Some Reflections Written by a Longtime Member
"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, I understood as a child..., but now...I have put away childish things."[I Corinthians 13:11]
Many places in the New Testament Our Lord refers to children...to their trust, their simplicity, their naivete. In turn, he urges us to retain those same qualities.
The toys of a child, the "childish things," may in turn be simple. Only in our own maturity do we understand how these toys contribute to a child's growth. A rattle whose sound delights the infant is in turn designed to help the infant hand learn to grasp. Man's history can be written in toys as well. I recall a lovely fresco on the wall of an ancient Etruscan tomb near Rome. It depicted a small ball and jacks which brought a chuckle from me, for I felt a kinship with that child thousands of years before me who had also skinned her knuckles playing 6's.
There is often no greater sermon than one gleaned from an overheard conversation of children. How much it reveals of truth! I remember one such my mother and I overheard of a summer morning. We two were working together in the kitchen with doors and windows open to the morning breeze. My little brother John, then about 7, was swinging idly on the porch swing with the neighbor's little girl just his own age. They were discussing keeping all their toys for the time when they would in turn have children. Suddenly, the practical little girl asked about keeping the highchair. My brother agreed that would be a good idea to save as well. Next came her even more practical questions "What will you do if you have twins and only one high chair?" Mother and I both paused to hear the wise reply this would engender. There was a longer-than-usual silence before the little girl, again practical, offered the solution. "You could always borrow from us!".
After our initial chuckle, Mother ventured to wonder aloud to me if she had perhaps borrowed once too often herself from this same neighbor. I rather think not, for the friendship has continued with us to this day.
Let us pray:
Dear God and Father,
Help us to discern amongst the cluttered toy chests which our minds and hearts have become what to keep and what to discard. Open our minds; make them more childlike: that we may understand and reflect Thy great love and interpret it to an often unloving world. We ask this in and through Thine Own Child.
AMEN.
In recent days we've had occasion to be driving through the countryside and have noted...as you perhaps have also...feverish activity in the fields which line our roads. Everywhere farmers are busy; their tractors' lights are visible as they work the fields even after dark. And what are they doing there? By and large, they are ploughing...preparing the soil for winter when freezing temperatures will break up the soil further; or they are treating the soil with chemicals...preparing again the soil which will lie fallow until spring and planting time once more. Preparing.
In your kitchen as in mine we lay in supplies and cook up extra goodies. The lovely smells make a house even more a home. We too are preparing. For no event or occasion can be successful without a time of planning and preparation.
The days ahead will be full of such flurry of preparation. Close on the heels of the day dear to American hearts since Colonial days, our own Thanksgiving Day, comes the lovely high season of the Church year when we begin again the cycle of the liturgical year with Advent.
In these days of preparation let us remind ourselves of the need in all things to prepare our homes and our hearts for the coming of the Christ Child.
Let us pray:
Dear Father God,
let me not become so busy with the worldly but necessary preparations for this festive and holy season that I forget to prepare my own soul for the holy event reenacted each year in our celebration of Christmas. May I not lose sight of the true flavor of the event, for it is indeed Christ's Mass for which we prepare. We pray this in the name of that Christ Child whom we will welcome.
AMEN.
"He shall be called Wonderful, Counselor...Prince of Peace..."
Isaiah [9:6]
What an important thing is a name! How someone will complain when his name is misspelled or mispronounced! And how we resent being called by another's name instead of our own! I am reminded with amusement of my grandmother who would be calling down a grandson to get out of her apple tree...reciting the litany of all the grandsons' names until usually it was the last named who was the culprit.
We are told that the ancients felt they had not conquered a fear until they could name it. Adam put in charge of His world by God is instructed to name the creatures. Is this perhaps an outward and visible sign of Adam's dominion? And now today a psychiatrist will tell a patient that he cannot conquer his fear or his problem until he can admit to it: name it.
A dear Jewish friend tells me that Jewish parents do not name a newborn child for a living relative. Perhaps that would take away some of the power of the name if shared by another living family member.
We care about names. We choose them for what...to honor someone else with that name, to provide a pattern of euphony with the surname? Once given, the name becomes a true label.
As a friend says: depending on the name you have been given, you can either live up to it or live it down!
And what does your name mean? Who wore it before you did? Do you know or care? I rebelled against mine and was rather scornfully told that my mother who had died when I was four had chosen it and it was to be honored. I've met a surprising number of other Winifreds in my life time. Some choose one name as I do; some insist on 2. But all of us thus named are "peace makers". One could do much worse, I think, than to live up to such a label!
Let us pray:
O God Our Father,
make us ever mindful of the name of our calling. Help us to remember that as we call ourselves Christians, we are called by Thee to a special work. May we pray this and every prayer in and through the name of Thy dear Son, Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose name we bear.
AMEN.
"The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork, Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge..."
