The Baptist Church in celebration every year they call homecoming. It's a celebration where they invite members of the church past and present and celebrate and come home to the church. I've attended a few of these homecomings in the past at my late uncle's Church because it is m6 second church home. It's the church I went to off and on during 2020 when churches closed due to COVID 19. They were able to open up fairly quickly after the initial quarantine because 1) the congregation is small about 2 dozen members give or take and 2) my auntie Deb and Uncle Larry very quickly picked up the mantle of Thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting every surface of the church including the hymnals and bibles. Uncle Larry said any surface that can be touched was cleaned and disinfected. My church however, St John's Episcopal Church in Fort Smith Arkansas remained closed to in person worship. They held virtual services. One year ago on Palm Sunday as Father Mike Lager reflected in his sermon today everything had shut down including the means by which the churches receive Palms for Palm Sunday. The altar was instead lined with cutout palms the children had made. Our service was held virtually and I sat in my red pajamas with a green construction paper palm my bullentin, my cell phone lap top and a red scarf over my altar. The service was streamed live using a cell phone and only Father Mike and a select few were in attendance. Holy week came and went then Easter and we thought perhaps by Pentecost then maybe Advent surely by Christmas. The novelty of the first few livestreams wore off for me even as the church made improvements to technology. I grieve the loss of my church. I tried attending my family's Baptist church but after a while even that didn't help. I wanted to go back to MY church. I wanted to go HOME. Then came the note in the mail and the e-mail announcement. Palm Sunday services 2021 would be held at the church. I cheered I wept with joy. I even texted people from the congregation to verify that it was real. There are certain changes, every other pew is roped off for social distancing, we have to wear masks for the duration and no handshakes or hugs (elbow bumps bows and waving were permissible). Now I'm a hugger so without the ability to hug my friends and fellow parishioners I did something outside the box. I hugged the church building itself a few times. Father Mike Lager even said to me was I hugging the wall instead of him. I explained if I couldn't hug the people in church I was going to hug the church itself. I teared up on a few occasions and I noticed a few other members were doing the same. We all felt it however, after a year away, we were finally HOME.
