I am seated in a small airplane, coasting above the sparce clouds on a windy day. We have just taken off from Casper, Wyoming and the vast expanse of brown and green land lies beneath us, just visible between the clouds.
I came to Wyoming to preach and teach a group of devout women. We spent one weekend together, singing, talking, praying, worshipping. This visit gave me a new perspective into the life of the rural Episcopal church. And times are truly changing.
The president of the Diocesan ECW in Wyoming is a priest and a cleaning lady. She has been locally trained at their Iona school for ministry. She is not paid for her priesthood but makes her living cleaning houses. Her congregation last Sunday had seven people in attendance. Her church building is what she described as "a log cabin church." She is bright and energetic and has a deep and abiding faith. She is a woman of God.
There were 35 women gathered. We talked honestly about the new era when church is no longer an assumed activity on Sunday mornings. The woman priest had recently baptized a Vietnam vet who was an alcoholic and died by falling face down in the snow on his way home from a bar. The suicide rate in Wyoming is the highest in the country.
While praying in a church on Friday night, we were visited by three deer and an antelope. They came to the grass right outside the sanctuary window. We rushed to the window and took pictures.
These women are learning to adapt. Their churches are not dying but very much alive. They are learning that they must go out into the towns and listen to the loneliness and desperation of the people around them. They will be bringing people to church one by one, day by day. Whereas once the ECW in Wyoming would gather 100 women for their annual retreat, now they gather 35, but these women are faithful as the day is long. And the Holy Spirit is alive and well within them.
I bought a hand-made apron at their silent auction. It has a head of lettuce on it and it says "Lettuce Give Thanks." And I do give thanks, for these women and for the heartbeat of the small churches on the northern plains.
