A Conversation

The other night I was out taking care of some end of the day chores and enjoying those moments between the disappearance of the sun and the falling of the darkness. It has come to be a favorite time of the day. As I stood there in the still quietness, I had this conversation with myself. Do you ever have conversations with yourself? I hope so since I hope I am not the only one! I heard myself saying, "Just think of all those evenings you missed. Evening after evening you went into the church building for a meeting while it was still day and came out to find complete darkness. You missed out on so many evenings like this because of your work. There was always work to do and not enough time."

And then, I heard another part of the same self responding. "No, you got it wrong. There was enough time. Every day you have lived had such evenings. It is not about not having enough time. It never was. It is about choices. You chose something else." Sometimes I do not like these conversations with myself.

I was aware in the aftermath of the personal conversation how much I am stuck on that verse about "...making the most of the time." I know I stayed busy while working all those years, but lately I find myself wondering if I really made the most of the time given to me by the Creator. I am not so sure staying busy qualifies as a "Yes."

Clarity

I have been wearing corrective lens since the eye exam at Chatham Junior High School in Savannah. Prior to that moment of being found out, I knew I was not seeing very well, but no one else had figured it out. So, glasses became a way of life until I started wearing contacts just before I reached age forty. Those who wear contacts know they can be a little tricky at times. The lenses can become dry and scratchy resulting in less than the perfect vision they are supposed to provide.

As I was leading worship this morning at Rocky Ford, I was wrestling with dry contacts that were giving blurred vision at best. A good squirt of saline solution would have helped, but it is not exactly something found in most pulpits. Fortunately, the hymns were familiar enough I did not need to depend on the blurred printed page. As I prepared the congregation for the pastoral prayer, I opened my Bible on the pulpit so that it would be ready for reading after the prayer. Then, as folks do, I closed my eyes and prayed. Sunday morning pastoral prayers are not as easy as they look. My kids often said they were too long. Most of the time they are too predictable.

Anyway, the order of worship said, "Pray," so I prayed. When I finished with the traditional "Amen" and opened my eyes, I was looking down at the open Bible on the pulpit. My vision was perfectly clear. The words seemed to be in bold large print. It was as if I had not been having any trouble seeing. My first thought at that moment was: "Prayer changes the way you see things." I wonder where that came from.

Four Leaf Clovers

My old book collection mainly is composed of pre-1900 religious books. Valuable? Although a few cost more than I should have paid for them, in reality only the book mites would declare them to have value. In some of them I find words which still speak to me as if they were written only yesterday. And some are intriguing because of the sense of mystery they cause me to experience as I hold them in my hands.

"The Office of Holy Week" translated in 1896 from the Italian of Abbe Alexander Mazzinelli is one such book. It has four leaf clovers tucked away in its pages. No less than five of them are still intact even though they have been dried and preserved for over a hundred years. Someone put them there. The front pages of the book have a name, Miss Mary B. Gillis of 159 Adams Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I wonder if she hid them within the pages. I wonder who she was. I wonder if she used the book often. I wonder what happened to it after her passing passed it on to other hands. I wonder....

To hold in my hands something which was used by another on their journey toward God makes it a thing of great value. I am only one of an unknown number who have read from those pages and closed the book with an awareness of encountering the Holy One. I would never write my name beside hers. I am content to simply be another sojourner whom it has been pointed toward God.

From 1896

During this Lenten season I have found myself using an unusual source for devotional time. Two things make it unusual. First, it comes from my old book collection and is dated 1896. Secondly, entitled, "The Office of Holy Week," it comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition. From Palm Sunday to Easter the small volume consists of services and readings in both Latin and English. There are also brief explanations and commentaries along the way.

One word of interpretation reads: "Church history and the holy Fathers tell us how the primitive Christians conducted themselves...Penance was imposed at the beginning of Lent on such penitents as were to be reconciled at Easter. It was proper that they should long bewail their crimes, and covered with confusion, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, pass through the sorrowful stages of penance, before being admitted at Easter to the communion of the divine mysteries.. Thus Lent came to be observed." And then from 1896 there comes a word which could have been written yesterday. "The majority of the faithful have greatly degenerated from their first fervor..."

