Last fall, I spent two weekends out on Cow Island with the youth of St. Alban's. I have a rule on church trips that no one eats until someone has said grace/thanksgiving/blessing over the meal. And for the most part, I insist that whoever says that blessing must be under the age of 18.
The kids inevitably all stand there and stare at one another waiting for someone else to step up to the plate (this has been a trend throughout my youth ministry career). On Cow Island, I asked the kids what was so hard about it, and one teenage boy responded that he couldn't speak "fancy enough" to say grace. "It doesn't have to be fancy language," I replied, but this young man refused to believe me. Eventually, he convinced me that he would pray the next day but he needed time to prepare something.
Sure enough, at breakfast the next morning, there he stood with a scrap of paper on which he'd pre-written his prayer. And the language was indeed fancy...even this 21st Century teenager seemed to believe that the only way to talk to God was in the King James version of English.
In some ways, I think it is the blessing and the curse of the Book of Common Prayer. We have this resource for prayer that is thoughtful and beautiful and poetic and gorgeous, but sometimes it has us convinced that when we talk to God, it HAS to be those things. It has to be fancy.
But Nouwen's quote from Brother Lawrence hits the nail on the head - "Everyone is capable of such familiar conversation with God..." It's innate within us. All of us are naturals at talking to God as long as we speak with our own authentic voice. So have a conversation with God today and make it as plain as you can. God will still be glad for the chat!
Welcome to the St. Alban's Reading Blog!
With you, St. Alban’s clergy will be reading the latest short daily passages from Show Me The Way by Henri J.M. Nouwen, and we will be offering our comments here. You are invited to post your thoughts as well. Please sign your name to any postings you make.
To add a comment, select on the Title of the day. Scroll down to the words "Post a comment". When you have finished adding your comments, please click on the"Comment as" drop down list and select Name/URL then enter your name and leave the URL blank.
Friday, March 8, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Being All Ear For God
In today's reading Henri Nouen writes that true prayer is being "all ear" for God, always alert and listening for the still, small voice of God in our lives. How difficult this is for us! So often prayer time is cut short by other more intrusive and demanding voices. What will I make for supper? Have I done the laundry? How will I get to all three meetings that I have today? Don't forget the grandchildrens' swim meet. And on and on. It takes real discipline (that pesky Lenten word!) to shut those voices out and to open our hearts to God and God alone, if only for a few minutes.
I think it is not only in those moments that we purposefully set aside for prayer that we need to be alert, still, listening. It is all the time! The other day I was rushing around trying to get things done when I caught sight of a crow struggling in our yard with a very long, thin branch that had fallen from the maple tree. It was about ten times the size of the bird, but he was determined. He walked around it, plucked at it, pushed at it with his beak, tried to get a grip on it. He must have been a good five minutes trying to lift that branch and I found myself rooting for him. Come on! You can do it! He finally got his beak around a thinner part of the branch and tried to fly away with it. He flapped his wings fiercely but to no avail. At last he flew away to settle, not happily I imagine, in the higher branches of the tree.
So what has this got to do with prayer, you may ask? Well, I think it was prayer, in a way. It was noticing what was going on. It was seeing one of God's creatures (although crows are not my favorite of those creatures) in a rather comical but earnest quest to accomplish the impossible, and I was in awe of his determination. I was, at that moment, "all ear" for God through that ugly back bird.
Maybe we need that kind of determination in our prayer lives, as we try to become "all ear" to God, whether sitting quietly by ourselves, or paying attention to God's world out there, a world more full of joy and mystery than we can imagine.
Audrey
I think it is not only in those moments that we purposefully set aside for prayer that we need to be alert, still, listening. It is all the time! The other day I was rushing around trying to get things done when I caught sight of a crow struggling in our yard with a very long, thin branch that had fallen from the maple tree. It was about ten times the size of the bird, but he was determined. He walked around it, plucked at it, pushed at it with his beak, tried to get a grip on it. He must have been a good five minutes trying to lift that branch and I found myself rooting for him. Come on! You can do it! He finally got his beak around a thinner part of the branch and tried to fly away with it. He flapped his wings fiercely but to no avail. At last he flew away to settle, not happily I imagine, in the higher branches of the tree.
So what has this got to do with prayer, you may ask? Well, I think it was prayer, in a way. It was noticing what was going on. It was seeing one of God's creatures (although crows are not my favorite of those creatures) in a rather comical but earnest quest to accomplish the impossible, and I was in awe of his determination. I was, at that moment, "all ear" for God through that ugly back bird.
