The prayer you won't get to hear for another 200 years

We have entered the long Season After Pentecost (some churches call it the “Trinity Season”). The season is calculated based on where Easter falls each year, itself a calculation based on the first full moon after the equinox (Cartoonist Dave Walker at right can explain this).

What all this means is that there are Sundays and weekdays with assigned biblical readings and prayers from the prayer book that we almost never get to hear.

In fact, the first of these prayers won’t be heard again in church on a Sunday for another 215 years. The next time Easter will be early enough will be March 23, 2228.

This year we begin the Season after Pentecost with the prayer and readings for “Proper 3,” which is church-speak for starting three weeks into the earliest possible date for Pentecost. Had Easter come three weeks earlier (like in 2228) we would have started on the Pentecost readings and prayers three weeks ago. Since we are not going to hear these prayers for a very long time on a Sunday, today I am offering you these prayers that you didn’t get to hear.

And since this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday, you don’t get to hear the prayer for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost either. So here are all four Sunday prayers – or “Collects of the Day” that you won’t get to hear:

 + + +

Proper 1    Week of the Sunday closest to May 11

Remember, O Lord, what you have wrought in us and not what we deserve; and, as you have called us to your service, make us worthy of our calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Proper 2    Week of the Sunday closest to May 18

Almighty and merciful God, in your goodness keep us, we pray, from all things that may hurt us, that we, being ready both in mind and body, may accomplish with free hearts those things which belong to your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Proper 3    The Sunday closest to May 25

Grant, O Lord, that the course of this world may be peaceably governed by your providence; and that your Church may joyfully serve you in confidence and serenity; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Proper 4    The Sunday closest to June 1

O God, your never-failing providence sets in order all things both in heaven and earth: Put away from us, we entreat you, all hurtful things, and give us those things which are profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Never pray in a room without windows -- The Talmud

I am not preaching today.  I want to share with you that our Vestry this Lent  has undertaken a daily practice of prayer, led by our Vestry co-chaplains Janice Dean and Gwynn Crichton.

To make this simple, they are sending us a daily meditation from The Breath of the Soul: Reflections on Prayer, a book by Joan Chittister (and we have permission to do this). Each morning comes a wonderful reflection along with a few prayers.

This reflection came the other day, and it struck many chords with me, beginning with the mention of windows. I begin my mornings in quiet prayer and reflection in a corner of our house with a big window. I like to begin my prayers by looking out the window as the sun dances on the tree tops.

I leave this with you today from Joan Chittister...

+ + +

Responsibility

Never pray in a room without windows.

— The Talmud

The rabbis are clear: Prayer is not meant to make us into a world unto ourselves. We do not pray in order to escape the world around us. We pray with one eye on the world so that we can come to understand what is really being asked of us here and now, at times like this, as co-creators of the universe.

When God put humankind into a garden called earth, it was, Scripture is clear, to steward it to fullness of life. We were intended to keep the earth in good condition, to use it and develop it, to do our part in bringing every aspect of creation to fulfillment.

What God did not complete, we are meant to finish. God gave us the plants and intends us to garden and harvest them for the good of the entire world. God gave us the sun and intends us to use its energies in ways that maintain not destroy life. God gave us all the raw materials of life—physical, psychological and mental—and expects us to bring to full growth what was created in embryo.

We must learn to pray with more than ourselves in mind.

We do not pray for our own needs alone. We pray to become holy agents of the God who made us to care for the earth and all its peoples.

We are each workers in the garden of life.

Our most contemplative people — Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine of Siena, Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day — are those who most actively sought the coming of the reign of God on earth. We pray to become like them.

To be assured that we are living an authentic prayer life we must forever and always examine its fruits in us. Are we really more concerned about others because we have come closer to God who loves them? Or have we turned prayer into a refuge from what being fully human demands of us?

Prayer is meant to bring us to see the world as God sees the world. It is meant to expand our vision, not trap us in the world that is only ourselves.

Commitment to the needs of the world is a sign of the presence of God in us.

The First Sunday of Lent: Prayerful paths and slowing down

Lo, we descend into the valley of Lent…

This is supposed to be a time of simplicity, introspection, fasting and penitence. But it gets complicated quickly at St. Paul’s.

This morning we will chant the Great Litany, as complex an opening to worship as ever there was. We will be commissioning our new pastoral care Stephen Ministers at 10 am, and Pastor Ann Willms will be preaching today.

Later in the day, I will be offering the first in a seven-week course leading to adult baptism, confirmation or reception into the Episcopal Church.

Meanwhile, Pastor Heather Warren will be offering an introduction to the work of author-speaker Brian McLaren who will be joining us next Saturday and Sunday.

Lent is supposed to be a time of slowing down, but it does not yet feel that way for me. So I feel somewhat hypocritical in urging you to slow down and have a Holy Lent (as my mother used to put it, “Do as I say, not as I do”). So please let me offer a few brief ideas about what Lent should really be about, and I offer this to you much as a reminder for myself:

Lent is a gift to the heart. Lent can be a time not of obligation but of careful and prayerful discernment about our life path, and how God is calling us to live our life of faith in the world. It is a time of confession, of looking honestly at where we have fallen short. It is also a time to feel reconnected in our deepest self to God our creator and celebrate the gifts God gives us. This can be a time a feeling affirmed on our path, or feeling called to new directions, or maybe a combination of both.

Traditionally the Church asks that we “give up” something for Lent as a way of focusing on what is truly important. Fasting can nudge us into being less self-indulgent and more aware of the needs around us and the places God is calling us to go. Fasting that is falsely pious is no fast at all.

