Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses

Over the past 6 months a group has formed of which I am a part. It started with a wine tasting party at my house last November. It developed because we started a Facebook thread in January to discuss details of the next planned party. The thread became an ongoing conversation that is now added to daily. Many of the people in the thread were strangers before but now we are all connected in a way that could only happen in the digital miracle we enjoy today.  

When I came back from Natchez in January, I couldn't get St. Mary's Basilica out of my mind. All over the basilica were statues of saints. Rows of them.  Tiny ones placed way up at the vaulted ceiling. Enormous ones that took you down the center aisle. Each one beautiful and intricately carved. The whole place was so intricate. Why would craftsmen go to such trouble?  I feel the same when I stop to look at tiny intricate flowers that we just walk on.  Why would God go to such trouble?  

But participating in our ongoing thread has given me a feeling of being in that Basilica. The statues of Mary and Francis and Peter are replaced with my friends in this thread.  We are each standing alone on our pedestals in our chosen spot of the sanctuary, but we are connected. We are alone together.  And it is the same as the single statue and the single flower. Beautiful, intricate and devinely unique when looked at separately. But exponentially awe inspiring in combination. 

Jack Shepherd said on the TV series, LOST, "Live together or die alone."  It is my goal this Lenten season to see every soul that I encounter as an intricately carved statue carved by the same craftsman that carved me and placed beside me in the same sanctuary.