‘How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!’

Reflection on Psalm 84 at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 10th February 2026

And it is lovely, isn’t it, to be here in Killodiernan church for Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator this morning.

This little rural church is very special for those of us who are part of its accustomed congregation. We come to it Sunday by Sunday – or at least on the 2^nd & 4^th Sundays a month when services are scheduled. It is special because here we find blessings.

Here we meet up with our friends and neighbours as we gather for the service, passing on the news. We sit in our accustomed pews, and remember those who have gone before us.

Here we listen to the Word in scripture, and hear it preached. And when words bore us, we look through the windows, contemplating the trees as they change, season by season.

Here we are led in prayer for our needs and the needs of the world, and we sing together.

Here we greet our neighbours in the Peace. We eat with them the bread which earth has given, and drink the wine - fruit of the vine - which human hands have made. In the great sacramental mystery, we do so in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose body and blood it signifies.

Here, after the service, we stand and talk - and if the weather is clement, we linger outside to admire God’s handiwork in the everchanging sward of wildflowers in the graveyard.

‘Here (our) heart and (our) flesh rejoice in the living God’, as the psalmist says.

The psalmist declares: ‘The sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young: at your altars, O Lord of hosts.’

Bats use the roof space of Killodiernan Church as a maternity roost in summertime. If you are passing at dusk one evening, do stop and watch them as they start to emerge. It is a magical sight, even better if you have a bat-detector to listen to them.

We must not think that God can ever be constrained to a building, for all the delight we take in our churches, and for all the encounters we have with God in them. God is present everywhere, all the time.  God’s altars are to be found everywhere.

It is part of our identity as members and friends of the Community to travel on pilgrimage away from our home place, to discover different altars in the company of other people, to share the gifts of their stories, and then return home changed, as the Wise Men were.

Much of the time, in our busyness, we do not feel God’s presence, nor notice his altars. But God and his altars are all around us. All we need to do is to stop rushing and still our racing thoughts for a moment. Then we can feel God’s presence and see his altars.

It may be when we pause our work for a cuppa. It may be when we hear the Angelus bell. It may be when we look up to see a magnificent view, or look down to identify a tiny flower. It may be when we sit down to a meal prepared with care and love.

We ought to practice seeking out such moments, focus our attention on being a doorkeeper in God’s house, which is the universe all around us, spending time in the loving presence of our God.

Then with the Psalmist we can sing, ‘Blessed are (we) who dwell in your house: (we) will always be praising you’.