My suggestion is to make your fast something important and hard. Maybe instead of giving up chocolate, give up fear. Or instead of giving up meat, give up gossip. Or instead of giving up ice cream, give up petty complaining.

Lent is a time for renewal of prayer. There are many ways to pray, but all require practice. Find a regular time in your day to pray that works for you and stick to it. Get up earlier if you need to, or turn off the television or computer earlier in the evening. Use the prayer book or pray spontaneously from your heart. Reading the Bible daily in small doses can enrich your prayers and your life. Rather than getting hung up on the factoids of the Bible, let you imagination find the Holy inspiration between the lines.

You can get instant help on this: We’ve provided a series of reflections for each day of Lent written by members of St. Paul’s, and each reflection is connected to the Scripture readings for the day. All of this can be found on a special blog by clicking HERE, and the blog has links to each day’s biblical passages.

Sometimes the biblical passages fall flat with me, and that is perfectly OK. But sometimes they touch my deepest core. Today’s Epistle from 1 Peter 3:18-22 is written in coded first century language, but decoded it is a declaration of hope, that no one is beyond grace and redemption, that Christ went to the grave to find people in the grave:

“He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison.”

Finally, let me leave you with a poem for Lent that I rather like, by Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007), whose writing reflects her deep faith and her interest in science.

For Lent, 1966
By Madeleine L’Engle

It is my Lent to break my Lent,
To eat when I would fast,
To know when slender strength is spent,
Take shelter from the blast
When I would run with wind and rain,
To sleep when I would watch.
It is my Lent to smile at pain
But not ignore its touch.
It is my Lent to listen well
When I would be alone,
To talk when I would rather dwell
In silence, turn from none
Who call on me, to try to see
That what is truly meant
Is not my choice. If Christ’s I’d be
It’s thus I’ll keep my Lent.

+ + +

May your Lent be filled with holiness and hope.

Why pray?

This Lent, quite a number of churches are offering daily reflections written by members of their congregations (and I hope you've seen the daily reflections written by members of St. Paul's; you can reach it by clicking the purple cross to the left).

Among those that have touched me the most is by my dear friend Carolyn Foland, at Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento. Her reflection is based on my favorite psalm.

Here is her reflection:

Psalm 139 

O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Then why pray? God knows everything anyway.

I don’t pray for God to understand what I need. I pray to understand what I need. Okay, what’s the problem I need help with? Well, it’s this . . . . no, wait, the more I think about it, it’s more this. What did I do to get here? Why did this happen again? What help do I need to get out of here? What action do I need to take?

This inner dialog, I believe, is the process of being in relationship with God. It’s rather like guided meditation. I’m trusting the process to lead me to understand what I need from God and to be open to receiving it. It is a process of learning what to let go of and what I should be doing for myself. I can learn, if I am honest, what there is in the situation in which I find myself that I can affect and what is beyond my control.

There are times, of course, when there is no time for inner dialog. Times for instant surrender. These prayers are spontaneous utterances, usually in the form of four letter expletives. They are also likely to be the most heartfelt requests for deliverance from what’s happening that I am capable of articulating. The one I remember most is when I rolled my MG after encountering black ice in Wyoming. God and I knew exactly what I meant.

Intercessory prayer is a reminder that I need to think of others. I need to remember that there are others with problems. I ask God to help those of my friends in trouble, to heal those who are ill. I could say “this is Your will, God, not mine,” but because I believe that God knows what I want – those I love to be well and free from hardships or danger – it’s less than honest to pretend that I’m cool with whatever happens. I care. I may later pray to understand why something happened or to accept the final outcome, but as long as the future is uncertain, God and I are both clear with what I want. Because whether I say it or not, he knows.

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Carolyn Foland

What if prayer is the most important thing you do?

This is the First Sunday of Lent, and my sermon is based on the readings for today: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19 and Matthew 4:1-11. May you have a blessed Lent.

+ + +

Lord, in your mercy, come show us the way. Amen.

I’d like us to take a few moments of silence and prayer to remember those who have died, or who are injured, or homeless from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and those who are struggling today to contain this calamity as it still unfolds. I also know many of you have friends in Japan, and so let us hold them also in our prayers.

Lord, in your mercy, come show us the way.

This morning, on this, the first Sunday of Lent, we get a dense series of biblical readings that are the basis of the Christian doctrine of “original sin.” The authors of the lectionary had in mind that you and I should be taught once a year about this knotty doctrine, and today would be the day. 

Well, maybe. 

I must confess, and this is the time of confession, that at the outset that in the face of the horror of our world – wars in Central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere – and the horror that is still unfolding in Japan, I find that the doctrines of the church sometimes seem, well, too small, too puny, too inadequate. 

So I’d rather start somewhere else. I’d like us to stand on high ground for a time this morning, and I’d like to start with a question: 

What would it look like if the most important thing we do as a congregation is to pray?
Now, I know that sounds like a silly question. I mean, we are a church, that’s what we are supposed to do, right? 

I know the most important thing you and I are doing this morning is praying; it is why we are here. And even if you are having trouble finding the prayers, someone else is praying those prayers for you. 

As Pastor Ann mentioned in her Ash Wednesday homily, these walls are awash in the prayers of the many who have come before us. Like them, we gather together to pray in many ways: with words and music, in silence, and with symbols for the eyes, and the bread and wine of our Holy Communion. 

We have a feast of prayer this morning for all of our senses. We bring the fullness of ourselves into prayer, and God made that good. 

So let me ask this in a more personal way: 

What would it look like if the most important thing you do is pray? What would that look like for you? 