Psalm 19: 1 - 2
There has always been intrigue to me in viewing skies...painted skies of Turner and Constable, skies silhouetting the shoreline of a well-known lake thus providing a map to find your way home from fishing, pine forests reaching into a northern sky or the vast infinity of a prairie sky whose horizon is outlined with verdant crops full of harvest promise. The eerie sight of northern lights left me in awe: shivers of fright balanced by breathless reaction to the beauty.
No wonder modern man feels a tug to explore the space above the world as we have known it. And thereby these same space explorers are forcing us to re-think our concepts of space. In a way the mystery is laid bare and robbed of its hold.
Just as those skies I love change by the moment as cloud formations come and go bringing clearing or rain in turn, so I find the more concrete features of my world changed too until some days I want to shout, "Enough!"
At that moment I must turn my mind again to the psalm and remind myself that there is always one unchangeable feature. In "Pippa Passes", the poet Robert Browning reminds us too that "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world."
And what an eloquent testimony the psalmist expresses here in this psalm.
The sounds of the day which come through the open windows and doors are balanced against the vast learning which the night skies afford the trained physicist and scholar. Once again we see the wisdom of God's plan.
Let us pray:
Dear God and Father of us all,
Amid the changes and chances of this mortal life, help me to know which changes to resist and which to accept. Let me remember to take chances when Thy plan for me makes taking chances necessary whilst always playing it safe with my own soul. Let me remember often to lift heart and mind to Thy skies, to listen to the speech of Thy firmament. Above all else, whatever work I find to do, let me always do it for the sake and in the name of Thy dear Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
January 24 DIOCESAN BOARD MEETING
I am asking you to concern yourselves with a hymn today...#519. As a church organist, I am fond especially of its lovely minor harmonies. But I often choose to play it during H[oly] C[ommunion] as my fellow parishioners come and go to the altar. My hope is that those with alert and knowing ears may recognize it and reflect on its words:
Once to every man and nation/
Comes the moment to decide/
In the strife of truth with falsehood/
For the good or evil side.
In our proposed new hymnal I am told we shall not find this favorite of mine. Faulty theology, I believe, was the reasoning of the great minds who made these choices for us. Since my own degree is not in theology, I cannot argue the point.
What I ask you to reflect upon in your own personal and in our corporate lives is the fact that we do need to make those proper choices...and then stick to them. I know! Our great and admired American philosopher-essayist Emerson has said that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. I submit, however, that in too many cases in our moral and spiritual concerns we have not been consistent as we ought. We have made commitments but left an opening out of which to sidle if the spirit moves us to do so. It seems to me it is time for us to plant our feet more firmly, to make our choices, properly of course, and then armed in the right to say to our world: Enough. Enough war. Enough poverty. Enough promiscuous behavior. Enough of all those things we've always known were not right.
As our prayer for today and for all time, a watchword for our sessions here convened, I offer these words: let us pray
Though the cause of evil prosper,
Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold,
And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above his own.
In Jesus' name. AMEN.
Africa Mission
For most of us, Africa will always remain the Dark Continent...not because those Africans who are kin to us in Christ are dark-skinned but because of the blackness of our own ignorance. It remains for me a land of contrasts: nations as new as yesterday in a land where the learned and knowledgeable Leakers have discovered the earliest skeletons of human form; fertile plains and beautiful mountains balanced against deserts devoid of growth; a land where wealth and poverty are more surely contrasted than anywhere else on earth. Not just on this occasion but daily we should make Africa a concern for our prayers. (Its concerns are being met at present and in part by Minnesota friends known to some of us: Joan Mock and her doctor husband from Virginia are giving medical, nutritional, and health aid to people in the same area our guest of today has also sought to serve.) Let us remember all this and let us pray.
O Merciful Creator,
make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ Our Lord, who with Thee and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever and ever.
AMEN.
Those of you who know me, know that I am an inveterate knitter. But a seamstress I am not! However, not long ago I had occasion to go into the local fabric shop...to buy ribbon for finishing off two pair of bootees I had made for a charity sale.
When I had been helped to find the ribbon, select the colors needed, and had approached the counter to make the sale, I said to the clerk, "I'll have one yard of each color then, please."
Nearby was a second clerk tidying up stacks of paper patterns. She looked up briefly and said to the clerk waiting on me, "We don't hear that often; do we?" I thought that there were probably few others to make such an insignificant purchase in such a shop and made some retort to that effect. Right away, both clerks set me straight: it was not the fact that I was buying such a small purchase; they had noted immediately my having said "please". Imagine that!
As I went out the door, however, I reflected upon the incident and determined to make use of it sometime as I am doing at this moment. When our nieces and nephews were smaller, they all knew instantly what was required when someone reminded them to say the "magic word"! It isn't as if we did not know; we just often do not think.
A small thing, but how it brightens the day for another. I resolved at that moment to keep myself aware of the need for such niceties...not just for those who wait on me in shops but for those with whom my contacts are even less casual.
Let us pray:
Dear Father,
Forbid that I should fail to show to those nearest me the sympathy and consideration which Thy grace enables me to show to others with whom I have to do. Forbid that I should refuse to my own household the courtesy and politeness which I think proper to show to strangers. Let charity today begin at home and let it begin with me.
