Hmmm, so that’s how it feels...

...incline our hearts to walk in Your ways, 

grant that having cheerfully done Your will this day

we may when night comes, 

rejoice and give You thanks.

-Morning Prayers-

So I walked again today.  Everything was more colorful and more beautiful than yesterday, because the sun was out. Today Ben, my neighbor’s obsessive compulsive Chesapeake retriever, flushed a turkey from behind a tree making us both jump.  Quiet and graceful is not how one would describe a spooked turkey in flight, by the way.  Yes, I walked, but I walked alone today.  My sweet granddaughter decided she was too busy, or just not interested enough to make the effort to walk with Papa today.  She was sorry she missed the turkey, however.

I could probably have made her come, her Mom would have thought it was a good idea and all.  Or, I might have manipulated her into coming by promising a treat or by guilt tripping her about making me walk by myself.  She might have come, but it wouldn’t have been the same.  If I had forced her or manipulated her into coming she would have sulked and been heavy footed and slow.  The lilt in her step, the joy that was in her face yesterday when she found the turtle would have been gone.  We would have walked together, but we would not not have been together.  It might have looked the same from the outside, but it would have felt very different on the inside.  So, while walking alone is not ideal it is not as unpleasant as walking with one who is under duress.

God is like that, you know.  He deeply desires us to walk with and to be with Him, but He wants us there out of desire and not duress.  By design we are made to be drawn, not pushed.  Relationship is by nature desire driven or it is not relationship at all.  Can He make me be present with Him? Yes, He is all powerful.  Can He make me be present to Him?  Good question...I don’t believe He can without violating my humanity as one made in His image.  That is the nature of desire, it cannot be forced it can only be invited.  Ahh, and that He does, He entices, invites, pursues, and faithfully desires our relationship with me.  How can I resist that, why would I even want to?  

Having said all that, the truth is there are many days when, like my granddaughter, I am too busy or just not inclined to walk with Him. I suspect I miss more than wild turkeys because of weak desire.

Thomas Merton has a prayer that has been of great comfort to me.  Very loosely quoted  it goes something like this, “God, the truth is that much of the time I don’t want You, but, at my core I want to want You, and I know that even my wanting to want you pleases You...”  So I pray the morning prayers, “Father incline my heart to walk in Your ways...” and every now and then, usually when I least expect it, I feel a little shift deep inside of me and I find myself moving from wanting to want to, to actually wanting to, “...and when night comes I rejoice and give thanks.”

I can rationalize my feelings when my granddaughter doesn’t come. I can walk at a faster pace and that is good for my physical heart, but when she doesn’t come and especially doesn’t want to come the loneliness is felt in my heart. 

 Hmm so that is how He feels...to Him?

The field, My granddaughter, and The Prayers

For those of you who have read my blog in the past you know that part of my practice of life includes regular walks in the 85 acres of field and forrest so graciously shared by our neighbor, Bill.  The field is gorgeous in a whole new way now as spring has finally pushed winter aside.  The dogwoods and redbuds splash their color on the tree line, and the wild flowers are beginning to push up through what remains of the winter grass.  The views of the mountains seem to draw you toward them with an irresistible pull.  

It is my custom when I walk to say "The Prayers" as described in Acts 2:42.  The prayers as described in Acts most likely included the Psalms and other prayers for the early Church.  I have found the morning prayer as complied by Robert Benson in Venite, to be helpful to me. These prayers are old and have been prayed through the ages by the Church at regular times of the day and I find that as I discipline myself to pray them, even when I don’t feel like it or am not very attentive, they draw me into His presence.  The “morning prayers” are far less “me” centered and more focused on the One who is, and was, and forever will be.  After many years of reading, “saying”, my prayers each morning I was surprised to discover that they were fixed in my feeble brain and I can say them from memory as I walk... Thanks be to God.

Some of you know that my Son, his wife, and four very energetic grandchildren are staying with us for some weeks as they transition from their time in Guatemala and wait to close on a new house.  Mary Helen has consented to join me as we “go hunting” and walk.  How sweet it is to feel her hand in mine and to watch her alternately run ahead or lag behind as we discover turkey feathers, thus the “hunting for turkeys”, colorful flowers, the red cardinal on the post, or the turtle with yellow splotches on his back.  We agree the turtle must be a Vol fan since he has an orange nose.

The sweetest part has been to have her join me in saying The Prayers.  Truthfully she doesn’t understand much about them and I suspect is only marginally interested at age 6, but she listens as I explain the mystery of joining with the Church world wide in praying The Prayers.  God’s people around the world say these prayers every day on a given hour.  Mary Helen experienced time zones and how it made her time different from ours while she was in Guatemala and I could see her mind working as she tried to wrap her arms around the idea that if some of God’s people pray the Prayers on the same hour each day, as the day unfolds the world, as it turns, is bathed in the prayers of the Church.  How cool is that?  We can be party to all of that when we pray.

It is hard to describe how heart warming it is to say the words, “And now we pray for those with whom we share the journey, those who have been given to us and to whom we have been given...”  Here we pause and say the names of those who make up this circle of fellow travelers as God brings them to mind.  Mary Helen of course named her Daddy and Drew who are still in Guatemala, then remembered the rest of her family name by name, noting with joy on finishing their names that she had just prayed for her whole family.

All that except the turtle, who presented himself today, was the first day. Today as we walked we talked about the opening phrase... God said, “Let there be light,” We talked about gifts, that a gift is not deserved or owed.  If they were deserved or owed they would not be gifts, merely payment of an obligation.  Gifts are freely given and are precisely not an obligation of any kind.  We talked about how “Let there be light,” is a gift of a new day and how good it is of God that He gives another day...then she ran ahead, down the hill, full of glee calling for Papa to hurry.

I continued my prayers aloud as she swirled first ahead and then behind, but she was in step with her hand in mine when we reached, “And now we pray the prayers that Jesus taught those He called brothers and sisters and friends...”  Her sweet voice chimed in as we began, “Our father who is in heaven...”

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light,

And God saw that the light was good...

It is sooo good!

Thanks be to God!