"Receive My Silent Prayers"

(A struggling response to the 9 murders at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC 6-17-15)

“Emmanuel”, God-With-Us … Yesterday, as we wept and prayed, as we began to grasp the depth of grief among your children in Charleston, you wept among us and with us. You received each of our prayers as if each one was a singular tearful conversation with you.

This morning, I will admit, I am having difficulty finding even a few words of prayer for the shooter. The words are elusive and garbled and where there are words, they are certainly not in complete sentences. To be honest, perhaps it is me who does not want to pray for him.

Do I think that my prayers for others will be watered down by a sentence or two whispered for this one who is so filled with hate? Just maybe the words are there, waiting in this silence.

Receive, O God, my silence and my gasps as a prayer this morning, yearning to free itself into your care. Place your words within my heart so that I might give them back to you.

AMEN.

"Ill-Fitting Armour"

How often have I been handed

another person's shield and sword

and armour and yes, callings

only to find that all were

too heavy and cumbersome

and ill-fitting.

Brought to my knees by the

weight of it all,

I can only stand to face the Goliaths

when I hand back those things

that others ask me to wear

and reach out for the stones

that are God-made

to fit perfectly in my hand ...

stones with my name on them,

stones made smooth

by the very waters of my baptism.

It is then and only then

when I can rise and stand

with courage and strength

that is my God's to give,

and turn in the direction

of God's choosing.

"The Thimble"

I had a lovely dream just before waking this morning. I was walking through gardens of lush greens and beautiful flowers when someone came to me and said, "I want to give you a gift. Let me go to my store and get it for you." I didn't recognize this person but for some reason, I had a handwritten inventory listing of the items that were in his store.

He came back to me and placed a silver thimble in my hand and said, "This is for you. I have wanted you to have it for a long time." He smiled, winked at me and left the gardens as quickly as he had appeared.

I looked at my unopened notebook with the value listings of each item in his store, wondering if I should take a peek at the value of this tiny gift. I hesitated, then finally gave in and opened the notebook. Item after item was listed, each one more valuable than the one before. I ran my finger down through the list, growing excited about how much this little thimble might be worth in dollar value. My eyes fell upon the words "silver thimble" and where its value should be there was nothing written. Nothing!

I sat down in the garden, staring at this little thimble, this tiny shield from those smallest injuries of life ... and suddenly I knew its value. PRICELESS.

No hurt is so small that God isn't aware .... that God isn't comforting .... that God doesn't love us through it.

"The Word for the Day is .... "

Last night, a friend sent a message to me, commenting that he hadn’t seen/read any of my Tuesday lunch grace-sightings lately.  As I ended my evening, I wondered why the grace-sightings had become fewer in recent weeks.  Perhaps there is a fog of the heart when the stuff of life is allowed to cloud over such sightings.  I pray that I continue to be willing to be enchanted by and receptive to God's presence … thus, the word for the day!

The word for the day is RECEPTIVE.

It has been said of C. S. Lewis that his most significant defining characteristic was his willingness to be “enchanted” – a profound openness to delight joined with the sense that there is more to the world than meets the eye.  C. S. Lewis wrote, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God.  The world is crowded with Him.  He walks everywhere incognito.  And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate.”  Lewis continued by describing our task this way:  “The real labor is to remember to attend.  In fact, to come awake.  Still more, to remain awake.”

So, the word for the day is RECEPTIVE … we see that modeled in the life of C. S. Lewis and that is what I hope for us all (with a good dose of "enchantment' thrown in).