I Have to Talk to God About This

Yesterday I attended the induction service for the new rector, Matt Martin, in the neighbouring parish of St. James Clandeboy and Holy Trinity Lucan.  It was a wonderful celebration of new ministry with a large combined choir and a full to overflowing in the church.  One of the many things which resonated with me was a story that the preacher, Rev. Ken Anderson, related as part of his sermon.  He and his family including his five year old grandson were visiting Savannah Georgia.  They came upon a statue which represents a modern black family that has risen from the shackles of slavery. The base of the monument bears an inscription by poet Maya Angelou:

We were stolen, sold and bought together from the African continent. We got on the slave ships together. We lay back to belly in the holds of the slave ships in each other’s excrement and urine together, sometimes died together, and our lifeless bodies thrown overboard together. Today, we are standing up together, with faith and even some joy.

The grandson was quite captivated by the statue and asked his grandfather about it.  When he heard the explanation he was rather quiet and moved away from the area.  Asked about what he was doing he answered, “I need to talk to God about it.”   The wisdom in that statement is as profound as anything I have read by spiritual guides and wise men and women.  That, for me, sums up what we all need in our spiritual journey in life when we seek a deeper relationship with God.  We need to remember to talk with God about it.  Talking to God of course is a two way conversation.  We need to listen as well as speak.  So often in my experience I forget to talk to God about what is happening in my life and my response to those events.  I reserve my conversation with God to formal and sometimes less formal periods of prayer and meditation.  Talking to God at any and all times in our lives will help us in many ways as especially more aware of the Moments of Grace which occur and which we often can overlook and be inattentive to what are all around us and that we often in the midst of. 

As Ken noted the chains that bind the feet of that family in the statue are broken and they have been set free.  This is a powerful representation of one way of looking at sin – it is those things that chain us to the past.  Let us keep talking to God about our lives and looking for those Moments of Grace.