What if your prayer didn’t stop when you left here this morning? What if prayer was the more important thing you do for the rest of the week? What would your week look like?
I am talking about praying when you take a walk, or wash the dishes, or fold the laundry, or in the quiet of the morning, or late at night before you sleep. 

If you truly made prayer the most important thing you do, what would look different in your life? 

Yes, there are many other important things you and I do in our lives. It is important to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head and to wash the dishes. 

It is important to pay your bills, and to rear children and take care of your health. 

It is important to go to school and learn. 

It is important to have fun and share a meal with friends and family. 

All of that is important. But what would those things look like if prayer came first? 

And what might fall away as not so important? 

Or, let me put this another way: How would you make decisions in your life if you truly brought your decisions into a conversation with God on a regular basis? 

Prayer can be tricky business. It is tempting to pray for things – for stuff – for bread after a forty-day fast, or to be saved from falling off a rooftop, or amassing political power, or at least a promotion at work.

It is tempting to give advice to God – most of us are actually pretty good at that.
The kind of prayer I speak of is simpler, yet scarier. 

This kind of prayer is to be found in the Lord’s Prayer: “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” 

What if we meant it when we said “thy will be done”? 

It might require setting aside selfish agendas and opening ourselves to hearing “thy will be done.” 

This is not a prayer of despair, or a plea for power and wealth. 

“Thy will be done” is a prayer for healing, hope, and seeing the presence of God right here among us, and hearing what God would have us do on this earth. 

That kind of prayer requires us to see our connection to each other, and to the people of Japan and Libya and Afghanistan, and the people across the street and next door. 

How do we do we pray like that? It may not be as hard as you think. 

Start by with noticing the Holy that is right in front of you. Author and preacher Barbara Brown Taylor calls it “The practice of waking up to God.” 

“Reverence,” she writes, “stands in awe of something – something that dwarfs the self, that allows human beings to sense the full extent of our limits – so that we can begin to see one another more reverently as well.” [An Altar in the World, p. 21] 

This Lent, I am suggesting that we as a congregation look for the Holy all around us, starting in the simple moments. Let’s see where it takes us; I don’t know where that will be, that’s the beauty of it. We won’t know until we try. 

Start by setting aside time each day for prayer, for reflecting on the holiness you see in your life. Hear God in the laugh of a child; look for God in the early spring buds on the trees; feel God in the gentle touch of someone close to you; hear God in the music or in the silence.
Listen for the small still voice of God in all you experience. Trust that something will happen when you stop to notice and to pray. 

Find the time to pray and reflect about what you see and experience. Get up 15 minutes earlier in the day if you have to, or carve out 15 minutes on your lunch hour, or 15 minutes for a walk before dinner. Maybe get off the Internet 15 minutes earlier than you usually do, or turn off the TV. 

Want to give up something for Lent? Give up distractions, 15 minutes at a time. Give up the gods of endless busy-ness, over-scheduling, control. 

Slow it down, and notice the true God one prayer at a time. 

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, puts it this way [p. 24]: 

“We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of things to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable…If anything, these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods—if only we could find some way to do more faster.”

The illusion of being God is the “original sin” and humans have been tricking themselves into thinking that since there were humans. The doctrine of original sin is no more complicated than that. 

Look at your illusions, bring those to your daily prayer. 

Look at what hurts you. What holes have you fallen into by your own making, or through no fault of your own? God is in there too – especially there in those lonely places. 

Listen for the voice leading you out. Turn around and look for the ladder up. 

Lord, in your mercy, come show us the way. 

Do you have a heavy stone on your heart needing to be lifted? Come make a private confession with a priest, with one of us – yes, we do that. Come claim the forgiveness that is yours. 

Lord, in your mercy, come show us the way. 

Prayer is not always sweetness and light. It can be hard work like life itself. Prayer may not take us on the safe route. Prayer will test us and mold us as it did Jesus in the wilderness. 

So make this your Holiest of Lents, and don’t do this alone. Make it your practice to gather here every Sunday, not out of obligation, but because it is important for you to be here. Our prayers are richer when you are here, and our prayers are much the poorer when you are not.

Come experience the prayers here as rich food for your body, mind and soul.Make prayer the most important thing you do, this Holy Lent, and for the rest of your life. 

Lord, in your mercy, come show us the way. Come. AMEN.

Art by Chiura Obata (1885-1975).

Prayer beneath the waves

What if the most important thing we do is pray? What would the rest of our life look like?

You may recall that our Vestry looked at that question at our annual two-day retreat last month, and we pledged to pray as individuals each day. Rather than get too rarified, we agreed to keep it simple.

Members of the St. Paul's Vestry are reading the daily meditation from Forward Day by Day, which this month is being written by a South Pacific Anglican bishop.

Today's meditation seems to speak especially to me today on several levels, and I will say more on that next week. You can read the daily reflections from Forward by clicking HERE, and then put it in your bookmarks. You can also get a paper booklet of Forward at St. Paul's or just about any Episcopal church. Here is the meditation for today:

Matthew 6:1-6. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Prayer is like swimming in the ocean. Often prayer may be just paddling in the shallows—a kind of playing at prayer and not a commitment. As the deeper water and waves embrace us, we learn through prayer to be held by God and to trust God’s love. We find a new freedom. As we dive beneath the waves, as we grow in the life of prayer, we gain new perspectives and explore new worlds.

Jesus criticizes those who play at prayer for the sake of impressing others. Jesus teaches his disciples the secret life of prayer. For Jesus, a secret place was among the hills of Galilee. We know that he prayed among the olive trees in the garden of Gethsemane.

