A Surprising Prayer

The page of the calendar announces that All Saints Day is near.  In many churches the day will be remembered this upcoming Sunday with an appropriate moment of celebration and remembrance.  When I gave leadership to churches as a pastor and preacher, All Saints Sunday was regarded as one of the very special celebration days in the life of the church.  It always seemed a bit strange in a church which had resurrection at its core that it was mentioned only once a year on Easter and, then again, by some on All Saints Sunday.     

All Saints Sunday is one of those moments which reminds of that the veil between heaven and earth, here and there, is a very thin one.  We affirm the communion of the Saints through recitation of a creed, but run from it as if being chased by ghosts.  Strange as it may seem to some, the further I have moved from the weekly routine of the church into the non liturgical cycles of the creation, the awareness of the thinness of the veil has grown greater.  While I do not see the spirits of the saints hovering around me, there is a sense in which I sense that I am never completely alone.     

When a hand tool abandoned by someone from an earlier time shows itself slightly buried in the dirt, or when I consider the stories the tall sprawling pecan trees have watched unfold over the last hundred years, or when I think about those families who have walked and worked this land before me, I find myself walking in a spirit of awareness never really afforded me through the liturgy of the church.  A few weeks ago while attempting some unfamiliar mechanical work on my tractor, I heard myself praying, "Lord, send the spirit of my father to watch over me as I do this."   I remember my father as a mechanic which I am not.  A prayer which I could not have been prayed years ago seemed to come forth in such a natural manner that it surprised even me.