In the name of Thy Son we ask.
AMEN.
First in training to teach and later throughout many years of teaching, I have spent much time reading child psychology. Like much other academic learning, the actual observing of the child himself is more fascinating and richer in learning than is studying about the child.
One watched the infant absorbed in himself exploring with delight his own exquisite fingers and toes. Later, he discovers other beings. He may put his fingers in Mother's ears, pull Daddy's hair...but his horizons are expanding. As time progresses, of course, he discovers more and more other beings; notes their differences from himself; finds the greater world not only of people but of people's minds, their ideas. He becomes then finally a politically aware member of society.
It has been said that the history of a nation parallels the development of the individual. In our own history we are aware of a country at first concerned for an entity made up of 13 colonies...a history which we live in today when our country has become politically aware of the troubled larger world of which we are all a part.
As Christians we are called upon not only to delight in self despite a need to nurture our own small parish. Comes the time when each of us must face the mature concept of the Christian's mission in a world which more desperately than ever needs Christian charity and concern.
Through UTO, CSR, and CPC you and I can face those needs...needs which are to others more needed than we often suspect.
Let us pray:
Bless, O Lord, we pray Thee, the Church Periodical Club, that it may be an instrument of service in thy hands. Grant to its officers wisdom and patience, to its members perseverance and the spirit of sharing that asks no return. Bring many more to take part in its activities. Bless our gifts and those who receive them, to the enriching of individual lives and to the growth of thy Kingdom, throughout the world, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
AMEN.
Words May 18
In the beginning was the Word
And the Word was with God
And the Word was God.
St. John
I am assuming that for some of you as for me this oft-quoted passage remains a bit fuzzy in meaning. How much clearer it becomes, however, when one regards the Word as the Concept...the Grand Idea. For viewed in that way, what else are words in our lives than the means of conveying to others concepts and ideas that seem important to express?
The psalmist prays: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in Thy sight." Those views, concepts, and ideas which we put into words are powerful things: they can soothe a wounded soul, bring healing to a sufferer, and even in and of themselves they can cause wounds and suffering. All that power for something we often use so lightly!
The words put together by a great literary light like Shakespeare are often the same words and thoughts mere hacks also use. But with what different result! Remembering that the pen...the use of words written or spoken...is mightier than the sword, let us then pray:
O Almighty Father, help us to guide our thoughts before we utter them that our words may bring light and healing, building friendships and not fracturing relationships. Make us constantly aware of the power of what we say. Perhaps then we may learn not only what to say but when not to say it.
We pray this in and through the Word made flesh, Thy Son Our Lord.
AMEN.
All through this day, O Lord, let me touch as many lives as possible for thee. And every life I touch do thou by thy Holy Spirit quicken, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I breathe, or the life I live.
In the name of Jesus.
AMEN.
I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought, and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
In their great wisdom, the moralists and theologians of our church have decided this hymn will NOT be included in the new hymnal now being developed. I am not sure or their reasoning. Simplistic? Perhaps. Popular? Surely. Many popular things, to be sure, are shoddy or cheap, but a thing is not automatically cheap because it is popular.
In the last 20 years, I have personally mourned the lost practice of celebrating a saint's day on the calendar date whether a Monday... Thursday... or whatever. We used to interrupt the work of any day to come to H[oly] C[ommunion]. Sometimes, I resented just a bit having to drop my work to get dressed up for church. (Another quaint custom, that... dressing up for church!) That alone forced me to see that in the greater stretches of eternity my priorities and God's may differ, but His were the ones of supreme importance. Often we were few who attended these saint's days... that fact in turn giving new meaning to the phrase "where two or three are gathered together in Thy name". Whilst the lives of these saints loomed in importance, this simple hymn causes us to remember another great truth: saints are found "at play, at church, at tea" and sainthood is an on-going process. Unless our lives are indeed static, each of us is on the way; to use an outmoded phrase, we are daily "growing in grace". What better reminder than this: "For the saints of God are just folk like me", and what better resolve than this, "And I mean to be one too".
Let us pray:
Dear God and Father,
help us so to live our lives that those with whom we come into contact may by our lives be comforted, inspired, encouraged... As are we in contemplating the life of Thine own Son. He it was who reminded us that even the death of a sparrow is not insignificant in Thy sight. How much greater then is the value of the life each of us lives today and every day. We raise this prayer to Thee in and through Thy son Our Lord.
AMEN.
Throughout the Old and New Testament and in secular life, God and humans are constantly choosing one person... and obversely... rejecting others for this or that leadership role. To be the object of such choice is and should be humbling more than exalting.
In a delightful play based on the Noah story, the French author Obey uses much literary and Biblical symbolism. In this vein he has Noah herding the animals into the Ark, making it a realistic scene of chaos... for creatures WILL go where they want to... when he sees the cow coming aboard. Instead of a beautiful creature with obviously pure blood lines, God seems to have sent him old Mordecai's cow! A broken down old milker, she becomes for the reader a symbol of the imperfections in those whom God chooses.