Where are your secret places? Maybe you have a corner of a room or a particular place in the quiet of a church. I find solitude and time for prayer while walking beside the sea as the dawn breaks. A loving God will reward us as we commit ourselves to prayer.

PRAY for the Diocese of Masvingo (Central Africa)

Ps 137:1-6(7-9), 144 * 104; Ruth 4:1-17; 2 Corinthians 4:13—5:10

On the road with prayer and study in this new year

Today's sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas is based on Luke 2:41-52 . May many blessings follow you this new year!

* * *

Many years ago, when I was growing up, we went on family vacations to the mountains. To get there was a good day’s drive, and another full day to get back home.

Year after year, we went to the same cabins with the entire family, and I mean the entire family – aunts, uncles, cousins, babies, kids, teenagers, friends of my parents, and sometimes my sister and I were invited to bring a friend or two along.

Everyone would pile into these behemoth station wagons. The kids sat in the far back so that the adults didn’t have to listen to us, and all the sleeping bags and suitcases and kitchen gear was piled on the roof.

When everything was loaded, off we went in this long caravan of avocado green and drab brown Buicks and Chevys, heading on up U.S. 50, the dads behind the wheel, their primary mission to “make good time.”

Sometimes I rode in my parents’ station wagon, but most of the time in someone else’s. It was always more fun to be riding in a different station wagon than your dad’s. When we got to a gas station, I might change cars again. I rarely arrived in the same station wagon in which I started.

When vacation was over, the caravan of station wagons loaded up kids and cribs and kitchen gear and headed on back down the mountains, and I might be riding in my Uncle Stan’s station wagon or my Uncle Bert’s.

So, when I hear today’s gospel reading, I find it perfectly understandable that Mary and Joseph misplaced Jesus after they came home from their yearly trip to Jerusalem with their extended family.

I can hear Joseph pulling into the garage in Nazareth and saying to his brother: “Hey, I thought he was riding with you.”

And I can just see the look on Mary’s face, telling Joseph to load up, we are going back to Jerusalem and that kid will be so grounded when we find him.

I also find it very believable that when they found Jesus, the know-it-all 12-year-old told his parents, “What are you so worried about? I knew where I was. And I had something much more important to do than just hanging out with my boring old family.”

If Joseph was anything like my dad, he would have given the son-of-God a stare that could turn steam into ice, and then a sharp order to get into the car and say not another word, period.

The gospel story ends by assuring us that Jesus was obedient to his parents ever after.

I’ll bet he was.

Well, what do we make of this story today? What’s it doing here? Is it about how to deal with your teenager? Probably not.

Raymond Brown,* the preeminent New Testament scholar of our time, makes a compelling argument that this vignette was inserted by the gospel writer from an unknown source, and that it doesn’t fit well with the rest of the Gospel of Luke.

Brown notes that the ancient art of hagiography – hero-worshipping biography – usually had at least one legendary story showing the heroism of the hero as a youth. This fits the genre. Besides, Luke needed something to fill the gap between the birth story at the manger and Jesus’ adult ministry.

Scholars also will tell you this story today has a Christological purpose, showing that Jesus knew he had a higher calling even at a young age but that everyone else was puzzled from the start.

That’s all fine with me, but there is another point in this story that I find interesting. Please notice: Jesus is studying. He is asking questions of the most learned rabbis of his time. He is asking questions of his faith and the religion of his ancestors.
If Jesus needed to study, don’t you think we do too?

As I go about being your priest, I am sometimes struck by how people don’t start asking questions about their faith until they hit the shoals of life.

What often happens is they discover what they were taught in Sunday school years and years ago doesn’t hold up very well. They wait so long, catching up is hard to do.
Let me ask you: How many of you would settle for a sixth grade education in your personal and professional life? Why would you settle for that in your religious life?

And while I hope the sermons we give on Sundays feed you, it may not be enough to sustain you when life gets challenging.

And while I believe prayer on Sunday is a very good thing, that also is not enough. Just as each of us needs to eat more than one meal a week to feed our body, so do each of us need to pray more than once a week to feed our souls.

So this coming year, I am challenging each of us to be more intentional in our spiritual life through prayer and study.

I would like each us to set aside time every single day for prayer. Give yourself 15 minutes a day – that isn’t very much – but it will add up. Find a regular time that works for you. Keep at it.

If you aren’t sure how to pray, buy a prayer book. If you can’t afford one, I’ll give you one. If the prayer book isn’t working for you, go to a local book store. You will find many books that will feed your prayer life. Find what works for you.

If you are already praying each day, take a little time this week to examine how that is going for you. Is it still working? What might need tweaking?

Next, I am challenging us as a faith community to study together in the new year.

And study is for all ages. If you have children, get them in the Sunday school. If you have teenagers, get them into the youth group, and then please join the parents group that meets at the same time.

We will have a stellar line-up of adult forums on Sunday mornings after our worship, and I hope you will plan to stay for that.

Come to our Wednesday community night, and join one of the groups like our Centering Prayer group, or our women’s Bible study or the Shalom group for young adults.

Or on Wednesday evenings, Paula Kettlewell leads a book discussion circle, and I lead a class starting next week exploring the basics of the Christian tradition.

If you are a University of Virginia student, you are invited to dinner and discussion across the street at our Canterbury House on Wednesday evenings.

In the new year, we will form new small groups. Some will meet here the daytime, others will be dinner groups in homes. We will pick a book, or a film, or some other topic to spring off from.

And you don’t need to wait for me to get started. Pick a few friends, pick a book and study together. Ask the hard questions, don’t settle for pat answers.

