More than correspondence.

It is noon.
There isn't much time.
But being here is important.
So no one pushes.
And no one yells.
Each waits their turn.

The air is filled with reverant whispers and the
echo of footsteps off marble flooring.

Is this the same group of people I see rushing by me at the super market?
Is that the same woman who was screaming from her car at a pedestrian?
Is that the same hot shot lawyer on TV, with his head bowed and his pride bridled?

Someone coughs. A mother hushes her baby.
A cell phone ring is quickly silenced.

A man leaves without his burdens,
just as two woman walk in with theirs
and seamlessly join the growing crowd
and our methodical liturgy.

We are not the first to partake in this ritual
and we won't be the last.
The art of balancing brown paper packages,
left arm, to the right, then to the left again.
Of the last minute licking of stamps,
the clicking of pens
the checking of clocks,
the tapping of fingers on ivory envelopes.

Bread doesn't turn to body,
and wine doesn't turn to blood.
But something is happening
as sunlight streams through cathedral windows.

Side by side, as we stand,
we become more than members of a community.
We become a congregation-
clinging fast to the written word,
dwelling on the ones we love,
and the ones that love us back.

I walk down the aisle,
with my offering in hand,
and lay it humbly down.
And in the letting go I realize,
that we are coming to this alter
with more that just our postage.

We are coming with our prayers.