Moses himself, you remember, refused his responsibility as a leader because he knows his inadequacies.
You and I too approach any such calls upon our leadership with those same feelings of inadequacy. We do not bring purebred qualities any more than did Mordecai's old cow. To these jobs, we bring only what we have and are: with all the insecurities, the uncertainties, and the flaws which exist within each one of us.
With this same humility, I hope I may serve the women of this diocese (and my own guild) in an effort to divert all our minds and hearts to the one true and only God and Father from Whom we all draw our strength.
Let us pray in the words of a daily prayer put into print for us in FORWARD DAY BY DAY:
O God, give me strength to live another day; let me not turn coward before its difficulties or prove recreant to its duties; let me not lose faith in my fellow men; keep me sweet and sound of heart, in spite of ingratitude, treachery, or meanness; preserve me from minding little stings or giving them; help me to 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 come new vision of thy truth, inspire me with the spirit of joy and gladness; and make me the cup of strength to suffering souls; in the name of the strong Deliverer, our only Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
From GREEN WINTER Elise Maclay
Vanity p. 25
I used to hate it so
When a new wrinkle appeared,
Creasing my forehead,
Dragging down my mouth,
Marring my cheek.
I used to sit in front of the mirror
Stretching the skin taut with my fingers.
I could lift it and smooth it,
Which didn't make me feel better,
It made me feel worse,
Remembering how beautiful I used to be,
Well, pretty.
But lately, for almost a year, maybe,
Looking in the mirror hasn't been such a shock.
Am I getting used to it?
Am I reconciled?
Has the deterioration slowed?
No. I need new glasses.
What a joke.
My eyesight's deteriorating faster than my face.
Are you trying to tell me something?
I think so. You said it once:
For everything there is a season.
Old age is not the season for vanity.
Primping took a lot ot time.
Ir You have freed me from it, You must mean for me
To spend my time on
More appropriate business.
Let us pray:
I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast so set eternity within my heart that no earthly thing can ever satisfy me wholly. I thank Thee that every present joy is so mixed with sadness and unrest as to lead my mind upwards to the contemplation of a more perfect blessedness. And above all I thank Thee for the sure hope and promise or an endless life which Thou hast given me in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ my Lord.
AMEN.
February 16, 1982
Psalm 19:12 "Who can tell how oft he offendeth? Cleanse Thou me from my secret faults."
I am not so widely read in the Bible as I wish I were despite years of involvement with it. Whenever I have attempted to fill in the gaps... to read through all the books... I find myself more often than not instead going back again to the Psalms. It will always be my favorite book, running the gamut, as it does, of all emotions. This one psalm alone provides an apt sample. When it deals with sin, as it does in this particular verse, however, it particularly echos my own sentiment: by and large those of us who have been born into the faith and are practicing Christians need cleansing... not from large and obvious sins but from "secret faults", sins of which perhaps even we may be unaware. I am moved to reflect how often those secret sins have caused trouble, perhaps large in own lives and often deadly to personal relationships. Many of us would never murder or rob or commit adultery. We are "good"... but in trying to be helpful, how often we may have unwittingly hurt someone else by inference or innuendo. Surely, all of us could benefit from daily requests that Our Lord cleanse us thus. What better wording to use than the familiar one I choose for our prayer today.
Let us pray:
Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desirers of our own hearts. We have offended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us. But Thou,
O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults restore Thou those who are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus Our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober lite, to the glory of Thy holy name.
AMEN.
September 28, 1983 diocesan semi-annual meeting at Fairmont
The emphasis of our thought today is to be centered on the altar guild and its ministry. It seemed fitting to me that we focus on Psalm 84 to be found on page 707 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Let us look at portions of that psalm together.
How joyful the psalmist speaks of being as he enters God's house! The house of a God whose deep concern mankind can be so sure of because that same God even cnres tor the common and ubiquitous sparrow.
As common as is this sparrow, so common must also seem the tasks our faithful altar guild members perform: filling, and later cleaning emptied vessels; putting out fresh linens that must later be rendered tidy from their stains; seeing to the common needs of those with whom we worship in common.
Yet the psalmist tells us he would rather do the Commonest, most mundane tasks in and around the house of his God than to dwell in the tents of the ungodly.
How much less burdensome is any task we do with joy in our hearts! Is that not the secret for getting through those jobs that seem so endlessly repetitive? We do them...only to have to do them almost immediately again. But if these jobs are done with joy in the heart... done for the glory of God... done with thought of others rather than of self... they become a pleasure, an act of worship.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, grant we beseech thee, that we may handle holy things with reverence, and perform our work with such faithfulness and devotion that it may rise with acceptance before thee and obtain thy blessing; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
AMEN.
Lord, take our prayers and hallow them; Lord, take our thoughts and inspire them; Lord, take our tasks done for Thee and Thy house and use them to Thy glory; Lord, take our lives and direct then in the service of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
AMEN.
Lord, let me know clearly the work which Thou art calling me to do in life. And grant me every grace I need to answer Thy call with courage and love and lasting dedication to Thy will. In Christ's name.
