What Group Are We?

Dr. Doug Hood’s wife, Grace Cameron Hood, B.C.E., wrote the following meditation.

In my neighborhood, we have a lot of birds. We have a big group of white ibis that spend hours rooting and pecking for worms. The theory is that when there are ibis around, there will be no hurricanes. Do you know what a group of ibis is called? It is a Colony. I found this interesting and funny so I started looking up other names of animal groups. A group of ants is also a Colony. A group of roaches is called an Intrusion. Dolphins are a Pod; fish are a School. Some of my favorites include hippos known as a Thunder, rhinos a Crash. Parrots are a Pandemonium, while eagles are a Convocation. Our friends the owls in their wisdom are a Parliament. Giraffes are a Tower. My absolute favorite is a group of flamingos is called a Flamboyance.

Each name reflects something about the individual participants. Roaches are indeed an Intrusion that everyone in Florida knows and pays to have removed. It doesn’t matter if you call them roaches or palmetto bugs, nobody wants to find them in their house. The wild parrots in South Florida are also aptly called a Pandemonium as they go from branch to branch, screeching wildly. So, what about a group of people who worship God and come together every week? They are called the CHURCH. Just as the name of each group is a descriptor of members, the word CHURCH should also describe us.

The word CHURCH means ‘House of the Lord’. In this space, we come together regularly, worship God intensely, sing, and hear music that soars to the heavens. We are instructed in who God is and what God wants in our lives. We participate in the action of giving, praising, thanking, serving, and hearing. This happens all around the world. I have been in many types of churches. My first memory is of an open-air church where we all sat on logs under palm branches in Congo. I have also attended beautiful churches in Congo decorated with woven clothes, high tin roofs and long hard benches. Gold-plated cathedrals in Brazil contrast to the small woven churches in the Brazilian Indigenous Reservations. A plain building that is a Quaker church in Pennsylvania stands near huge mega-churches that meet in hotels and schools. Stained glass windows are one of my favorite additions which appear in old country churches in muted shades of orange and brown and culminating in the breath-taking windows in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

What ties all these structures together is the word CHURCH, House of God. What characterizes this word around the world is a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for a place to be the people of God. Gratitude for the family of God that comes together in worship and praise. Gratitude for being able to stand up and be counted as part of the group of people that stretches around the world. Gratitude is known and shown as members of the church bend over to help each other, to accept and celebrate our differences, to open wide the doors, and make room for more people who call themselves members of the ‘House of God’ or the CHURCH.

Joy,