Lord Teach Me to Pray

It seems that the need for prayer is becoming more urgent in recent days with the trucker protest in Ottawa and other strategic locations and the threat of war in the Ukraine.  I am very relieved that the occupation of Ottawa appears to have been resolved relatively peacefully.  I have been praying for that outcome but I would not be so presumptuous to believe it was because of this that the issue was resolved and I will just give thanks to God for this outcome.  However, I am not deluding myself that the divisions that were manifest in these events have been healed.  The threat to peace in the Ukraine seems even more dire and our prayers are needed all the more.

This morning I want to reflect on prayer and hope that this will help me and perhaps others as we continue to be in great need for our prayers to be given and received.  Here are two reflections of prayer which I received this week as a starting place:   

Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It’s a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence. —Richard Rohr

Prayer is the longing of the human heart for God. It is a yearning and desire for relationship with God, and it is God’s attention to our desire: God-in-communion with us. —Ilia Delio

 

It has been noted by The Very Rev. Alan Jones, that there are five elements of prayer: Adoration, Praise, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.  Of these, Adoration and Supplication place us in the correct relationship with God and all of creation.  He notes that Confession and Supplication are also necessary because they are ways of self-examination.  In addition, they are a means to pray for others.   

Then we have Thanksgiving.  I turn to my favourite saying about Thanksgiving.  We need to give thanks to God in all things rather than for all things (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).  We give thanks that God is with us and that we are able to give thanks. 

Finally, we can rejoice in the Lord always on our journey. 

Talk of Love and Hate

A couple of weeks ago I quoted from one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs, Passing Through.  I want to start by doing that again:

Let's talk of love not hate, things to do: it’s getting late, there’s so little time and we’re only passing through.  

That line, “talk of love not hate,” has been on my mind a lot in the last two weeks.   I have struggled with my response to the Trucker Convoys that have taken over our national capital and other significant places in Canada.  I have found myself responding in an unusually strong reaction to the events that are taking place.  These thoughts and feelings are not how I am called to as a Christian; they are ones of hate.  I am called to love my neighbours and even my enemies and the people involved – at least some of them - are feeling more and more like my enemies and the enemies of this land which has always striven (though sometimes not succeeded) for peace, order and good government. 

As a Christian, I know I am called to strive to love and not hate as Leonard Cohen says so beautifully in that poignant song.  However, at times I find that hate is winning – and I do not like that or myself when that happens.  I am coming to the conclusion that I cannot love if I do not acknowledge the hate within myself.  Carl Jung identified the aspect in ourselves that is the unacknowledged or undiscovered part of our self which he called the shadow.  I know from sad experience that when I do not acknowledge the shadow and its content it comes up and bits me on the backside when I can’t see it coming.  Therefore, what I need to acknowledge today is to talk of love and hate. 

To hate is an aspect of human nature and is something which the world has had too much of, and is having too much of right now, not just in Canada but in the world in so many different places.  I am reminded that the opposite of love is not hate but is indifference.  When we hate we are in relationship with the person or thing that we hate.  It is not a good or healthy relationship but it is a relationship and one which can easily take control of us just as love can when we are in its thrall.  If we are to move beyond hate to love we must first acknowledge it and accept that it is a part of us and recognize that it is not what Jesus Christ lived and promises us.  We need to know in our hearts and minds and souls that Jesus did talk of love and not hate.  Coincidentally (if you believe in coincidences), the word today from SSJE is love:

Love is of God’s very essence. And love does not exist unless it is given away. God needs you, because God is love, and love can only be realized and expressed in relationship: the give and take of love.  -Br. Curtis Almquist, Society of Saint John the Evangelist

I will close with a prayer that I wrote a few weeks ago for our parish sessions on prayer.

Collect for Coming together, for healing, and for leaving in love.

Heavenly source of all healing, we have gathered as your faithful people who are in great need of healing.  The challenges that we face form the COVID pandemic have left us ill, in body, mind and spirit.

We ask that you open our hearts to those who approach the pandemic with differ attitudes from ours.  We know that many are fearful of the restrictions imposed by governments and institutions.  We are also fearful of those dangers which loom over us.  We ask that you calm our fears and let us know that you are always with us and you are our support and defend us.

We ask that you bind the wounds that have been inflicted on all during these dark days.  Let your light shine forth in the dark places of our souls.  Help us to see you in everyone that we encounter as we go forth from this gathering.  May the glory of your holy name ring forth in the world to bring love, peace, hope, and joy to all who hear it.  All this we ask in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Blessings on your journey this week.  

 

Engaging the Bible

What do you make of that collection of stories, poetry, parables, prophecy, historical narratives, miracles, good works, wise words, and misanthropy and mayhem that is the Christian Bible?  Is it the literal word of God for you – which was dictated by God to the scribes who put it together into what is considered the canon – the official collection of God’s word of the Christian Church.  It is actually sixty-six or more books (depending on the version) which have been brought together in what is called the Holy Bible by Christians. 

