The miniessay is a single paragraph “essay” limited to the 2200 characters (including spaces) allowable in an Instagram caption. Just enough space to share an experience, make a point, or weave a spell. 

A week ago Sunday, I sat in a pew with my brother during worship at my church. As he recently celebrated his 20th anniversary of being a pastor at his own church and is on his very first sabbatical, this was truly a rare occurrence. Now, first and foremost, a church service is about worshipping God, but it is not inconsequential with whom one does this, at least for me. Being single, as I am, makes this especially acute from time to time. There is seldom the opportunity to turn to another one nearby to knowingly share a moment with a look or a word or, dare I say it, an arm around the shoulder. Now, I am socially aware enough to know that the single state also shields one from sometimes perforce needing to sit beside someone with whom one may be actively quarrelling or in the same pew with a recalcitrant child. Yet, even so…yet even so, there can be a sweet resonance when worshiping with someone one loves, with someone with whom one has a long, shared history. And perhaps there is no shared history quite like shared history with a sibling. Now he is my elder brother, so our shared history is all of my history. And we have spent much of it together: boarding school, college, and post college with my father. And being in those social and actual spaces together, many deeply loved, we also share many intellectual and spiritual moorings. And, well, we share in our looks and in the very timbre of our voice. I suspect those sitting in front of us may have heard the hymns in stereo. It was a sweet time. And the sweetest time of all came as we sang “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” It is a hymn we would have sung many times very much like the family on the cover of the Crusader Hymns and Hymn Stories books from our childhood (though with a touch more melanin and austerity), perhaps gathered around the large gas stove of our living room or at the community prayer meetings, with dear “uncles” and “aunties.” “All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—“Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!” Amen and amen.