Going to Church on the Mountain

                          Going to Church on the Mountain

    We got up very early that morning. In fact, we got up before the sun did. The birds were only just beginning to stir in the trees. This was a special trip for us that we made a few times every year. It was Sunday morning, and we were going to church on the mountain. We ate a little something to keep us going through the church service.We would eat breakfast with the Sisters after church.  Mom dressed us in our Sunday best. I was wearing a little short-sleeved dress of muslin with little strawberries all over it.
    We drove through Tullahoma and out onto the highway. We were heading east into the sunrise. It had been fairly humid the past few days, and the night before had been a little cool. There were dew drops all over the grass and the trees and the spring flowers.
    As we drove in the still darkness it was the light from the car’s headlights that shimmered off the dew drops. As we traveled into the sunrise, the light from the dawn took over. The pinks and lavenders and blues from the dawn began to create a shimmering lace from the dew drops sprinkled all over the greens from the fields and the woods.
    As we got past Cowan and started heading towards the mountain, I began to look for the Cross. There is a very big cross on Sewanee Mountain that you can see for miles around. It has lamps at its base that light it at night. But we could see the light shining in the dawn. I could feel the Cross pulling me up the mountain to go to church.
    We started up the mountain, and I could feel the spirits there singing their praises to God. It was as if everyone who had ever lived there was going to church that Sunday, and they were welcoming me to join them.
    We turned down the road that leads to St. Mary’s Convent. It has been there for over one hundred years. For over one hundred years men and women have been joining together in the chapels on those ground to worship and pray. I knew that if kept very still I could hear their voices over the years still singing.
    We entered the chapel signing the Cross on our foreheads with holy water from the font. It may have only been water from the tap that was blessed. To me it was water straight from a well in the Holy Lands blessed by Christ, himself. The service began with a hymn. There were maybe 25 living people in the chapel, but I could feel the souls of hundreds joining their voices with ours until I felt my heart would burst with joy.
           
              Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
              Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
              Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
              God in three Persons, blessèd Trinity!

    I knew then what was meant by the community of All Saints. I could feel the presence of all the men and women and children who had ever worshipped in that chapel as much as if they were all standing there by my side. There were infinitely more than two or three gathered together in His Name, and He was very much there in the midst of us.