NOT SUCH HOT STUFF

As a person of faith, I have prayed and heard prayers all my life. Prayers are expressions of the deepest longings of the human heart cast before the mysterious, creative reality that many call God.  In a recent Sunday service, an elder prayed before the sharing of the Lord’s Supper.  He spoke my heart.  I want to share this prayer by my friend Clark Williamson.

We do not come to this  your table, O gracious and compassionate God, trusting in our own righteousness because, frankly, we are not such hot stuff.  We come because you call us, one by one, by name, as you called the people Israel, by name, as Jesus called all his disciples, one by one, by name. So you call us one by one by name, to this table, and we are here because we are wanted.  Many of us know what it is “not to be wanted” and what a victory it is to know and accept that in fact we are accepted. Amen

My heart was broken with gratitude for the words that speak the longings of each human heart and the good news that the holy creator knows and wants each of us. Would that our lives could share that gift with those we know.

THE LEAST OF THESE

I heard my mentor say it a long time ago. Fred Craddock shared one of his disciplines that helped shape the way he lived and communicated with others. 

He said that every evening he sat on his back porch to tie up the loose ends of his day.  And one of his disciplines was to try to remember the least significant thing that happened to him that day.

Think about that a minute.  When we wander through the memories of our day, there are often noisy moments that cry out and say, “I am really important.  Remember me.” But, if you keep asking yourself the question, “Is there something less significant that happened?” you will remember more deeply the fullness of your day. 

As I meditate each day, that is one of the results of cleaning my mind by paying attention to a single word or listening to my own breath.  The loud and demanding concerns, the anxieties that plague any human heart are often so loud and fill so much space that the “least of these” thoughts and feelings are drown out.  But, when they are quieted, emotions that lie deeply below the surface of each day niggle their way onto the surface of my mind. 

And sometimes those thoughts or emotions turn out to be more important in understanding myself than the loud voices.  Sometimes, when I quiet the self-judging voices, the voices that demand I be more than I am, I hear the quiet and tender voice of self-love that reminds me that I am enough.   

And when I listen to those within myself, I become more attuned to the quiet and shy parts of others who may need special attention.  I come to realize that sometimes others are not just what they let me see, but are rich and complex, highly textured and multi-faceted, beautiful creatures who enrich my life and the lives of others. 

So, try it sometime.  Listen to the least significant part of your day, the quiet and shy voices that sometimes get drown out by the noise of a loud and demanding world. Your soul will be richer for it.

PRAYER

We sat around a primitive wood table, embraced by the late spring evening.  The deck was littered with life, potting soil, herb pots, bird feeders. We held hands and bowed our heads. The aroma of a quiche filled with fresh kale from her garden teased our senses. He prayed a simple prayer of thanks for food, for friendship, for time together. 

This tender act is repeated time and time again throughout the world as people gather to break bread and share soulful conversation together.  But this time it seemed special.  He is stable after a long battle with a blood cancer.  He had months of chemo therapy and a stem cell transplant. He struggled with life and death and now feels strong and able to live a full life each day. 

I don’t know how often I race by these moments, but this time I paused and felt the spirit of life hold the four of us as we shared the stories of life and family, of hopes and disappointments. And I want to rest in that memory. Thanks for that time, those hands, that food, that evening of awareness and appreciation.  These moments in life are precious.

DRESS-UP

Sometimes we have to play dress-up. We have to pretend that we are more than we are. To fit into the social setting we find ourselves, we have to act a certain way. As children, we learn to fit it. We learn to deny parts of ourselves so that we can be accepted in the family, in the social group. It is an important social skill to play dress-up.

As adults, we also pay roles. Roles are the way we fit into jobs, into religious groups, into schools. We take on a function and then offer that function to the organization. If we are an administrative assistant, our role in the organization is to assist an administrator. Obviously we are more than that role, but the role is what we have to take in that setting. We dress for the role.

But, we also pay other roles. We are more than an administrative assistant.  We are the role we play in the office.  But we are also the role we play at home, or with our friends, or in the church, or in the PTA. We play dress-up here and there, trying to fit in and live the parts that others need us to live.

But there are other times when we must come from behind the cardboard cut-out and look in the mirror and see the deeper longings and needs that reside within us.  Our soul can't survive if it is swallowed in the clothes of other's expectations all the time. Our heart has to take off the mask and run free. Our spirit has to exercise it's muscles so that the truth of who we are doesn't get lost in all the trappings of playing roles.

So, I recommend that we organize our lives so that we have time to pray, or to mediate, or to rest with the deeper, quiet longings of the heart. I find that in centering prayer. I find it in walking. I find it in sitting on the deck, staring at the pond. Resting in the soul that was created by God, and which pleases God just as it is, provides me moments of peace. I hope you find your moments as well. 

WORRYWART

When I was growing up, it was said this way: "Don't be a worry wart!!".  Jesus said, "Don't worry about tomorrow. . . ."  And he said, "Don't worry about your life, what you shall eat or drink, . . . " My experience tells me that this is easier said than done. Worrying seems to be a natural part of our mortal existence in a changing world.

Adam Phillips, in his book "On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life" writes that the word "worry" comes from a word that means to kill by strangulation.  It referred to what a dog did when it caught it's prey. In some sense, that illumines the our experience of worry. We latch onto a thought or an idea and we try to consume it.  We try to take it apart so we can take it into our minds and digest it.

The word has come to mean not only what we do but what is done to us. We not only worry about things, but things worry us. It is as if we are trying to simplify something enough that we can digest it and integrate it into our life, or that we are overcome by something and trying to take it apart to make sense of it.

I have never figured out how to not worry. When things happen that cause me to wonder about myself and my future, I have to spend time thinking about it. I envy those who have "worry beads" because it seems that at least the fingering of the beads gives a sense of order and sequence to thoughts that are more generally chaotic and disorganized.

So, I don't advise people not to worry. That is almost like telling people not to breathe. But, I do suggest that the unknown future and the feelings of fear that they evoke are worth pondering. I think it is human to engage in "soulful wrestling" with the principalities and powers that seem to live within us and around us. And it seems to me that this is what prayer is: soulful wrestling.

But, there needs to be margins around our worrying, our pondering. There needs to be times when we move forward in our living, not swallowed by our worries. To be consumed by worry sucks energy from living our lives and loving that which around us. Take time to pray or ponder but don't let it steal all your energy for living.