by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, June, 2004
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

COMMA, COMMA

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

Note: At our Conference Annual Meeting in June, there were commas everywhere, as an expression of the theme, “God is Still Speaking—Never place a Period where God has placed a Comma.” These are reflections on the comma, made at the Annual Meeting.

The comma can mean many things.

The comma is used to set off appositive phrases, which are descriptive, and add something more.

Commas appear after the greeting in a friendly letter. “Dear Hilda,” you write, so that you catch Hilda’s attention, and then you go on.

When you see commas in a sentence marking off the items in a series, you know that as long as the commas continue, there is more to come.

In a seldom-heeded and possibly little-known quirk of English grammar, commas bestow blessed and necessary redundancy. If I refer, in writing, to my daughter [comma] Susannah [comma] you are tipped off to the fact that Susannah is my only daughter. I could have just said, “my daughter” and let it go at that, but I wanted you to know her name. In contrast, if I were to write about “my daughter Susannah” with no commas bracketing her name, you would be aware that I was talking about Susannah instead of my other daughter, Elizabeth.

In music and in public speaking, the comma denotes a pause—a space to catch your breath.

In compound sentences, commas tell us that here is a fully-formed statement—and there’s more on the way.

The comma, in our spiritual syntax, becomes the holy glide, the moment of refreshment, the almost-but-not-yet, the reality of the moment within the anticipation of change, the fullness of now, the expansiveness of “who knows?”

Visually, the comma bespeaks exhilaration—or looks like a tornado, or a teardrop, or the wrist of an NBA superstar in a perfect follow-through of the shot that arcs into the basket, ties the game, and promises new life in overtime play. The comma signals the possibility of an “and” or a “but” or a “therefore.”

If we are a people of the comma, we must recognize that we live in a world populated by periods, exclamation points, semicolons, and question marks.

If we are a people of the comma, then this shindig is a gigantic “Comma as you are” party!

This gathering could be merely a series of official meetings, an exchange of necessary information on church policies, skimming over the surface of issues and practices that unite and divide us, business items voted without engagement. But it won’t stop there. We will be, beyond all human expectation, touched and changed by one another. By our time together. By our widened perspective on our place within earth’s ecology. By comma, after comma, after comma, offering refreshment and possibility to the most roiling succession of events. By the unfurling of past into future, and the ongoing revelation of who we are, and who we are becoming as a church.

Comma along.

                                                                  ~ Mary Susan

Your comments are welcome
Send to msgast@ncncucc.org