Take a moment and reflect on what how you understand it and what it means to you.  Is it holy scripture which was delivered verbatim from God to those who recorded it?  Is it the inspired word of God – if so, what does it mean to be inspired?  Is it just a book that records myths and legends as well as attempts to explain how the world began and how people have tried to understand what or who they identify as God or the gods interact with them and the world?  Those are just a few ways that the Holy Bible is understood by people today.  Northrop Frye, the great Canadian literary critic considered the bible to be the Great Code which has had a foundational influence on the literature and culture in the Western World.

The Bible has been used and misused by those who hold it to be the word of God.  Sometimes the canon is used as cannon fodder.   Pause and consider how you use it?  Do you have passages and saying and stories that you were taught in Sunday School that come to mind in particular circumstances.? Do you draw unconsciously on the bible stories such as David and Goliath when you are faced with an insurmountable challenge?  Do you think of one of the parables of Jesus such as the Good Smartian when faced with someone asking for a handout on a street corner?  Are you the older son or daughter who has the irresponsible younger sibling who is not behaving as you think they should?  Do you pull out a particular passage which justifies what you want to do or to justify a particular attitude you have – what’s your attitude to the truckers’ “freedom” protest in Ottawa.  How does that fit with the commandment for Christians to love our neighbours? 

Yes, the Holy Bible can be all things to many, if not all people - at least unconsciously if not consciously.  If we Christians want to take the Bible seriously, we need to engage with it and not just take it as it has been presented to us – however that is.  Brian McLaren, a Christian theologian, teacher, and author addresses how we might do this as noted by Richard Rohr:

Brian McLaren suggests that God’s revelation through the Bible comes from the ongoing dialogue and relationship the Bible inspires between God and ourselves. He teaches:

To say that the Word (the message, meaning, or revelation) of God is in the biblical text, then, does not mean that you can extract verses or statements from the text at will and call them “God’s words.” It means that if we enter the text together and feel the flow of its arguments, get stuck in its points of tension, and struggle with its unfolding plot in all its twists and turns, God’s revelation can happen to us. We can reach the point that Job and company did at the end of the book, where, after a lot of conflicted human talk and a conspicuously long divine silence, we finally hear God’s voice. . . .

Whatever your understanding of the Bible, it is worth exploring with an open and discerning mind which is what I believe God has given each of us.  Something that is worthwhile to read on your journey.  Blessings.

Love God or Else

 I want to open with a quote from Lorna Harris – someone with whom I share my life every day:

I completely sympathize with those who are done with Covid. I am done with winter. It’s been miserably cold here for days. And it is freezing cold like this every single year. I ‘m not able to go out. Well, I can go out, but I have to put on my winter coat, a scarf and hat, my winter boots, maybe long johns and/or snow pants and of course mittens. This is just too much. I have a right to my freedom from winter. I am going out today and wear just a T-shirt and shorts. It's my personal choice. Winter doesn’t exist for me. And no one gets to order me around on this issue, but if I get frost-bite or pneumonia, I do expect, as my right, the best in medical care.

This was a comment that Lorna made on a Globe and Mail on-line article which talked about people who had, “had enough of COVID.”  Lorna was worried that people would take what she said literally and not as a satirical comment on this laissez faire attitude to COVID restrictions.   These people just want to get back to a life without restrictions such as wearing masks, or showing proof of vaccination status or whatever.  Lorna skewered that reasoning – if you can call it that – beautifully by showing how illogical that way of thinking is.  Just because we are tired of all the restrictions and constraints on our day to day lives, it doesn’t change the situation we are in.  To put it another way, “COVID doesn’t care.”

I must admit that I find that I have very little patience for people who take that attitude.  On the one hand, I can understand that people want to get their lives back and to be able to live without these constraints and restrictions.  Many people have been affected by the COVID pandemic rules to a much greater extent than I have been.  Indeed, as a strong introvert there are aspects of staying in my small corner that I enjoy.  I do not have young children that are being home-schooled at times.  I don’t know how I would cope with that.  I am retired so I haven’t had to deal with COVID restrictions at work.  So, on reflection I can sympathize with people who are completely fed up with the restrictions.

However, this desire to escape regardless of the impact on others and society in general are what I see as dangerous indications of what is becoming a much more prevalent attitude in our culture today – me first and foremost and to hell with others.     It is one that goes completely against the great commandment of Jesus Christ, to love your neighbour – or to give it in full:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.

The challenge for this commandment – and it is definitely a challenge – is that it seems easier to hate than to love.  It seems natural for us to hate the Other – whoever is different from us and whom we see as a threat to our way of living.  I can only say that as a Christian, I am called to follow that Great Commandment and love not hate. 

In closing, I will turn to my go-to guy in song, the saint of song, Leonard Cohen:

Let's talk of love not hate,  things to do: it’s getting late, there’s so little time and  we’re only passing through.  

Let us be blessed to talk of love on our journey.