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.  

Still Speaking

Every day is filled with the possibility that God will speak to us, or reveal Himself to us in some way.  It is strange that so many times we live with no expectations of such happening.  We get lulled into a world view which affirms that while God did reveal Himself in the Biblical story, such can no longer be expected.  Times have changed.  The kind of manifestations of God in the world were necessary in a  primitive culture which ours is not.  Such is the thinking of so many in our day.    

Even though it is the thinking of many people in our day, even those who never miss an opportunity to get in the church building when the doors are opened, there are many around us who speak of a different kind of relationship with our Creator God.  Maybe it is not necessary for everyone to see things in the same way.  And, maybe it has to do with expectations.    

Those who have no expectation of God making Himself known in their daily life may be going through their lives with eyes and ears closed to the presence and the sounds of the divine all around them.  It is easy to remember Jesus saying, "Let anyone with ears to hear listen.!"  (Mark 4:9)  Of course, we have no special ears other than those inner ears that are open to divine possibilities in every moment.  What Jesus is saying is that those who live with such expectations will find those expectations becoming reality.  

Swimming to Escape

Somewhere around 200-300 AD spiritual seekers started moving from the civilized areas into the desert regions as a way of responding to what God was doing in their lives.  As they appear on the pages of history, they collectively bear the name of Desert Fathers.  Anthony was one of the first to lead the way.  Thomas Merton, an author of our day, wrote in his book, "The Wisdom of the Desert Father,"  "In those days men had become keenly conscious of the strictly individual character of ‘salvation.’ Society — which meant pagan society, limited by the horizons and prospects of life ‘in this world’ — was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life."     

The image of society being a "shipwreck from which each...had to swim for his life"  is a powerful and thought provoking image.  We are likely to think that these ancient seekers of God went to the desert as a way of being able to focus on their spiritual lives without any distractions when they were actually went to escape what seemed the have the potential to destroy them. Theirs was indeed a different view of the culture in which they lived before their escape to the desert.    

Not too many of us can escape as did these Desert Fathers, and most likely, few of us have any desire to go somewhere and live in a primitive self sustaining way the rest of our days.  Even though going to the desert may not be in our future, the Desert Fathers remind us of the power culture can have over us.  Many of them went to the desert when Christianity became legitimized instead of persecuted.  Being a Christian became easier and in some ways more dangerous.  Not much has changed since those days.  We may not be swimming for our lives, but it would do us well to be aware of the powerful influences which can corrode even the strongest faith.

Around the Curve

We cannot see beyond the curve in the road.  What lies out of sight is unknown to us.  We cannot know if there is danger ahead, something like a rock slide which will surely push us over the edge, or more of the flower lined road which is in the rear view mirror.   Life does  not give us peeks around the curves, around the bends, the twisting roads that run before us.  And, most assuredly, those unseen places filled with whatever, are out there for us to reach and pass through.    

Since we cannot see beyond the curve in the road, it is a good thing to know the One who sees not only where we are and where we have been, but where we are going as well.  What we sometimes discover as the journey unfolds is that where we are going is nothing like where we thought we were going.  In those moments it is good to know our Father God has not only seen what is ahead, but has also been preparing us along the way for the unseen and unexpected.  It is not a road map that we carry with us to make this journey, but something all together different.  What God gives to us to take along the way is something called faith.      

Faith enables us to go around the curve.  Without it many of us would stop and cautiously peer around the edge, or maybe there would be such fear, we would simply stop and turn around and go the way we have come.  But, alas, turning around is mostly not the option.  Life is about going ahead.  It can only be lived in one direction.  And, so we must go because going forward speaks of the way He created us.  Around the curve we go.  Maybe we do not go with boldness or without fear, but we go.  We go simply because it is the way forward and more importantly because God can be trusted to get us beyond and through whatever unexpected danger lurks ahead in our journey.  His plan is to bring us Home and somewhere along the way, we can count on reaching that place where He has called us to be and dwell forever.  

The Light of the First Day

 In the beginning

     on the first day

       there was a light

        light of all lights

shined on that day.

Every moment it shines

     inside and outside

       never dimmed

         though at times

it seems invisible.

  

Still always it shines

    sometimes obscured 

      by the darkness

        of loss and grief

but even then prevailing.

In the ending,

    on the last day

      of time spent here

       dimmed for a moment

then brilliant like eternity.  

       

  

The Inextinguishable Light

Many of us have heard it said that there is some good in the worst of us.  As life unfolds and we find ourselves in the presence of folks who seem evil to the core, it become a tenet about life that is greatly doubted.  Horrible evil deeds are perpetuated upon the innocent.  As we look into the eyes of some, it seems that goodness has never been present.  Yet, despite all that our experience might tell us, what the folks say about good being present in the worst of us remains true.   

It remains true not because of the family name we bear, the DNA which courses through our veins, or because we have become sophisticated enough to control the evil desires which surge within us.  It remains true because of our connection to the Creator whose essence is goodness.  The first chapter of Genesis speaks of the creation of humankind as something which was "very good."  (Genesis 1:31)  Add to this that the Word also speaks, saying, "Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness...in the image of God He created them..."  (Genesis 1:26-27)    

Though we are conceived in the darkness of the womb, there is even there a light that points to the essence of the Holy One.  John, the Apostle, wrote, "All things came into being through Him...What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:3-6)  Even as that light shines in the darkness of the womb, so does it shine midst the darkness we often choose to walk,  No matter how dark seems the confines which hold the soul, the light of the Creator still shines and thougt unseen, it remains the inextinguishable Light.  

The Light Within

When it is that we begin to lose sight of the Light of life within us is hard to know.  Some might say we are born with a sense of that loss and that the Light within us is never really seen.  Others would declare that this Light which points to the essence of the Creator God is seen in the fresh new face of any infant who comes forth from the womb of conception.  Surely, reality is that we are born with the hand print, the image of the Creator, upon us and that the Light of Creation is never overcome, only diminished and obscured by our bouts the with the darkness.    

The gospel writer John speaks of this inextinguishable light as he writes in the early verses, "...without Him not one thing came into being, in Him was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."  (John 1:4-5)  And then a little further into his writing, he remembered Jesus saying, "I am the Light of the World.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  All of these words speak of who we are, how we have been created, and something essential about our going forward from conception all the way to eternity.     

What is within us that points to the light of God, the essence of God, can never be extinguished.  No darkness can overcome it.  Our sin and disobedience may distort our vision of who we are.  It may bring us to a point of forgetfulness, but no amount of sin and no amount of spiritual amnesia has the power to take away the light of life which God has put within us from the very beginning.  We may forget that we belong to God and that we are made in His image, but it is not a forgetfulness that afflicts the mind and the Spirit of the Creator who loves us, cares for us, and who more than anything else desires to bring us home to Himself.