I want to underline something: Prayer and study go to the very essence of life; God made you for this but you need to exercise the spiritual muscles to get anything out of this. This is not just another activity like soccer games and music lessons.

I guarantee intentional prayer and study will transform you and that will transform this parish. You will find that you have a reservoir of strength you didn’t know you had in those times when you need it the most.

As a parish community, we will see more deeply our connections to each other and the hurting world beyond these walls, and we will see more clearly what we are to do for each other and for the world beyond.

The important thing is to get in the car and go. We all might be riding in a different car, but we are all going to get where we are going together because God will get us there. AMEN

* Raymond E. Brown, An Adult at Christmas, The Liturgical Press, 1978, pages 37-50

Prayer is a gift of the Spirit: "Speak to your heart upon your bed."

The readings from yesterday's Daily Office spoke to me, and so I'd like to share some of my meditation from yesterday.

First, there was Paul Letter to the Romans 8:26-30:

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."

There are many times I do not know how to pray, when the words don't come, when my mind wanders to my To-Do list and my church tasks for the day.

It helps me to know that prayer is a gift, and the words -- the insights -- of prayer are truly from God's grace. It helps me to know all that so that I don't worry that my prayer is somehow not good enough.

There are people who seem so great at prayer, and I can feel inadequate by comparison. Thomas Merton and Julian of Norwich I am not. But if prayer is a gift of the Spirit, then prayer is not a competition. I don't have to be Thomas or Julian. I can fret about many things, but prayer should not be one them.

Yet, that brings me to a related question: How honest am I allowed to be in my prayer? Yes, I pray for others, but may I pray for myself? How do I pray for myself? Do I put my selfish desires and my deepest anxieties on the table with God? Do I say what I really want? Should I be bothering God at all with any of this?

I am helped by Psalm 4 from Evening Prayer last night: "Speak to your heart in silence upon your bed."

"Answer me when I call, O God, defender of my cause; you set me free when I am hard-pressed; have mercy on me and hear my prayer..."

One other thought came to me in yesterday's meditations, and it is more implicit than explicit within the readings of the day. Many passages of the Bible seem to suggest God is the cause of both good and evil, like when God "hardened the heart of Pharaoh" so that plagues would be unleashed and so proving God's might. That is not an image that sets well with me about God; this image of God is not anyone I would want to trust.

There is another way to see this:

If prayer itself is a gift of the Spirit, as Saint Paul teaches, that suggests to me that God is present everywhere and in everything; in every word and action, in every person, in every molecule of the universe, in every moment both good and evil. God is present in every prayer no matter how flawed I am in my prayer.

That also suggests to me that God is dwelling with me in both the good times and the bad; is with me when I am noble and when I am selfish, when I am strong and when I am weak. God is with me in the joyful and the bleakest moments, at the dawn and at the dusk; and God reaches each one of us even into the depths of hell itself.

God is especially with me in my prayers; God brings me the words I cannot quite find for myself. The question for me is whether I can sit still long enough to hear the prayers that come from my heart upon my bed.

That also suggests that God is capable of hearing every prayer, in every language, from every heart, from every religion. Prayer can come with words, or in art and music, in every sense of our being -- or in pure silence.

Humans have limits and religions have limits. But God has no limits; there can be no limits to the prayer God can hear. God can perfectly well read Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags and hear the chants of a Muslim imam or a Jewish cantor, or see the illuminations of a Bible transcribed by a Cistercian monk, or hear the inspiration of "inner light" by a Quaker, or listen to the "Prayers of the People" from an Episcopalian. God can sort it out.

I always seem to arrive back at my favorite psalm. Even though it is not assigned for the day,

I leave you with this:

Psalm 139

Domine, probasti

1 LORD, you have searched me out and known me; *
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places *
and are acquainted with all my ways.

3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, *
but you, O LORD, know it altogether.

4 You press upon me behind and before *
and lay your hand upon me.

5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; *
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

6 Where can I go then from your Spirit? *
where can I flee from your presence?

7 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; *
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

8 If I take the wings of the morning *
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

9 Even there your hand will lead me *
and your right hand hold me fast.

10 If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, *
and the light around me turn to night,"

11 Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day; *
darkness and light to you are both alike.

Top, Islamic calligraphy, "Meditations on the Veil," by Nazar Yahya (1963-); middle, Tibetan prayer flags; bottom, Psalm 79, from illuminated Jewish Haggadah, German, 14th century.

An Advent prayer

My friend Bishop Marc Andrus, of the Diocese of California, who was a rector here in Virginia not that long ago, wrote this Advent prayer, and I share it with you:

Dear God, the troubles of our world have left many of us speechless. We don’t know how, in the numbness around jobs lost, illnesses we don’t have the resources to cure, a planet imperiled by the accumulated effects of our greed, and the seemingly endless presence of war and violence, to say our prayers. We are lighting candles, though – in our Advent wreaths, quietly, in side chapels of our churches, in our rooms where no one else but You can see. The candle flame is our prayer, wordless but filled with meaning, with petition, hope, and faith. And the candle flame is your answer to our prayer. You lighten our darkness, O Lord. Amen.

Prayer Part II: Spontaneous or written? How about both?

Yesterday I wrote about my daily prayers with the Bible, and the texts assigned for each day in the Episcopal Daily Office. Today is a continuation of that conversation, and again, this is personal, and what I mention may not work for you.

Today I am writing about the weekday “offices” and how these ground my prayer so that it is not merely embedded in my imagination. It may help if you have handy a Book of Common Prayer while reading this; you can access the on-line version of the prayer book by clicking HERE or by scrolling down aways on the left side of your screen and clicking on the red prayer book photo.