AMEN.
Guild November 16, 1983
On my kitchen wall is a small wooden plaque on the face of which are these words in illuminated lettering: "O God, I shall be very busy this day. If I do forget Thee, do not Thou forget me." This brief prayer supposedly was written by an English nobleman before leading his men into a battle.
I find myself looking at these words often. And it seems to me the basic message derives from the word "busy", for we do get so busy. One ought to pause, I think, to assess that busyness. What are we busy about?
We all know people who can manage always to look as if they were working... they seem busy... but when we look more closely we can find little true progress. How often are we guilty of that same action? Whom are we trying to impress with our busy-ness?
Before we remind our heavenly Father of how busy we are, perhaps we ought to examine our lives to see if our busy-ness is furthering His Kingdom on earth.
Let us Pray:
Our Father,
guide us as we live our busy lives, protect us from just seeming to be busy, and help us to find true busy-ness in Thy service. We ask this through Thy Son, a busy carpenter of Nazareth.
AMEN.
Christmas, 1983
For unto you was born this day in the city of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord...
What a beautiful and familiar statement that is! Forthright and simple, yet racked with meaning.
Let's look at it again. The chronicler begins by saying that this great birth has occurred not just to a set of parents and grandparents, as modern birth announcements portend; this birth was "unto us"...its implications are felt today in our lives.
This child was born in a city significant to his own ancestor David, one of the mightiest Old Testament kings. In the life of David is the unmistakable charting of the king's fate by his Israel God. Despite the flaws in his humanity, King David leaves his mark forever on the history of a great nation. The blood of his veins...the blood of a great king and a very human man...flows too in the veins of this very special infant.
This Saviour which is Christ the Lord made his arrival as an infant. What a terrifying responsibility is the birth of an infant! Totally dependent for every need for months of infancy, totally dependent for even longer for guidance and love and nurturing! In her heart his mother knew this infant was marked for special things How often she must have been overwhelmed by that responsibility. And the good St. Joseph...more mature by reason of his years yet accepting a child for whom he need not have felt responsibility...how he must have been burdened with concern!
Born to those parents and into that time in history and into that culture rich with David and Israel's tradition, the Holy Babe himself was born into a further responsibility. Indeed it is so with all of us, but how long it takes us sometimes to accept that responsibility for our own lives...for what we do with them and for how our life affects those near and dear to us.
Let us pray:
How glad we are at this Holy season, O God, that this Holy Child was born, that He did indeed come as Saviour of our world, a world sorely in need of saving. My special prayer for us all is that we might not only revel in the joys of the season but accept its true meaning and the responsibility that goes with that acceptance in our own lives. We ask these prayers in the name of this babe, Thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
February 13, 1984 my valentine to Al (my husband)
This is my commandment to you: that ye love one another. [John 13:34]
The world has set aside tomorrow in tribute to love. As I look around me, at all of you (and remember my own face in the mirror as well!), I am made aware that, with our level of maturity, we have all here gathered invested many years and garnered much experience with love. We could tell the world about that subject!
My husband is often annoyed with me...and rightly so...for a special habit I have of turning out a drawer or box or shelf, going through the contents, and then finding for each item a "better place". Of course, I can never remember where that "better place" is when I need the item. One such small piece is this heart I carry. In it is a very miniature book...the gospel according to St. John. I won this small prize at age five...at a summer Bible camp...for being the first child in the fair sized group of children to call out John 3:16 from memory. My mother was in attendance at the camp as resident nurse; my father was one of the instructors; you may all remember similar camps to which whole families went in earlier days. Incidentally, it was at this same camp that my mother came upon me standing on a rock preaching to a circle of preachers! I had apparently finished my own sermon, for she found me with a handful of pennies...I had already taken up the collection...and I was made to return those bright coins.
Like me I am sure, many of you have such stories to tell. Small mementos in your collection can spark similar tales. It is in such memories that we pay homage to the homes we come from...the homes where we all began learning about love. From those days, we went on to learn all those further lessons in loving and being loved. And we shall all, no doubt, go on learning about love each day or our lives. For on this day as always...Valentine's Day or not...as long as life goes on so does love...the love we bear our spouses, our families, our friend.
Let us pray:
O thou source of all love,
let thy love go out to all created beings, to those I love and to those Who love me, to the few I know and to the many I do not know to all of every race, to all the living in this world and to all the living dead in the next world! May all be free from evil and from harm, may all come to know thy love and to find the happiness of loving thee and their fellows. O let the small love of my heart go out with thine all-embracing love for the sake of him, who first loved us and taught us love, even Jesus Christ, our Lord.
AMEN.
Lent, 1984
We have come away from many customs in our churches of late, but I admit I am a die-hard. For over 30 years, I have owned and worn (with modifications and renewals, of course!) a traditional set of garments in my attendance to duties in choir or at the organ.
Last Sunday I had removed these outer garments, had taken off the soft slippers I wear at the organ, and was bent over tying my street shoes when a little girl came over to me...quietly swiftly, and with total artlessness...she threw her arms around my neck and planted a fairy kiss on my cheek.
