To My Beloved of St. Paul’s,
Quite often I read some very good writing and like to share those words with you. This week I read the accompanying words, appropriate in our season of Lent. Many times, I find my words fall short of my own expectations, but I find renewed strength in the words of others. I encourage all of you to read and listen to the reflections of others, especially words that bring us closer to God.
The following was written by Melissa Madara, a United Methodist Deacon and Chaplain in Pennsylvania. I am grateful for her inspiration. Her Lenten Reflection.
“I have a complicated relationship with prayer. I suspect many of us do. On one hand, as a pastor and a spiritual director, I am in the business of prayer. I am the person that groups and individuals look to when sacred words need to be spoken, when the presence of God needs to be “invoked”, or when it is time to signal that it is time to eat. On a good day, I might serve as the collective voice of the community before the throne of grace, that as a community we might grow in our awareness that even in life’s most mundane moments we are indeed in the presence of God.
But on a more average day, I fear that the words coming out of my mouth are little more than perfunctory nonsensical babble, as I struggle to keep my brain focused on the things of God.
In her classic book, Anne of Green Gables, writer L.M.Montgomery reflects through the eyes of the young, orphaned child, Anne, on the nature and scope of prayer. Anne, remarks in the book; “If I really wanted to pray, I will tell you what I would do. I’d go out into a great big field all alone or into the deep, deep woods and I would look up into the sky, up,up,up into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to it’s blueness. And then I’d just FEEL a prayer.”
I think Anne and I would be great friends.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spends considerable time challenging preconceived ideas that the people hold regarding life, faith and community. In a world in which perceptions, reputations and expectations tend to guide our moral and ethical framework and the actions that arise from such a framework, Jesus opens us up to us a whole new way of seeing and experiencing the presence of God.
God is present in the flowery words the preachers speak from the pulpit.
God is also present in the perfunctory nonsensical babble that come from the mouths of leaders whose brains have gone astray.
God is present in the beauty of liturgy.
God is present in the “lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to it’s blueness”.
God is present in the words of the gathered community.
And God is present when we find ourselves alone, when words themselves fall short, and the only prayer inside of us is the Spirit of God interceding on our behalf.
God is present in both the articulate and the inarticulate, in both word and deed. In the prayers of the minister as well as those who question the efficacy of prayer, yet willing to share those doubts with God anyway. May you find a place to experience the presence of God in ways that will profoundly nourish and nurture your uniqueness.”
Listen and feel the presence of God.
BLESSINGS,
Pastor John
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