Service: Wrestle with Angels

All of us, even those confined to a bed, work.  Our work may involve managing a huge company, a Sunday School class, a family, or even just our own healthcare.  An old Russian singer-songwriter Bulat Okudzhava wrote, "Work is work, there's always work." 

Sometimes our work is easy, and wonderfully fulfilling.  Especially when it involves making life better for others in some way, our work can seem like holy service.  For which we can be most grateful.

But what about the times when work is drudgery?  When it is hard and slow, and requires vast attention to detail?  What about the times when we do not see our work as valuable, maybe because others don't see it as valuable?  Then it's difficult to be grateful for work.   And it might cross our minds that it is punishment.  Could it be that the toil spoken of in Genesis 3 is our lot?  When work feels a lot like the exhausting wrestling with angels much stronger than we are, what to do?

The truth is that none of us know completely how our efforts affect others.  It's lovely to feel good about our work, and to receive lots of good response to it.  Sometimes, though, it's only long after that we discover the impact we have had on other people.  As we wrestle with the angels at work, maybe the best thing is to pray that our work, whatever it is, will be of service to God and to God's people.  After that, it's God's responsibility to use it in the best way.

Returning over and over throughout the work time to this attitude requires discipline--more wrestling with angels.

Prayer- Plant Seeds

This is the prefect time of year to start seedlings in preparation for our gardens. This year, in my family, we have labeled each seed with a prayer intention for ourselves and others. As each seed grows, we have asked God to nurture both the seed and what/who it represents. In this way, God is planted in our yard and in our hearts.

Prayer: Mothers and Fathers

In the past week, three parents of staff or volunteers have died.  And my mother is ill, so parents are on my mind. 

All of us, whether we know them or not, like them or not, adore them or not, have a mother and a father.  At least some of what we are comes from them.  Let's pray a blessing on our own parents.  And pray for all of us who are parents.

Worship: Going to the Hospital

I spent the weekend in the hospital with various folks from the parish.  This prompted me to ponder the saying from (I think) Mike Yaconelli who wrote in Messy Spirituality, “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.” I've encountered the analogy of the church to a hospital many times over the years.  Certainly Jesus as the Great Physician, the Great Healer,works here.  What intrigues me today is the thought that all of us present at our services need healing, and many of us have received healing--some of us over and over (what else is confession and absolution, after all?). 

It is Good News that we have this spiritual hospital available to us.  And another piece of Good News that we are welcomed into the company of others who are being healed. 

Worship: In This Together

As I look out over the Sunday congregation, I know for a fact that someone has just discovered she is pregnant, another couple just got engaged, someone is fighting a deadly disease, someone's parent just died, someone is pondering ordination, someone is thoroughly engrossed in the process of spring gardening, someone is struggling with addiction, someone is joyfully celebrating years of sobriety, someone is having problems with their kids, someone has the BEST child, and so on.  The list of who we are is endless.  And sometimes it seems we are more different than we are alike.  Some of our ancestors even fought each other!  We're not even all here for the same reasons.  (All those who are here for the Mystical Feast raise your hands?  All those who are here for coffee hour raise your hands?)

But we all find ourselves in this place at the same time.  There is great benefit in having a limited foretaste of the wonderfully varied congregation which will gather to praise the Holy One at the end of time.  Truly we can sing, even today, "All Creatures of Our God and King...O, praise God!"

Prayer: Smoke and Flame

This bit of wisdom arrived in the quarterly newsletter of Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE): 

Amma Syncletica (4th century) said, "In the beginning there are a great many battles and a good deal of suffering for those who are advancing towards God, and afterwards, ineffable joy. It is like those who wish to light a fire; at first they are choked by the smoke and cry, and by this means obtain what they seek. So we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves." 

Do not, then, let the smoke or the tears blind you to the kindled flame in your heart but, rather, draw near to the warmth of the love of God.

--Many thanks to Fr. Cliff Carr for this post.

Prayer: Write the Scriptures

The ancient practice of lectio divina (sacred reading) invites us to interact with the Holy Scriptures, to appreciate them literally as the Word of God addressed to us.  Many times we read quickly, sometimes superficially, to gain information, to be entertained, to find out the end of the story.  Sacred reading is not like that.  We are invited to linger with God over God's word, to let it soak into our spirits, engage our minds.

One of the ways to slow down and take the holy words into myself, is to write them.  My eyes read the scriptures, my heart waits for God to make them alive in me, and my body also participates as my hand moves across the paper, forming the inspired words.  For those of us who learn kinesthetically, this is a particularly powerful practice.