I looked up in surprise to meet the eyes of her grandmother. As I did so, the grandmother remarked: "The child was fascinated watching you at the organ. She said to me, 'That's a pretty girl'!" Well...now...at my age to be called a girl and pretty at that...that's mighty heady stuff!
As you may imagine, my feet never felt the ground as I walked out to my car.
I was reminded anew of an element built into my persona from childhood up: one never knows for whom his own life is providing the example. For the 40 years of my teaching life, I was especially aware of the need to live by that precept. At times, I failed; but that firm conviction that my life might be a pattern for others served to deter me from indiscretion and improper behavior. It was also a humbling thought. The beloved John Donne reminds us that no man is an island, and indeed we are not.
Let us pray:
Dear Lord,
I cannot begin to know how many people, and who, are looking to me for example and guidance. Keep me close to you lest I fail even one of them. And all through this day, O Lord, let me touch as many lives as possible for thee. And every life I touch do thou by thy Holy Spirit quicken, whether through the word I speak, the prayer I breathe, or the life I live. I ask this in Thy dear name.
AMEN.
March 1984 Diocesan board meeting
To every thing there is a season... [Ecclesiastes 3:1]
What a familiar phrase from Ecclesiastes! And just lately my mind has finished the phrase with the words: a time to sweep; a time to dust. A long-time friend years ago called my present fervor "the nesting instinct". Whatever you call that indescribable itch, it has resulted lately for me, at least, in a totally tidy laundry area of the basement.
In the process of turning out, I have come across treasures and non-treasures. What does one call all those saved but useless things? For I am a hoarder by nature. Treasures? A gorgeous pink Easter hat made years ago by my ex-milliner mother-in-law. And at the other end of the scale some clothing which, since it no longer fits, will no longer haunt me for having neglected to mend it.
Is this not what Lent is essentially about? We are enjoined to turn out the clutter in the corners of our lives, to let in fresh thoughts, and to rid ourselves of accumulations of error. Just as our homes need these flurries of activity by which we rid them of cobwebs and clutter, so the home of the soul must also be cleansed.
Let us pray:
Dear Father of us all,
help us to remember our real purposes as we assemble here to do Thy Church's business. May we be reminded of Thy love so that we act lovingly with one another. And may we use these days of Lent to cleanse our own consciences so that Thy resurrected Son may find room therein to dwell. We ask this in the name of Thy Son,
AMEN.
May 1984 diocesan board meeting
We are all aware today that this is our final meeting of the season, that summer at least ought to be coming and we shall be going our separate ways and perhaps not seeing each other as frequently as we often do.
One of the moving moments at the recent diocesan annual meeting was the final one when the church's roof rang to our singing that stirring hymn "On our way rejoicing". I am sure many had trouble singing around the lumps in their throats.
In every moment of our lives we are to one extent or another "on our way". Let us rejoice in that and in the opportunities open to us as we journey. And since for many summer brings travel of a more real kind, let us then pray:
O God, our heavenly Father,
whose glory fills the whole creation and whose presence we find wherever we go: Preserve those who travel; surround them with your loving care, protect them from every danger; and bring them in safety to their journey's end.
In the name or Thy Son we ask this.
AMEN.
May 1984
I will lift up mine eyes to the hills whence cometh my help... Psalm 121:1
It has often seemed strange to me that even here on our flat Minnesota prairies the words of this psalm should speak so loudly to the soul. Small indeed are the hills of our home especially when compared to the majesty of Europe's Alps to say nothing of our own American Rockies.
There are numerous incidents in Old Testament times which relate to height. Often the ancient peoples chose their leaders in the belief that a tall man was born to command...thus endowed by God to be a leader of others.
Remember the Tower of Babel? In an effort to reach God, the people of that day built a structure higher than any other. Naive as that idea may seem today, we still keep reaching for the heights. Do we perhaps need to remind ourselves that relative height is insignificant? Whether height OR depth...as the psalmist reminded us...our God is there before us.
In our world of constant change...of daily heights and depths...the eternal hills remind us of their eternal Creator...and our Creator...reaffirming His existence and reminding us of our dependence upon Him for our own existence.
Let us Pray:
Dear God and Father,
Creator of all heights and depths, we raise our hearts to Thee in praise and gratitude for all the beauties of Thy world. Let us remember to use Thy world wisely and well. May is glories refresh our souls and raise our spirits to Thy heights in praise tor all Thy bounty. We crave Thy blessing our lives, on our work this day, and on our service to Thee and Thy Son in whose dear name we pray.
AMEN.
October 1984 diocesan meeting
"In the beginning..."
These three words open two books of the Bible: one in the Old Testament and one in the New. My mind has been on beginnings recently when my husband and I enjoyed a four day bus trip which took us to southwestern Wisconsin, an area which featured in my own beginning. Into this area, parts of which were colonies of Welsh and Cornish miners, came an Englishman, a Londoner born and bred, with a very common Welsh name...later to be joined by his London wife. These two were my parents.
