Sunday Morning and Collective Effervescence

 

                                                                       Linda Merad

For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

                                                                               Matthew 18:20

This morning we got out early for a kayak paddle on the Moira River. We were virtually alone, the conditions were perfect and we saw lots of wildlife. There was a veritable congregation of blue herons, green herons, and an egret. The swallows were dancing across the surface of the water. 

We went on to another sanctuary for a different sort of worship, this time at Trenton United Church. The congregation was small but we were in-person, singing, praying and hearing the Word proclaimed. This was the fourth Sunday of our third phase of being physically together and I appreciated the opportunity. For the first time since the pandemic began we sat with our two Trenton grandsons, all of us masked of course.

I read an essay in the New York Times by psychologist Adam Grant with the intriguing title  There’s a Specific Kind of Joy We’ve Been Missing. He began by sharing about a Foo Fighters concert with 15,000 vaccinated people in attendance, the closest he's witnessed to rapture since the pandemic began. Grant goes on to talk about the essential nature of shared experience and makes these observations:

We find our greatest bliss in moments of collective effervescence. It’s a concept coined in the early 20th century by the pioneering sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the sense of energy and harmony people feel when they come together in a group around a shared purpose. Collective effervescence is the synchrony you feel when you slide into rhythm with strangers on a dance floor, colleagues in a brainstorming session, cousins at a religious service or teammates on a soccer field. And during this pandemic, it’s been largely absent from our lives. 

This is so true and I'm glad he includes religious gatherings in his examples. Well before the pandemic many congregations have fretted that the fizz had gone out of worship as numbers diminished and participants aged. But there is no doubt in my mind that there is an effervescence in even the proverbial two or three gathered together which is not the same when worship is online. 

Virtual services made sense when they were the responsible, faithful alternative to dangerous super-spreader events. They are not a long term solution and many congregations are suffering mightily from not being together. Some ministers and active congregants have admitted that the will to return seems to be fading and they've heard that a segment are content with the virtual alternative, even as public health restrictions are eased.

This morning's worship was also shared online and it's good that those who are still uncertain about contact with others have the option. Trenton United is alternating indoor and outdoor services and more have attended in the parking lot than in the traditional sanctuary. 

I do feel that there was "fizz" in Rev. Isaac's leadership and in the intangible yet vital  congregational participation during our time together. God willing, I hope we are able to shake the bottle a little in the months ahead.