'... when you find yourself in the place just right': Discerning God's will

Reading Camp is a Mountain of Fun!

Part of the Heart of Our Mission: Announcements from around the diocese

ACC affirms Communion-wide listening process, members' voluntary withdrawal

Dean Mombo, member of Eames Commission, speaks in Diocese of Lexington

Commentaries

From the Bishop: A Summer Memory

Reflection: Coming home with MaryChun

X-ercizing: Who hopes for something he can't see?

Editoral: Seeking facts in a posturing on-line world

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

X-ercizing: Who hopes for something he can't see?

By Steve Walton

A few nights ago I was sitting on my back porch contemplating my future. I pondered the prospects and opportunities (and their corresponding opposites) on my horizon. I sat in my chair looking out over the shadowed backyard vacillating between hope and anguish.

So many decisions to make, so many issues to weigh and balance, and too many items to juggle.

Jed on The Beverly Hillbillies once said, “Sometimes I sit and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”

That evening I hoped in vain to be able to just sits.

Movement caught my attention and I looked up to see my neighbor, with a stem of Stargazer lilies in his hand. He cut them from his bountiful supply lining his back fence and thought I might enjoy them.

“I thought you might like these. They’ll be pretty on your table,” he said, adding some polite chitchat, and went on down the steps and into the darkness that separates our homes.

He has done this a few times before, and it is always surprising and deeply touching.

We wave when we see each other, comment on the weather when in our driveways at the same time, all the things neighbors who don’t know each other do. That is why it is so surprising to see him on my porch with a gift. It is also why it is so touching.

Whenever I decide that, hands down, the whole of humankind are a bunch of creeps, he (I think his name is Gary) always serves as a reminder to the contrary.

The week before “Gary” brought over the lilies I received another surprising and deeply touching gift. It was a gift I received five years ago.

I was going through a trunk I have filled with old letters and photos. I was trying to downsize and cull the herd of stuff accumulated over 30 years. Making room for more accumulating and acquiring.

In the box I found a letter postmarked February 2000. It was from Flo Mayer, who is a member of Christ Church Cathedral. She had sent me a note after I attended services there one Sunday. It happened to be a time when I was in career flux. I was profoundly reflecting upon what path I would/should choose, what I wanted to be currently, and all the other concerns one faces when one enters the job market. I don’t remember or know how she was aware of these facts.

In the very sweet note she recommended I read Romans 8:28 and “claim it” for myself. I don’t know if, at the time, I looked up Romans 8:28 to see what it had to say, but I do know I did not “claim” it for myself. She also sent tucked into the card several photocopied prayers she felt “seemed right for me.” Though I don’t remember what I felt or thought when I first read them five years ago, I can only assume that I didn’t hear what they had to say to me. As the saying goes, they fell on deaf ears.

But five years older and wiser… (1/2 of that is true)

This time I read the prayers and take them to heart.

“Help me keep my heart clean, and to live so honestly and fearlessly that no outward failure can dishearten me or take away the joy of conscious integrity. Open wide the eyes of my soul that I may see good in all things; Grant me this day some new vision of thy truth.” (The note didn’t say who wrote this prayer.)

Another said, “Grant us a new vision of your glory, a new experience of your power, and a new faithfulness to your Word through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And to that prayer she hand wrote, “So consecrate him to your service that through his renewed witness, your Holy name may be glorified and your Kingdom advanced.”

She drew a line through “us” and wrote my name.

Five years ago Flo Mayer “claimed” that prayer for me. Last week I started claiming it for myself.

Hope, and its counterpart anguish, are blessings (though the latter is difficult to always see as a blessing). And I thank God for the opportunity to sit and thinks.

Steve can be reached at xersizing@yahoo.com

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