It may help to know something of Jewish prayer tradition from whence ours comes (after all, Jesus was Jewish). Judaism honors the concept that prayer can be both spontaneous and fixed words on the page.

Both ways of prayer have value, and can give balance to each other. Spontaneous prayers are immediate and represent the longings of our hearts and minds. But such prayers can become shallow and too self-focused. Fixed written prayers represent the wisdom of the ages, often are elegantly written, and are words said by millions of other people, giving us a connection to all those who have prayed the same words. But written prayers can become dry and rote.

Each way of prayer can bring life to other. The Spirit, I am convinced, enters both.

My spontaneous prayers tend to be those in the mediation I described yesterday. When I have finished my silent mediation, I then return to the prayer book and read the fixed written prayers of Morning Prayer, from page 96 onward. The prayers, or “collects,” on the page somehow seem more vivid to me after my meditation. Sometimes a phrase or word will jump off the page in a way that it had not on another day.

Here is a morning collect that often does just that for me (page 100):

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I usually alternate between the two versions of the Lord's Prayer (page 97), and then read the collects on the next pages. The General Thanksgiving (page 101) is a good way to wrap together all of these prayers. Sometimes I wait to do that prayer until later, making it my Evening Prayer. I also highly recommend the simple but elegant Compline prayers, beginning on page 127, as a way to end the day.

There are other prayer books and devotional works that I sometimes use, just to change up my routine. There are poems I've meditated upon as well. Many years ago I meditated every morning on Gary Snyder's poem, Endless Streams and Mountains and I return to that from time to time (I wrote about that here in October; you can see that by clicking HERE).

I think it important to underline that the Christian tradition of “offices” or “hours” has it roots in Judaism. Beginning in about 100 AD, the rabbis developed a structure of prayers in increments throughout the day. The rabbis spoke of such prayer as a “service of the heart”

(avoda shebalev). You can read more about the Jewish history of prayer by clicking HERE.

Christians developed their own practices of regular hourly fixed prayer, with echoes from their Jewish forebearers.

One of my seminary professors once said that all that is really needed for Morning Prayer is a candle and a psalm from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). I think that is true.

Most of our church history is Medieval history. We cannot escape it – it is a single era that lasted more than 1,000 years in the collective memory of Christians. While much of that history is ugly – the Crusades against Muslims and Jews in particular – there was considerable development of Christian spirituality and mysticism in those centuries. The incubators for Christian spirituality were the monasteries and convents of Europe.

The Rule of St. Benedict is the model upon which all monastic orders and structured, and Benedict had a cycle of work and prayer. The monks and nuns prayed the “offices” or “hours” each day, in three hour increments. The chants typically were of the psalms.

We still live in the echo of their prayers. Spiritual giants from the Middle Ages, including Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Ignatius of Loyola, Hildegard of Bingen to name only a few, have left us a rich legacy of their prayers, songs and practices.

In the English tradition, from whence the Episcopal Church comes, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer authored and edited the first two versions of the Book of Common Prayer (1549 and 1552). Cranmer retained the monastic offices, hoping that ordinary Christians would adopt the monastic practice in their daily lives. But to make this practical, he simplified it into two offices, Evening Prayer and Morning Prayer. And he took it out of Latin and put it into English.

However, by the 19th century, Morning Prayer had become the primary worship on Sunday, with Communion occasionally celebrated once a month or maybe once a year. That was far from Cranmer’s intention, nor the practice of the Early Church. Cranmer wrote his prayer books with the idea of elevating the Eucharist as a weekly celebration for all the faithful (and not just for the clergy). Cranmer’s idea was that the prayers of the weekday offices would lead to the Sunday Eucharist and enfold the Eucharist in prayers throughout the week.

Next week we will take few more turns in the labyrinth and see where we go with some of the big-hard-questions.

What is prayer? A personal journey: Part I

“Let everything you see represent to your spirit the presence, the excellency, and the power of God; and let your conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator; for so shall your actions be done more frequently, with an actual eye to God’s presence, by your often seeing him in the glass of the creation.

In the face of the sun you may see God’s beauty; in the fire you may feel his heat warming; in the water, his gentleness to refresh you: he it is that comforts your spirit when you have taken cordials; it is the dew of heaven that makes your field give you bread; and the breasts of God are the bottles that minister drink to your necessities.”

From The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living, by Jeremy Taylor, 1651

(Chapter I, Section III)

What is prayer? Many have tried to answer the question, and every answer I have ever heard has both truth and limits. So I give my own answer today with great trepidation. I hope there is a kernel of truth here, but I expect this will fall short.

The best way I can give an answer is by telling you about my own prayer life, which has had many ups and downs over the years. At its best for me, prayer is a conversation, much as Jeremy Taylor above describes. At its driest, prayers are words on a page, or meandering thoughts with no heart or no substance. Prayer for me has many peaks and valleys, as does life itself.

Let me describe a little of my private prayer life (as distinguished from my public prayer life of sacraments and community worship). I provide this not as a recipe guide, but simply as a sketch of what works for me (and it will inevitably change, so this is a snapshot). This might work for you, or might not.

I’d be most interested in hearing what works for you in prayer. This is intensely personal stuff, so I do not propose telling you more than I am comfortable telling you, nor would I expect you would go beyond your own comfort zone in your description of prayer.