These words written so long ago provide much reflection for the present moment. Our observance of Lent seems to be a kinder, softer, more gentle thing which, perhaps, speaks of the way our culture calls us to compromise the sin in us instead of being mortified by it. We have substituted the confirmands for the penitents. Too many of us come to Easter more conscious of how we are appearing to one another instead of how our hearts must appear to God. We no longer see the penitents around us even though we see those in need of penance as we check ourselves out in the mirror.

Extra

We often lament that there is not enough time in a day. "If only a day had more than 24 hours, I might get it all done," is something we have heard, or maybe even said. Well, suppose for a moment we had an extra day! Maybe you are like me wondering if an extra day would really make any difference. Would it be used differently than any other "Un-extra" day? Would it be like a make-up day, enabling us to finally do something impossible like catching up?

Well, since today is February 29, it could be viewed as an extra day. Instead of the usual 365 days, 2012 gives us 366 days. We can simply call it a leap year which keeps the calendar in order, or we could view it as the gift of an extra day. I have been wondering all day how life might be different if we had gotten up this morning thinking that this Wednesday was extra, a bonus, something not given as a part of the ordinary.

Ephesians 5:16 calls us to live, "...making the most of the time..." Surely, such a word would apply to extra days. Maybe you haven't thought about it. Maybe as you read this, Feb. 29 has come and gone. Still, it is not too late to live as if God has given an extra day to live purposefully. Is there anything extra we might do to show appreciation to the Creator? Maybe it could be a note to a not often contacted friend, or a kind act that is unexpected, or a few more minutes with the Word in our hands, or some extra time on our knees. There is a lot of ordinary stuff we could do to make this a really extraordinary day!

Brown Car Guy

Sane folks are not found in the WalMart parking lot on Saturday morning; yet, such was where I found myself a few days ago. Not only was I in the parking lot, as I was walking toward the door of the store, I found myself between two guys who seemed ready to come to blows over a parking spot. Brown Car Guy waited and waited and waited on Gray Car Guy to back out of his spot. By the time Gray Car Guy moved, Brown Car Guy had taken another spot which came open next to one for which he had been waiting at least five minutes. When Brown Car Guy got parked, Gray Car Guy started moving and Brown Car Guy started hollering profanities at him for taking so long. Gray Car Guy jumps out of his car and charges Brown Car Guy.

Me? I am in the middle wondering about the location of the nearest law enforcement official. Instead of thinking, "Blessed are the peacemakers," I was thinking about getting out of the way. Actually, no blows were exchanged. When Brown Car Guy, who was a scrawny 5'10" saw Gray Car Guy who was at least 6'4" and looked like a trainer from the gym, he suddenly found a handle on his temper!

I have laughed more than once at the way a scary moment ended. But, to be honest is to confess a judgmental spirit. You know, I would never jump out of a car, scream profanities, and charge someone in anger. No, not me. I would just sit there and wait on someone like Gray Car Guy as I have many times and think ugly unkind thoughts. It it too bad God does not just look at our actions. It is too bad He looks at our heart. When He does, I must look just like those two guys in the parking lot at WalMart.

More Reality

The ashes of Ash Wednesday do remind us of our own mortality. It is impossible to miss this as we hear the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." It is definitely not one of those feel good moments folks want to experience when they show up at church. At least for a moment it tends to take some of the wind out of the sails filled with human arrogance and human energy.

One of the things which makes the message important for us to hear is found in something Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. In the 16th verse of the 5th chapter, we hear the Word saying, "Be careful then how you live, not as an unwise person, but as wise, making the most of the time..." As the ashes cause us to consider our own mortality, so do they call us to understand how important it is to make right choices and to embrace good priorities. Too often our choices and priorities are related to climbing whatever ladder is in front of us, or making sure that the world around us is geared toward stroking our hungry ego.

Making the most of our limited time is not about getting to the top of some social or economic ladder, but investing our life in the pursuit of God and His ways. While it sounds strange to secular ears, anything less will leave us at the end filled only with emptiness. What satisfies is not more of the world's stuff, but more of what it means to be rightly related to the One we know as Creator and the other ones we know as the people who truly care about us.