The Church will stand

Kodiak Stuck and Stealing Light at the Church of the Grammys

I watched the Grammy's last night at a hotel in Anchorage--

my first time ever. I didn't intend to. My husband and I 

were weathered out of Kodiak. Our flight was cancelled for 

heavy fog---but the Alaska Airlines jet was going to 

make a run for it an hour later. We boarded, with hope in our throats. We just wanted to get home. 

 As we sat waiting, the pilot came on in the language all Kodiakans are familiar with:

"Uh yeah, this is the pilot. Well, it's not looking too great, but we thought we'd give it a shot. We've got enough fuel on board to make a few attempts. So, we'll try. The wind's starting to pick up, so maybe some of that fog will lift. So .....  we'll see, folks."

And off we went. Nearly an hour later, we are lost in white, the engine slows, we feel the plane sinking, the fog does not break---until there it is---ground! I see it below me, close enough to jump, I think. Just a few hundred feet more and we are home wearing our sons' happy arms and greeting our dearest friends. 

But the whine of the engine tells another story. At the crucial moment, the plane rises, and we blast off up, up, back into the deepest clouds ... .We

circle slowly now like a giant fish around a murky pond, and make another pass while we hold our breath . .. until the nose lifts, the engines whine higher and we feel the sickening rise that means we are returning. 

We will try again tomorrow. There are too many clouds. They cannot see clearly. There is not enough light. 

So---we watch the Grammy's. Yes, of course, all was glitter and glitz and shine. Why else had we gathered to watch? So many shining beautiful people! 

The sets were 

stunning . … the music memorable, Pink's aerial acrobatics 

breathtaking.   But I'm always looking for light, wherever it 

may be found. 

There was a kind of light last night. Halfway through the 

show, the set onstage lit up to become a church.

 Queen Latifah and Madonna, the preachers, sang and 

sermonized about true love---and married off dozens of 

happy couples there, gay and not, dressed in wedding 

clothes, ecstatic.

  This is what we have always done. Do you need a church? 

Steal the lights. String them up and make your own. Borrow the preacher's voice and mic, proclaim the gospel that makes people happy. This is ancient. We've been doing this for a 

long time. We used to do it in the shadows. Now we do it

on stage before tens of millions. And the people watching 

cheer, and wipe tears and we all celebrate human love. 

I celebrate human love too. We'd all be dead without it. I love 

and need a church too. But as I fly home today, praying that 

the sun burns away the fog, the technicians will be 

deconstructing the stage, 

sucking up the confetti from the mass wedding, pulling down

the lights from the one-night Church, from the One-Song

Church that stood just long enough to finish the set. 


 The church I love isn't strung up overnight. It has stood for 

two thousand years, and cannot be shaken, dimmed or 

unstrung---not with guns, torture and imprisonment, 

not by bombings and burnings, and not 

with sparkling dresses, white suits and platinum voices.  

      The church will stand, and the gates of Hollywood 

and Nashville and L.A. and  Washington D.C. or any other 

place will not 

prevail against it. God's love is greater. God's Church is 

greater. Do not despair or hate or fear any of this, or anyone 

involved in this.  Instead, get busy. Gather with the Church, 

the Bride of Christ this week. Gather in His light, which gives 

light to the whole world. For "He is the radiance of  the glory 

of God . . . who upholds the universe by the word of his 


Then, go out into the world

as who you really are:

     the brilliant Bride of Christ,

      the eternal Church of Christ.

Go without fear, without hate.

Wear your wedding clothes.


Give light back to the world.

(And sing, if you can ....)