So here goes…

My foundation for prayer are the Biblical texts read as prayer. Stay with me and I will explain. My private prayer life for many years (20 years to be exact) has been built atop The Daily Office, which is the Episcopal/Anglican cycle of Morning and Evening Prayer. The prayers come straight out of The Book of Common Prayer, and each day has biblical readings and canticles assigned rotating on a two-year rotation. The church year begins on the First Sunday of Advent, so we have just entered Year Two of the Daily Office cycle.

To make my life slightly easier, I have a big fat leather-bound book that contains all of the biblical readings, in order, day-by-day for the full two years (the book was a gift at my ordination from Barry Beisner, who was my shepherd through the ordination process; he has gone on to become the Bishop of the Diocese of Northern California). You can also find all of the daily readings and prayers each day by clicking HERE.

That is the superstructure upon which my prayers are built.

My method has taken me many years to develop, and truthfully, is always evolving. I learned a

prayer method many years ago from George Murphy, S.J. (and you may recognize this as Ignatian). I have also worked with spiritual directors (mostly Jesuits) who have helped me adapt this method and keep it fresh.

After reading the passages for the morning, I sit quietly, close my eyes, try to quiet the noise between my ears, and imagine myself somewhere in one of the biblical passages. Which one speaks to me today? I paint an imaginary picture of the scene, what it looks like, what it sounds and smells like, and then I put myself into the picture.

I do my best to describe what I see and feel, and then I listen. I don’t crank up my advice machine for God, but instead notice who else is there with me – usually some very familiar friends and family, but sometimes a few surprising people as well. Those I know who are sick or hurting or in trouble are there. Sometimes Jesus comes into the picture with us. I listen to what Jesus might be saying, if he is saying anything at all. Sometimes he just sits awhile.

Usually the scene is a familiar place. It is real. I do not imagine scenes out of a Cecil B. DeMille Bible movie, or even out great religious art (not that there is anything wrong with that; praying with icons is a rich tradition all its own). I may linger for several days in a single place.

For several weeks running in my prayer image, I was sitting on a ridgeline in the High Sierra, a rocky spot very familiar to me. But I’ve sat in Mexican villages and at a cattle ranch where I stayed years ago. I've also sat in the dark catacombs of Canterbury Cathedral. When Jesus teaches while sitting on a beach by the sea, almost always I end up sitting on a log at Pope Beach at Lake Tahoe with Jesus.

Sometimes Jesus looks like Jesus in popular art, white robes flowing, or he might look like the icon to the right. But that is rare. Sometimes Jesus looks like a park ranger, or a ranch hand. Sometimes Jesus is male, sometimes Jesus is female.

The important thing for me is that I sit and listen. I am not there giving God advice. There are times when I feel Jesus is asking me a question, and I try to answer. But I am not telling God what to do.

Some mornings this picture is vivid and stays with me all day; other mornings, it doesn’t come at all. When the picture doesn't come, I sit with a few words from one of the passages and think how it might have something to do with what confront me for the rest of the day. Some mornings even that will not work. Prayer has peaks and valleys.

When the image goes, I return to the prayers of the day, and sometimes they have a particular vitality that is fed by my prayer images.

At the end of the day, I engage in an “examine.” I ask what I have done that fits what I heard in my morning prayer; where did I fall short? I try to enfold my day in prayer.

You could say this is simply me listening to my imagination, and you would be right. But I believe that God especially reaches us in our imaginations, in our dreams, in our moments waking and our moments sleeping, and in those moments when the outer world is quieted for a time.

Yet I am also aware that this kind of prayer can be self-absorbed, and if I am not careful, it will block the world from my doorstep, separating me from the community of faith – and the wider community of no faith at all. The danger is my prayer could become all imagination, all fantasy, all selfishness.

And that brings me squarely to the written words on the page, the sacraments, and the community at prayer - all grounding me in the reality of life. More on that next time.

An Advent discussion: The Big-Hard-Questions

This Advent, I would like to do something special with you on this blog.

I want to spend time here considering a few of the big-hard-to-get-your-brain-around questions about God, prayer and life itself. Those are huge topics, and writing on these can easily fill a library.

So I propose going slowly, circling around a bit, talking a few steps at a time, and seeing where we end up.

Think of this as walking a labyrinth.

Every few days this Advent, I will write something on one of these topics. I hope you will walk with me, and lend me your wisdom, your experience, and maybe share some of your spiritual practices. What works for you? Please add a comment or two.

Some of what we usually do here on this blog will continue, like the Monday Funnies. But let’s spend Advent being a little more intentional, a little more aware of our faith journey. Let’s ask those big-hairy-questions, maybe acknowledge a few doubts, examine our prayers, and share a few moments when we feel the presence of the holy.

I am partly inspired to do this by my friend Ilana DeBare, who recently began a journey to her Bat Mitzvah as a middle-aged adult. She noted recently that although she was raised Jewish, and lived for a time in Israel, she had not explored very deeply her Jewish religion.

I’ve known Ilana for many years, from when we worked to together as reporters in The Sacramento Bee Capitol Bureau. Ilana moved to The San Francisco Chronicle, got married, has a wonderful daughter, helped start a girls school (The Julia Morgan School in Oakland), wrote a book or two, and left The Chronicle along with everyone else I know who once worked there.

Ilana decided to study with a rabbi and work her way to a Bat Mitzvah in February 2011. I tell you all this because Ilana also started a blog, inviting her friends to walk with her on her journey. You can follow her journey by clicking HERE; I would ask that readers of this blog be respectful when reading hers.

She has begun at the ground level, always a good place to start, by asking basic hard questions about faith, God and prayer. I’ve been intrigued by her questions and by the answers from her friends. I think it a good Advent exercise for us to go into these questions, too, on this blog. Please do not see this as competing, but more as a parallel path through the labyrinth. I am not looking for doctrinal arguments or turgid theological treatises, but something less loaded, more simple, and closer to who each of us are created to be. There are no extra points for being "right," and I am not looking for sameness.