I looked frantically during the early parts of our tour at those places much dimmed in memory by many intervening years. The house where I spent my first six years...still there! Can't say that about at least one other house in which I had lived much more recently!
How we dwell in memory on such beginnings...the "firsts" of our own lives, of the lives of our children or of those very dear to us. Of what special moment is the beginning of...anything. Surely a writer cannot write without one. And we strive always to make these beginnings right in every way in order to guarantee that which follows will also be worthy of our efforts.
You and I are here gathered for a beginning of sorts. For with the start of the school year, we all sense a change of tempo. "The season"...whatever that may mean...is once again assuming its familiar routines. Summer over, we begin with renewed vigor to take up the pattern which our lives is weaving. May a good beginning bring to each of us a middle term rich in all for which we stand in need so that we come to an ending fruitful with reward for all our efforts.
Let us pray:
Dear Father God, Lord of all our beginnings,
we ask Thy blessing on the work we are beginning here today. May our service to Thee bring forth results in our lives and in the lives or others to the increase of Thy kingdom on this earth. And when we have done our work to Thy glory, grant us such an ending as may be truly a final great beginning...the start of Eternal Life lived with Thee. In the name of Thy Son we pray. AMEN.
January 1985
The intensely cold weather of this past weekend affected us more particularly than usual. In Minnesota one grows used to cold in January. But this time, what ought to have been an especially trustworthy piece of equipment became most treacherous to our comfort. A gleaming new furnace failed to function as promised so, in the midst of 27 below zero temperatures and a frightening wind chill factor we were barely keeping the cold out. We sat huddled in our small sitting room for meals and all else, kept warm by an electric heater and heat put out by lamps and TV.
Odd how much more carefully one reads a newspaper when one cannot move around so easily or pass the time in other pursuits! In that reading, I came upon an article whose thrust reminded me of something I had known for years...ever since a very elderly friend wrote in my memory book new to my 10-year-old self: "Laughter doeth good like medicine."
I remember worrying more intensely over a student whose sense of humor seamed at best hidden, at most non-existent. How one fosters fun in the young I am not just sure, but foster it one must. Bless Dr. Seuss for knowing that! And the poet John Ciardi. And the cartoonist Charles Schultz.
My husband, often rightly, accuses me of laughing at the wrong time. In contrast, when and if I do blow up in what I like to call righteous indignation, he will use my laughter to defuse the anger. When one is stamping a foot in high dudgeon and someone looks at you and says, "My, your eyes are beautiful when you're angry!"... Well, when that happens to me, the anger dissolves in giggles. Hang onto that sense of the ridiculous. It may be your best road to keeping a healthy mind, inside that healthy body of yours.
Let us pray:
Dear God, help us to keep our perspective in all our dealings with others today and every day. Let us recognize the sense of fun as a necessary part of our lives. Help us to keep that sense of fun from becoming hurtful poking fun at others. May we use our sense of humor as we use all the gifts and talents with which Thou hast endowed us to Thy greater glory as heirs with Thy Son, Our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
January 1985 diocesan board meeting
You and I are the kind of human being we are today because of the other people in our lives...Our parents, their friends and our own, our relatives, our teachers and rectors, and all that "cloud of witnesses" who oversee our lives at every point in time. Stingy?...Well, we survived a depression. Conservative?... we had to be. Living for others?...Someone in our own lives
taught us that because of the way he or she lived. As a fact, it is inescapable.
I am grateful each day for those who had a part in my being and becoming the unique and personal "me". Let us remember today the women who helped each of us become the sort of churchwomen we are because of the lives they lived, lives of service and faith.
Let us pray:
Grant, O Father, that I may go about this day's business with an ever-present remembrance of the great traditions wherein I stand and the great cloud of witnesses which at all times surround me, that thereby I might be kept from evil ways and inspired to high endeavor. So keep me until evening in the might of Jesus, Thy Son, and My Lord.
AMEN.
March 1985 diocesan board meeting
Of all the household tasks that leave one's mind free to roam, for me that task which provides the most of that freedom is ironing. I'll be truly up against it if we ever have a world of total drip-dry, no-iron garments! For it seems to me I cannot truly function without time to think.
I am not usually one to talk in my sleep, but during my college years, my room mate came in from her late-night date to find me sitting up in bed, asleep, but seeming to be gazing out the window. When she asked me what I was doing, I replied...still asleep..."cogitating". Later, when telling me about the incident, she remarked that only an English major would have given such a reply. Without apologies, I suggest that I am not alone in this need for tine to think, "perchance to dream"...surely to cogitate. One's life needs the change of pace that comes from quiet thought.
Let us pray:
Dear God, we ask that Thou wouldst indeed speak to us in the quiet of our thoughtful moments. Help us in our work together to act with compassion and concern, to deal with one another only with love, and to make our decisions with thought and without malice. We ask it in the name of Thy Merciful Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
March 1985 Diocesan Board meeting Lane House
Have you noticed lately how often one pays more but gets less? I don't mean just the chocolate bar that is smaller but more expensive. My husband must avoid caffeinated coffee. Folgers took out the caffeine, but I pay more for it. Regular coffee with caffeine is cheaper! And diet items. Take out the sugar, the fat, the salt, the calories...and then pay more for it. Some thing comes out and the price tag is larger.
