It’s a view I see 5 times a week, riding my bike home. Peninsula Covenant’s steeple, which at this time of year, is accented by the evening’s final light. It’s usually comforting, soemtimes a reminder of things I’d rather not think about, and sometimes it’s just there. Normally you’d think of sermons & church pews and long-past memories of always knowing exactly where my father was because he had a very distinctive way of clearing his throat. Something that has passed unchanged from father to son. For the most part, it’s just there, reliably there, always there. I never gave much thought to “needing” it; it’s a place where one gets married, makes friends, and goes to funerals.

But when things get dark, it’s a place of hope. And yet, it, like every other church, every synagogue I ride past, they’re all empty. That’s never how it works in the movies. People come together in the church. They seek refuge from everything-dark in the church. There is hope against the hopelessness in the church. There are people in the church. But not today.

Social distancing. Who knew.