The Gathering

[333 words] The phenomenon is called “shikadamari“ in Japanese. A loose translation would be, “deer gathering spot.” A large population of free-roaming deer live in and around the Japanese city of Nara, spending most of their time in the city park. Every summer evening at around 6:30, over 600 deer gather in the same spot for the same amount of time. The deer quietly come together, sit down for about an hour, then stand back up and disperse to different parts of the park. While onlookers are impressed by the display of consistency of the gathering of the deer, nobody has been able to explain the purpose (Zora News, August 20, 2019).  Someone outside of the Lord’s church might see Christians coming together on a regular basis at the same times, and for the same lengths of time, yet not understand the purpose for those gatherings. Members of the body…