For Wilshire Baptist Church
I recently spent a week in a digital fog when my computer would not boot beyond the sign-in screen. Through diagnostic programs I could see that everything was still on the hard drive; I just couldn’t get to it. And when I tried the prescribed software fixes, none of them worked. That left me with three options: take the computer to a repair shop and hope they could fix it; buy a new computer and transfer my data; or . . . gulp . . . erase the hard drive, reload the operating system, and pray that all my data was safe in the cloud.
The cloud is that mysterious place where we’re told all of our computer data is archived in case something horrible happens such as our computer dies. The words themselves — the cloud — make it seem like our data is floating in the air, when in fact the cloud is a physical server in a physical building somewhere that we’re told is protected from disaster. And we only have a place in the cloud if we have a cloud account.
Truth be told, I have an external hard drive backup, but I hadn’t updated it in months. Without the cloud, I’d have to start over on all of my recent work and I’d lose forever some photos and documents that could never be replaced. I really needed that cloud, so after studying the process but still with a good bit of trepidation, I erased my hard drive and reinstalled the operating system. Then, I said a silent prayer as I clicked the link to download my data. And guess what? It was all there, all safe and sound! I was on proverbial cloud nine!
Hmm . . . cloud nine. The first edition of the International Cloud Atlas, published in 1896, defined 10 types of clouds. The ninth type of cloud is the cumulonimbus, which rises to a height of 6.2 miles and is the highest a cloud can be. So when we talk about being on cloud nine, we’re saying we’re perched as high as we can perch – a sort of utopia, if you will.
The late George Harrison wrote about this in his song, “Cloud 9.” Harrison was well known for his spiritual and mystical leanings, and while his song is not about God, he said it described an altruistic love that offers every good thing but keeps to itself whatever is bad. Two verses:
Have my love, it fits you like a glove
Join my dream, tell me yes
Bail out, should there be a mess
The pieces you don’t need are mine
Take my time, I’ll show you cloud 9
Take my smile and my heart
They were yours from the start
The pieces to omit are mine
At Wilshire on Sunday evening it may have felt like cloud nine as we joined together for the first time since March to worship and share the love of God on the parking lot. But it wasn’t really cloud nine because we know that in God’s kingdom and in God’s plan, we aren’t protected completely from the bad. There was no better proof of that than the blue tape boxes on the pavement that separated us and the masks that hid our faces. We could wave at each other, speak to each other, sing and pray with each other, but we could not touch. If cloud nine is utopia, we were not there. But we’re not promised utopia either.
Still, as we worshiped on our grid of social distance, we read together this verse from the Book of Hebrews: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
The cloud of witnesses in that passage is said to be those that have gone on before us, who have run the race, have inspired us with their perseverance and faith, and are now cheering us on. I can only imagine that in that cloud there are people we know and love who are watching us, hurting with us as we struggle through these strange days, cheering us as we persevere and turn uncertainty into opportunity and possibility.
That cloud of witnesses is more reliable than the digital cloud we depend on. It is more real than the cloud nine we may long for. The cloud of witnesses is the cloud that holds our faith.
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A side note on the Sunday service at Wilshire: As we sat in the parking lot, a DART bus passed by on Abrams with the words “Not in Service” on its digital sign. I couldn’t help but look around at the assembled church and think, “That bus may not be in service, but the same can’t be said for Wilshire.”