I begin this journey with an observation made by Ilana: “I don’t believe there is an old white man with a long white beard sitting on a throne up in the clouds” who is deciding who gets sick and who gets well, which prayers to answer, and which to ignore.

I don’t believe that either.

But that begs the question: What do I believe? About God? About prayer? About life and death? Let’s walk with those questions; walk with them through the labyrinth for a time.

Our answers may not be perfect, and my answers may not be your answers, but maybe by walking together we will find ourselves at the center somewhere looking at the face of God.

I want start our walk by considering prayer. Tomorrow I will share with you a glimpse of my own prayer life, not as a recipe guide, but simply as an offering of my own experience with prayer and what works for me.

I hope to see you back here again.

The labyrinth design is from Chartres Cathedral, and the design has been duplicated all over the world. The photo shows people in a yoga class on the labyrinth (same design) at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

Mission and ministries are expressions of prayer

I came across this posting the other day on the BLOG of my friend Andy Doyle. I met Andy at a CREDO retreat a few years ago. The retreat was for clergy in mid-career, and was meant to help us focus on our calling and discern what God has for us next. Since that conference, Andy was elected bishop of the Diocese of Texas, where he now serves. He wrote this about mission and ministry last week and I highly commend it to you:

All our mission work and our ministries are expressions of the life of prayer that we lead. The work that originates in prayer is work that makes Christ real in the world around us. Mission and service bring the community of the Trinity into the real world. The same God that propels Jesus Christ into the world in order to draw people to the Father, through prayer, sends and commissions us on the same errand. We are to bring people into a closer union with God. We do that work by responding to people who wish to learn how to pray with companionship that helps them find their way along the journey of conversion. We must teach others to pray.

Our prayer leads us to help people find and discover their own vocations. We use our work of prayer to do the work of discernment with others. We are guides along the way listening with people as they seek to discern their own unique calling into ministry. Our prayers for the poor, widowed, sick, homeless in Christ bridges the chasm between us and sends us out, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to work for healing and reconciliation, forgiveness and restoration.

Our prayers lead us to be the voices of those who have no voices. Our prayers bring the work of companionship with the oppressed and the deprived into a stark reality. And the Holy Spirit sends us out to be the very real human resources who offer dignity and love to those people who believe they are lost and without God's love. Furthermore, prayer will lead us to stand up and act on behalf of those who are abused.

If we are to follow Jesus we are to work at prayer. If we are to follow Jesus prayer will originate our work. In one we come to know our place within the community of God, by the other God's community roots itself on earth.

Remembering this day

From our friend Karen...

The Prayer Tree

by Michael Leunig

God give us rain when we expect sun.
Give us music when we expect trouble.
Give us tears when we expect breakfast.
Give us dreams when we expect a storm.
Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.
God play with us, turn us sideways and around.

Our Youth Group sharing prayers from many traditions

This past fall, our teenage youth group embarked upon an incredible spiritual adventure: they set out to visit a different congregation each month. Associate Rector Janet Legro, our youth leader, called it "Church on the Road." 

The youth visited not just congregations from different brands of Christianity, but congregations from other faiths as well. Our young people came away with a deepened appreciation of how human beings find and worship God in many languages, cultures and customs. This spring our youth group completed their visits, but by no means finished their spiritual journey.

This past Sunday, our youth group led our worship, and we were treated to a series of "Prayers of the People" that borrowed from the congregations our youth group visited. Here below are those prayers, and a few photos of the youth leading our service Sunday. Blessings to all.

Prayers of the People by St. Paul’s Youth

The prayers of the people this morning come from those prayers we experienced when we visited other religious communities in Charlottesville and a Lakota prayer from the communities we will visit in June.

Lotus Prayer from the community at Yogaville 

O Lord, the Light of Lights, Kindly lead us to that Light of Wisdom and enlighten our hearts. Help us experience that Light within and without. Help us see the same Light, the same Spirit dwelling everywhere in everything. 

Lord, in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Help us recognize the central unity. Help us realize we are Your image, Your children, no matter what the differences are. Let us behold Your Spirit running through all. Give us the strength and courage and capacity to experience that Peace and Joy and share that experience with everyone.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Help us to get away from these selfish temptations with which we are creating all the differences, all the fights, and all the wars. We have suffered enough due to our ignorance. Please guide us to know our brothers and sisters and to know we are all parts of your family.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Buddhist Prayer from Tashi Choeling Buddhist Center

May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness;
May all be free from sorrow and the causes of sorrow;
May all live in equanimity, without too much attachment and too much aversion,
And live believing in the equality of all that lives.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Muslim Prayer: by Aminah Sharif Goling

In the name of God, the Beneficent and the Merciful, We pray to You peace. Peace that comes from within our hearts, which is authentic. Peace that radiates through out the whole of humanity that brings harmony. Peace that is rooted in understanding one another and sustained through times. Peace that recognizes not only the similarities but also the differences between and among people. Peace, in your Name.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Christian Prayer from Mother Teresa

Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our brothers and sisters throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give peace and joy.

Lord in your mercy, hear our Prayer.

Lakota Prayer from Black Elk, Oglala Lakota

Great Spirit, you are everywhere. You hear whatever is in our minds and hearts, and it is not necessary to speak to you in a loud voice. You lived first and are older than the prayers that are sent to you. All things belong to you. Thus we now send up a voice on behalf of everything you have made.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer