, and sit near the back. They leave after the sermon, before the creed and the confession. They've been doing this for several weeks. I'm just happy they keep coming, for as long as they can stand it. Fear and trembling is a perfectly rational response to what we're up to in that building.

They often sit near me, as I tend to hang near the back. I tell myself that it's because I've often been useful back there, getting water for people who are coughing, jumping in to help the ushers, etc. Actually it's that I don't want everyone to see me crying. It's just something that happens as soon as I feel God's presence; I start tearing up. My old spiritual director called them holy tears, possibly just to make me feel better about the fact that I went through a box of tissues just about every time we met.

The tears come from a mixture of emotions, most of which I haven't fully identified. Lately they're gone by the eucharist, replaced by a full-on joy. Today I was feeling all box-of-puppies wiggly and joyful as the eucharistic prayers started and my enthusiastic, "hosanna in the highest!" was probably better suited to the more rockin' contemporary services, but I seriously thought that my heart was going to burst right out of my chest and I just wanted to dance.

I'm just so glad I'm not alone in this life (my inner nasty atheist sneers, "yes, you have your little imaginary friend Jesus," and then I whack her on the head) and that God works in my life through other people. You know who you are.
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