Kirkepiscatoid

Some of you readers may already remember the "small world" link between me and Lauralew of Episcogranny. She attended Truman a couple years before me. Her roommate was my good friend of 30 years, JML. (Yes, another J. My life is full of the letter J, ok?) We missed crossing paths. Once I entered the blogosphere, and she found out I was from Kirksville, she started doing the "Do you know..." thing, and when I found out our mutual connection, you could have knocked me over.

So, with Lauralew being just 90 miles away over the holiday, she tripped on up to Kirksville this morning. First was church, and she seemed to enjoy my Trinity friends a lot. Then we met up with JML at La Fuente for lunch, and then a long leisurely 3 hour chat at JML's house. It was marvelous fun to share both the secular and the spiritual with two mutual friends, and my first meetup with a piece of my blogosphere.

I am usually hesitant about meeting new people. I rarely make good first impressions. People have a hard time getting a real good feel for me on initial meetings b/c I tend to hide the deeper parts of real me behind the "live wire at the party" veneer I often employ in casual social settings. But such was not the case. Since my blogfriends already know the "deeper parts of me" in some ways, there was nothing to hide, so I could be more of that part of me.

I had to laugh at church to myself at the funny similarities between Lauralew and me in worship. Granted, my voice is an octave lower, but she sings and responds in church with vigor. I dearly love Episcopalians who have vigor! She, like me, does most of the prayer book from heart. She sings like she cares. You can hear her voice ring out in the responses. In other words, she worships like she likes it. I marveled at our worship similarities. She nods at the "Jesus Christ" part of the creed like I do. She prefers kneeling to standing. We even like to cross ourselves at the same time (except she also likes to cross herself at "we look for the resurrection of the dead" and that is the one I never got in the habit of doing.) To have that many worship similarities between two people who never met and became friends in the ether of the intertubes is uncanny. Cue the Twilight Zone music!

Then our visit with JML was fun b/c I got a glimpse of the world of their mutual past. JML is one of my dearest, most loyal friends. We don't get to hang out together as much as we'd like b/c she still has a lot of work obligations and obligations with the last kid in the house. But that has been ok, b/c we have a friendship that will always be there. Some friends are like that.

But as I was driving home, I was thinking a prayer of thanksgiving for all you that are my blogfriends, and was thinking part of this is a testament to the "cyberparish of MadPriest." I have met most of you b/c you hang out on OCIBW. You are my "church friends" as much as my real-time church friends are. I thank God for you. You make my spirituality better, more real, more connected. And God bless us every one!