Being Present

Spiritual writers will often talk of  "being present."  This means being fully aware of and in tune to the environment that you are in.  It means being attentive to those that you are with.  the other day, I was assisting in the Eucharist service, when I felt unusually wiggly.  Perhaps the coffee that I had consumed that morning was making me restless.  I found myself unable to focus on what was happening around me. I struggle with attention quite a bit, and this has on more than one occasion been a challenge to me.

Sometimes we just can't be comfortable where we are.  It is not that we have anywhere else to go, but we feel that we should be on the move.  We have trouble just be-ing in a place.

Other times we feel that the best place to be is somewhere else.  We may be in an okay place, but feel a desire to roam. We may also on occasion find ourselves in less than comfortable places, perhaps a lousy job or less than stellar marriage.  In these  times it is hard to see what the present situation can teach us.

There are also the many daily distractions that can keep us from focusing on our present situation.  If I am at a coffee shop talking to a friend, there may be pictures, music, smells other conversations and a whole host of things to distract me. It may be a challenge to listen attentively to my friend, to allow him or her to be my sole focus.  Our senses are so overwhelmed with stimuli that it is no small wonder that we have any real awareness of what is going on.

At the heart of presence is love.  If we love others, we strive to be in tune with them.  We notice things about them, like if they seem a little more down than usual, or if they themselves seem unfocused.  We know when they are hurting and when they are in need.  They may not tell us, but send us little clues that we must work to pick up.  We are attentive because we care about those around us enough to pay attention.

Even now, I am looking at the clock, waiting until I have to be at another place.  I have a lot to learn.

Loving Others as We Love Ourselves

I was thinking this evening about the commandment to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39).  I know that I have many challenging personality quirks and bad habits, but I am pretty okay with them.  furthermore, I expect others to be okay with them.  In fact, if someone takes exception to one of my idiosyncrasies, I get fairly indignant.  However, that door does not always swing both ways.  What would it look  like if I were as patient with someone else as I am with me?  If I truly loved my neighbor as myself, I think that I would see him or her in a much better light.  I would probably focus more on his or her good points than obsessing over little rough spots.

Is this what Jesus died for?

 The other day, I ran across a show on the web called “Red Letter Christians.”  These are mostly young people who are striving to live a life more directed by the teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount.  They are often criticized by political conservative Christians because they support initiatives that are most often associated with liberal politics. Regardless of what you think of their particular stances, they raise a good question: are we living the life that Jesus taught about?  Is our church a place, for instance, where the last is first?  Far too often, we are just a nicer version of the world.  We are motivated by the same things that the world is motivated by: we just tack Jesus on the end.  We want wealth and Jesus.  We want power and Jesus.  Is this really what Jesus died for? 

Honoring Silence

The other day, I was driving a colleague to the airport.  We were talking for about fifteen minutes when we both fell silent.  It was one of those lulls in the conversation.  Though it only lasted a few seconds, it felt like it lasted much longer.  I felt like I was failing at something.  Shouldn't I be a good host and nurture the conversation? Instead of honoring the silence, I began to talk just to fill the air.  I am sure that in the next few minutes I said nothing of any consequence and probably said some things better left unsaid.

Sometimes, when ministering to those who are hurting, I feel a compulsion to verbally console them.  Something in us makes us want to make things better.  It is a compassionate desire to want to take away the pain, but we usually can’t.  Especially with grief, it is important that the stages be completed. In those times, it is best to be silent and minister with a compassionate presence.

Silence is not new to me.  I spend much of every day in silence.  Still, there is a silence when I am alone and a silence when I am with others.  The other day, I was at work helping some coworkers prepare for an event.  I looked up at them and said, “Are we done yet: I am feeling chatty and have nothing to say.  That usually gets me into trouble.”  We are a very gregarious society.  We are inordinately chatty.  We have forgotten how to be together and be silent.

We need to recover the ability to be fully present and silent with each other.  There is a time for talk, but there are also times when the talk gets in the way.  The wise person knows the difference.

A Very Simple Story

A man found himself with a great burden on his heart.  He took this burden to God in prayer to see what God had to say to him about it.  For four hours, he poured his heart out to God.  He paced about his study, clenching the breast of his shirt, pleading God to speak to him.  Finally, he fell exhausted into the chair in the corner of his study and shouted, “God why have you not spoken to me!”  After a moment of silence, God replied, “My dear child, I have been trying to speak to you for three and a half hours, but I could not get a word in edgewise.”

The smallness of ministry

Recently, I have entered into a new phase of my ministry.  I have to admit that I have found myself to be a bit over-eager.  I tend to get this way when I get excited about things, and I get excited about ministry.  The problem with this is that, when I get this way, I start to look for the big opportunities that will bring the dramatic results.  I often forget how small ministry can be.  In fact, it can sometimes be rather minuscule.  It is little words said at the right time. Or a little gesture of grace when someone needs it.  We have to look closely to see it, or we will walk right past it.  The secret to this is to be attentive: something that I am not always very good at.  We also need to be willing to me a small minister.  By that I mean that we have to be willing to be a minister of little things.  There is no act of love or compassion so small that it cannot make a difference.

The concept of the smallness of ministry runs contrary to our pride and everything that we are told about ministry success.  But, this is where most of us will live in ministry.  I remember one of my seminary professors saying in class that most of us will never be mega church pastors.  Most of us will minister in seeming obscurity in small parishes around the country.   These small things do, however, have an accumulative effect.  Like small stones in a wall, they can build a ministry over time.  It requires patience (something else that I struggle with) and commitment to a community over time.  However, grand reputations are rarely ever made this way.  To be a minister of the small things means that we must put the call to pastor above our ambitions.  There will be those occasional big events, and we should be grateful for them, but let’s not forget that it is the small ministry that can make the most difference on the long haul.  

Spiritual Feelings

There are times when I feel spiritual, and there are times when I don’t feel much like a Christian at all.  There are times when prayer seems as easy as breathing and times when I just can’t focus on prayer.  I know of many who spend most of their spiritual energy trying to stay in those former places of warm spiritual feelings.  They are to be treasured when they happen, but we can’t stay there.  There are other seasons and times of faith that we must live; and those times when we must pray through the numb feelings inside are just as powerful as the times of consolation.  God is continually at work in us even when we are distracted by the hum-drum of everyday life.  We do not worship a God of escapism.  There is a real now-ness to our faith.  There is a present-ness that embraces the joyful and the tedium of everyday living.  This is the lesson of Brother Lawrence, who found God in the washing of dishes; a job that he was not very thrilled to do at first.  So we must learn to find God in the washing of dishes, in the taking out of the trash, in the paying of bills or in the filing of reports.  Even when our mind feels like a tornado of distraction and worry, Jesus is there to say, “Peace, be still.”