Worship

The Rector's Lenten Letter 2008

Dear Friends,

Last Thursday it was my privilege to preach at a Eucharist at Memphis Theological Seminary, and to dedicate the chairs we have given from our former choir loft, now in use at the seminary chapel. How to preach about chairs? I started with a title:

"Sit, Walk, Run."

That idea might work as a message for the start of Lent.

We tend to live our lives the other way around. We start the day on the fly, on the run out the door; we slow down to a walk about 2pm, and by the time we get home we have energy only to sit.

That is to say "to flop, collapse, bulge, come apart, fall flat, fold, founder, dangle, droop, drop, flutter, jerk, quiver, sag, slump, stagger, teeter, topple, toss, totter, and tumble. [Thanks, Thesaurus.]" The price we pay for too busy a life.

Lent teaches us to value the Presence of God in stillness, in the benefits that come from starting the day the other way around -- by "sitting.” Sitting –stillness -- is not the opposite of, or the enemy of, action. A wise teacher says stillness is the means of ensuring that our actions are suffused with an awareness of God:

The trick is to take time to start the day with this Quiet Time. Well, not really: we can’t “take” any more time: there isn’t enough time to go around as it is -- so we must “make time.” If we do make time, as a Lenten discipline, i.e., make time to sit, what might result?

• My wife is up almost every morning by 5am or so, as are most teachers. I struggle up and out by ---6 -ish. She has already read the meditation passage from Forward Day by Day, conquered another chapter in a good book, prayed for our children, friends and her students, enjoyed the company of a flickering candle and a cup of good coffee. She takes care of herself spiritually, and it affects her work for good.
• One of my first morning routines is to read, and pray, the names on our parish prayer list, and review our list of birthdays and anniversaries for the week. By this I’m put in mind of the really important things that need doing that day.

So silence – sitting – is not the enemy of action: giving God a central place in our lives is a way of making our active lives more efficient, more

“ focused, accommodating, aligned, balanced, connected, mended, sharpened, consolidated, converged, unified”

-- better words on the whole than "flop, collapse, bulge, droop, quiver, sag, slump,” and the rest. It’s a good feeling at the end of the day to have lived not completely under “the tyranny of the urgent,” but intentionally, having invited God to be the still point in the center of our busyness.

Lent, and its end, Easter, will be better and will feel better for our having sat down at table with God in eucharist and prayer before we try to walk and run on our own strength alone.

Peace and joy,

PS: Copies of Forward Day by Day are always available on the counter in the Parish Hall. Or call the office to have one mailed to you.

SHROVE TUESDAY tonight (5-7pm), and ASH WEDNESDAY (7am, 12noon, 7pm (choir)