Is it that we are a product of the line of thought that there's no such thing as a free lunch? Given a freebie, we figure it cannot be any good because it didn't cost anything. How fortunate we are that much of what is truly important is often without cost! Cost perhaps in time and effort, but not in nickels and dimes. The gesture of caring that requires thought to plan, the favor done without thought of return, the squeeze of a hand, the sudden smile...not costly.
Obviously, the supreme gift of all was also the freest...from the bounty of God came the great gift of His Son, and though that Son the gift of salvation. Like our own giving, it reflects...or should reflect...our love for the one to whom it is given.
Let us pray:
Dear God, we ask that Thou wouldst make us more aware and grateful for all gifts large and small. Let us be especially grateful for the gifts which come from Thee, gifts so freely, given...the beauties of Thy universe, the treasured friendships we have nurtured, and above all the gift of Thy Son, our Lord. All these bounties we are given without our asking or our earning.
We ask this prayer in the name of the Supreme Gift, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
AMEN.
May 1985 Diocesan meeting, Edina
One of my favorite hymns is "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind", and within its text is the special appeal: the still, small voice of calm. Oh, I know! Preceding that is mention of earthquake, wind and fire...all surely very un-quiet and un-calm.
We are assaulted at every turn these days by noise of one kind or another. Have you been put on hold when making a business call only to be forced to listen to someone else's choice of music? The grocery stores where I habitually shop persist in filling my ears with taped music. Sometimes the tapes are so horribly worn that they annoy and distract me. I might be a more profligate shopper without such music.
At times like this, I wonder: are we today afraid of quiet? Are we no longer able to sit in our own homes listening only to a ticking clock? Oops...I forgot! Most of those now are quietly digital. They don't tick; they're soundless. How long has it been since you've sat in real quiet; just absorbing silence?
In our busy, noisy lives perhaps this may be in short supply: the time, the place, and the quiet. But I think we could be the better for it...to let that small voice of calm speak to us.
Let us pray:
Dear God, we pray for islands of quiet in our busy lives. Having seen the need for times of silence, help us in that silence to hear Thy still small voice. May we learn to listen to that voice so that our lives may be enriched...that we may be lead to even greater things in Thy service. May all we do and say here today be in accord with what Thou wouldst have us say and do. We pray this and all prayers in the name of Thy Son, Our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
May 1985 Diocesan board meeting
Today my remarks will be a bit more personal than usual. Just two years ago we were almost total strangers, you and I. I faced you for the first time with feeling of inadequacy which was quickly dispelled by your warmth. Some of you I have since come to know more intimately than others. I may, from now on, not always be so aware of your special concerns and needs. But I assure you those needs will be dear to me always. I have found you interesting and interested women. Each very much an individual...yet we share that very precious common goal: wanting to do Our Lord's work here on earth.
I shall be a different (and l hope better) person for my knowing you and my horizons diminished and altered by our parting. My contributions to our total effort have been modest: however, like this one, they have always been sincere. In saying farewell, I take a bit of each of you with me. I hope I leave also a bit of my self behind...1 leave each of you and your lives in the hands of a caring Father.
Let us pray:
Dear Father of us all,
we ask your blessing on our deliberations here today and our larger concerns for the meeting tomorrow. As with all our concerns, personal or otherwise we can do no better than to bring them to You. Help us always to remember that. Your concerns for us are more valuable than our own concerns for ourselves. May we be better women for our times together in your service as we know, we are better individuals for our time spent in our worship of You. We ask this all in the name of Your Son, our Lord.
AMEN.
Books and materials I have found useful and on which I rely often:
Baillie, John. A DIARY OF PRIVATE PRAYER. Out of print but available from the Church Book shop in paperback under $3.00.
[2006 update - ISBN: 0684309971 still available at abe.com but at least $50. Available for interlibrary loan through MN Link.]
FORWARD DAY BY DAY pamphlet usually available through each parish.
Brink, Carol [Ryrie]. SHREDS AND PATCHES. 1978. Was bought for me at John Cole's Book Shop, 780 Prospect Street, La Jolla, California.
[2006 update - available for interlibrary loan through MN Link. The manuscript and her other papers are in the University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections.]
L'Engle, Madeline. THE IRRATIONAL SEASON. also available through the Church Book Shop.
[2006 update - ISBN: 0866839461 still available at amazon.com inexpensively and, no doubt, through MNLink.]
I recommend also a series printed by Augsburg Publishing and available through the Church Book Shop...especially two by a personal friend: Stenerson, Ruth. BIBLE READINGS FOR SINGLES; BIBLE READINGS FOR TEACHERS.
[2006 update - "Teachers" still available inexpensively through amazon.com along with others in the series. Both available through MNLink.]
