Today is Tuesday. Typical Tuesdays do not mean a communion litany but this is 2020 and nothing seems predictable except biweekly showers and overloading on carbs. Tuesday usually means I am working on site at the hospital. When I walked through the kitchen door my body settled. I breathed. Brennan ran up to me and in one breath said “Mom! I built another lego base and Jeff and I played crazy eights only it’s not really crazy eights its crazy everything else and I did all my math and did you know Jeff had court today and how many more days until Christmas?” Like all moms, I have learned the art of having my eyes be in two places at the same time. Today they fixed on the brownish, reddish, gelatinous goo that has somehow made it to our cabinets…. again. What is this substance? I’m not sure but it looks similar to the stuff that I scraped off last week or maybe it was the week before? They all seem to run together now.

Today is Tuesday. I watched the news to hear how many more were infected by a virus that stopped the ivory towers of capitalism nine months ago but has now become another wedge dividing red states and blue states. Those people and our people. The news that showed colleagues around the country pleading for people to believe them when they say we are all connected. Colleagues proclaiming freedoms of personal responsibility must end when it costs the life of another, or 200,000 others, including Grandma Charlene and Great Uncle Bill.  The news that left me asking, again: How have the most vulnerable among us become so dispensable?

Today is Tuesday. We finally pulled out our advent packet that was so carefully put together by our children’s minister, Denise. We lit the purple candle and read through the first week: Hope. Included was a description of covenants. Families were encouraged to discuss what are the things that are important to them and then make their own covenant on the coloring sheet provided. With spaghetti sauce stuck to his face, the youngest in our family offered a communion litany saying, “you know what? This table is actually what brings us together. This is where we spend a lot of time together.” Whether in the sanctuary or in our own homes, over bread or spaghetti, wine or… wine, the table offers hope.

Today is Tuesday and now I know the origins of that reddish, brownish, gelatinous goo.

Holy One, Thank you for this time of stillness and the hope that is found around the table. May we feel your Spirit as we sit at our own tables knowing that we remain connected to each other and to You. Amen.

Becky Dazey is a member of Saint Andrew along with her partner Jeff and their child, Brennan. She serves as a pastoral partner. She is learning to hold space for both the beauty and the pain that the pandemic has brought. When she’s not scraping cabinets or playing legos she cares for veterans as a nurse practitioner.