Maybe we need that kind of determination in our prayer lives, as we try to become "all ear" to God, whether sitting quietly by ourselves, or paying attention to God's world out there, a world more full of joy and mystery than we can imagine.
Audrey
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
A New Heaven and a New Earth
Compassion is a word we hear a lot during Lent. The Compassion Cross is set up in the Parish Hall, and the word turns up often in sermons and in Bible studies and classes during this season. Actually, when you think about it, we hear the word over and over during the year and with very good reason. Compassion lies at the very heart of Christianity and Nouen writes that our lives as Christians are to be marked by compassion, as Jesus' life was. We are to be compassionate toward our fellow travelers on the way, even as we look forward to the "new heaven and the new earth" described in the Book of Revelation - that time when there won't be any need for compassion because there will be an end to all suffering.
Many of you may remember the YouTube clip of a policeman in New York City tenderly putting a new pair of socks and new boots on the freezing feet of a homeless man. The policeman had seen this fellow, cold and alone, and had gone into a store to buy the socks and boots for him. Then he knelt down on the pavement and gently put them on the fellow's feet. The whole thing was captured on camera by a tourist. It was a touching and very poignant scene; a compassionate and loving act by a New York City cop - guys not always known for their tender hearts!
That video clip made news fast, and was sent around the world. It touched everyone who saw it. Won't it be wonderful when such acts of kindness won't be so rare that they make the headlines! Won't it be lovely when compassion will be as natural and as spontaneous to us human beings as breathing!
We have faith that a new heaven and a new earth will arrive one day, but it is beginning now. It begins with us - with you and with me - and with a tough New York City cop kneeling in front of a scruffy homeless fellow, warming his icy feet with new socks and boots.
Audrey
Many of you may remember the YouTube clip of a policeman in New York City tenderly putting a new pair of socks and new boots on the freezing feet of a homeless man. The policeman had seen this fellow, cold and alone, and had gone into a store to buy the socks and boots for him. Then he knelt down on the pavement and gently put them on the fellow's feet. The whole thing was captured on camera by a tourist. It was a touching and very poignant scene; a compassionate and loving act by a New York City cop - guys not always known for their tender hearts!
That video clip made news fast, and was sent around the world. It touched everyone who saw it. Won't it be wonderful when such acts of kindness won't be so rare that they make the headlines! Won't it be lovely when compassion will be as natural and as spontaneous to us human beings as breathing!
We have faith that a new heaven and a new earth will arrive one day, but it is beginning now. It begins with us - with you and with me - and with a tough New York City cop kneeling in front of a scruffy homeless fellow, warming his icy feet with new socks and boots.
Audrey
Monday, March 4, 2013
For All Who Serve God in God's Church
The prayer at the end of our Nouwen reading for the day resonates with something I've been thinking about this Lent as we've used Form VI of the Prayers of the People during worship. Each version of the Prayers of the People include petitions for the universal Church, the nation and those in government, the local community, those who suffer, and the departed. Form VI draws particular attention to the ministers of the church by praying "for all who serve God in his Church."
Each time we pray this on Sunday mornings, it reminds me that in the Catechism at the back of the Book of Common Prayer, it lists the laity as the primary ministers of the Gospel. It is the laity who are listed first, followed by bishops, then priests, then deacons. In some ways, I think our Nouwen prayer names the same themes.
But as Henri says, being ministers of Christ is not the same thing as being publicists for God. Our job is not to give the very best spin to the actions of God; it's not even our job to presume that we know which are the actions of God and which are not in some kind of finite way. Rather, I think as ministers of Christ, all of us are called to live authentic lives that reflect the ways in which we are transformed because of our faith. That's not a spin job, that's a testimonial. That is a form of ministry.
Each time we pray this on Sunday mornings, it reminds me that in the Catechism at the back of the Book of Common Prayer, it lists the laity as the primary ministers of the Gospel. It is the laity who are listed first, followed by bishops, then priests, then deacons. In some ways, I think our Nouwen prayer names the same themes.
But as Henri says, being ministers of Christ is not the same thing as being publicists for God. Our job is not to give the very best spin to the actions of God; it's not even our job to presume that we know which are the actions of God and which are not in some kind of finite way. Rather, I think as ministers of Christ, all of us are called to live authentic lives that reflect the ways in which we are transformed because of our faith. That's not a spin job, that's a testimonial. That is a form of ministry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)