August 21, 2005

Organizing Principles

by Julianne Stokstad

Summer time, quiet time, time away can give us new eyes with which to see our daily lives. Actually any change provides us with perspective by knocking us out of our routines if we take time to notice. How is your life now, this day, at the end of summer? Is it frantic or stressed, perhaps too quiet, even boring or is it just the way you like?

Paul provides this kind of fresh perspective on the life of the Christian community in Rome. In today's passage, he sounds somewhat like a grandfather writing to his dearest grandchild. He gives practical advice saying essentially, look here, this is what's important and this is how to live! Paul is passionate about God's love and wants his beloved community to live under the mantel of God's grace, in peace and joy. He knows how hard it is to live as God's people in a world that continually demands our time and loyalty. He knows how difficult it is to live in a world that subtly and not so subtly corrupts us all.

I have returned with fresh eyes after two weeks away and I want to share what I see. I spent a week at Redwoods Monastery. It is about 4 1/2 hours north in an area west Garberville called the Lost Coast. It is isolated, so much so I had to drive 25 miles just to get cell-phone reception to check for messages. And it is incredibly beautiful and very quiet up there in the redwoods. There are nine sisters and one priest who live a very simple life at this Benedictine community. They take in guests one week a month during the summer. The twelve guests live in simple accommodations. We were free to do as we wished. We could join in their prayers, which were four or five times a day or not; we could work in the garden or not. We were served delicious vegetarian meals out of their garden and homemade bread. Our time was our own. I read, painted and wrote, slept, and walked.

I walked extensively through the meadows and forests enjoying watching the many deer and their new fawns, a family of wild turkeys with five young that visibly grew during the week I was there. None of the animals were at all afraid, so we could walk very closely by and they didn't even more. I greatly enjoyed working in the garden and picked more than 30 pints of blackberries.

In the mornings, as I walked to prayer there was a mystical layer of fog only waist high over the meadow. I always stopped about half way to listen to the creek and look up the redwood trees. The chapel is simple, austere with a huge picture window behind the altar. Sometimes at prayer, spotted fawns would frolic among the redwood trees.

The rhythm of the days flowed naturally from the prayers. It was sometime on the third day that it dawned on me that I was planning my day around prayer. I didn't actually like the form of prayers all that much. It seemed rigid and formed to me. There was lots of bowing and turning and crossing. All the prayers were from books, mostly antiphonally sung psalms. Yet I found it profoundly affected me to be in this rhythm with God the organizing principle of my days.

Back now in my life, the memory of that rhythm is still in my body and I notice how hard it is to maintain even two or three prayer times a day. I know lots of folks find it difficult to even pray once a day. Those of us here are not called to live in a monastery but to live in the world as faithful Christians. We're not Muslims called to pray five times a day. We have a great deal more freedom and I wonder how wisely we use our freedom?

How do we hold on to our Christian beliefs and values in a culture that is competing for our time, our attention and our very souls? How do we organize our lives to spend our time and attention on what matters most to us?

Paul understood being a Christian as being one who is in a relationship with God. Jesus is our model. One of the most important ways we do this is with prayer.

I know there are many expert pray-ers here. I know most of us have had rich rewarding times in our prayer lives and dry periods as well. I know for some of you, it is easy to pray, and some of you find it difficult or even impossible to pray. Our prayer life ebbs and flows reflecting our lives, our relationships and our maturing.

There is no right way to pray. There are as many ways as there are kinds of people. Richard Foster in his book on prayer identifies twenty-four different kinds of prayers. Here in worship, think about how many different kinds of prayers are prayed each Sunday: silent prayers, the Lord's Prayer, a confessional prayer, intercessory prayer, to name just a few.

It has been said that if the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, that is enough. Gratitude is a very important kind of prayer. It opens our heart, changes our perspective from griping and complaining to see all the blessings we have in our lives. We all have so much: the brand new day, the golden hills of California, our church, our dogs and cats, our families and friends, peaches, a second bathroom here at church.

As we grow into a mature faith, we learn to be grateful for everything, absolutely everything, in our lives even the things we don't like.

I've noticed that many people feel uncomfortable saying prayers, especially spontaneous prayers. I have learned that it isn't the words at all that really matter. We might unintentionally give the message in church that one needs beautiful words to pray. Not at all! It is the intention behind the prayer and the honesty and sincerity that are is important.

It concerns me that we might set up expectations about prayers. I remember Andrew, an earnest 8 year old, who prayed often for his grandmother to get well. Andrew believed that if he prayed right and hard enough God would answer his prayer and heal his grandmother. When his grandmother died, Andrew at his tender age had a crisis of faith. God is not Santa Claus and we don't always get what we want. Because of similar experiences, there are many people who don't think prayer does much good.

I believe in prayer. The most important reason for praying is to have a relationship with God. The more we pray, the more intimate, strong and trusting our relationship grows. As in any relationship, we can't always do the talking and the asking. We must listen. Spending time sitting in quiet or meditation, open and listening to God, changes us.

It is too easy to be sloppy about our prayer life. Have you heard God complain about it recently? It is also too easy given the demands of our lives to be sloppy about spending time with those people we most love. It is too easy to take them for granted. We think they know how much we love them and they will always be there, right? Wrong! Just as we need to set aside time for our loved ones, so it is with God. There is no substitute for our time and attention.

I encourage you to pay attention to prayer, to develop your relationship with God on a daily basis. Put the intention of prayer in your heart and be creative. We can pray riding our bicycles or swimming or walking or even driving our cars. Prayer is as close as our breath. It is the golden cord that connects us with God.

Here in this church, I'd like us to develop further our prayer support for each other and our community. I know this is a church that likes to be busy, to do. I don't see praying as passive. How often do we pray for our mission board and the work they do? How often do we pray for EDFK or, for example, the upcoming fundraiser? How often do we pray for the children in Mexico and their families? How do we support each other in prayer? I'd like to challenge us to pay attention to our prayer life in church. Prayer is the very grounding of our community, the very life force here. Let's not ignore it.

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