One of my favorite authors and friends, Robert Benson, (www.robertbensonwriter.com) defines prayer as “coming to attention.” He also says that, ”All things can become prayer when we come to view them as such.” I’m not very good at it yet I’m a slow learner, but I’m trying to be more attentive and I am branching out and exploring new ways to pray and find sacred spaces where the barrier between time and eternity becomes thin.
I am blessed to live in a beautiful neighborhood on a tree-covered hill outside Lenoir City, TN. I have wonderful neighbors who gather weekly on a hilltop on the side of the neighborhood graciously made available to us by our farmer neighbor with 85 undeveloped acres snuggled up beside us. We gather to drink wine and share snacks, stories, a warm fire when it is cool enough, and some unbelievably glorious sunsets. Some evenings we get a bonus with a moon peaking through the trees on the eastern horizon then arching its way across the black sky while a million stars twinkle overhead. For the adventuresome and the insomniacs there is even an occasional meteor shower to wow us in the early morning.
Our neighbor has been kind to allow us to make a trail that follows the border of his property, alternately festooned with picturesque barbed wire fences, or old fencerows of cedars marking the boundaries of days gone by.
I try to walk that trail 4-5times per week in the early morning when it is cool, but later works if the weather is bad or I am slow to get out of bed. Some mornings, Walker, an appropriately named black lab, will join Abby, my black lab, and me as we wind our way up and down the hills making our laps. Walker will usually abandon me for breakfast after the first lap; Abby sticks with me for the duration, though more and more reluctantly, as she has slowed with age. Today it feels especially sad to reference Abby, as I had to put her to sleep this morning after a losing the battle with a tumor. (That will be a story for another day when it can be told without tears.)
God said, “Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good, This very day the Lord has acted. May God’s name be praised,” The morning prayers say it, and it is true because I see it over and over again. The field is spectacular any time of day and whatever the season, but is especially tranquil in the early mornings. The rising of the sun, some days with color to match the sunsets and others where the mist or fog seem to be battling to see who gets to rule the day. It is not uncommon to see wildlife of all kinds. I have seen owls as big as me, (Yeah, I know I’m not very big, but that is a big owl.) coyotes, deer, wild turkey, a wide variety of birds, squirrels, a magnificent pair of hawks, chipmunks, and an occasional possum. We try to give the ticks and skunks a wide birth.
So what does all this have to do with mowing, you say? It has to do with the trail…it is constantly trying to disappear into the overgrowth. If I don’t mow every couple of weeks in the spring, summer and fall it will soon be too overgrown to walk easily and avoiding the ticks becomes a trickier proposition. I used to hate to mow; it was just a necessary evil to make space for the real event, the morning walk. I did it because I love the walking but would gladly avoid the time on the mower if it were possible. But one day a few months back it happened, I started to come to attention…the noise of the mower became white noise that drowned out distractions and I began to see the view that had been there every time I mowed but had failed to notice. I found that I can pray the morning office as loudly as I want and no one hears but God, alone. I can lift up to the One who created all that I see and feel, “Those who have been given to me, and to whom I have been given.” My neighbors, my dear wife, my children and grandchildren, my Thursday night guys, my clients, my friends, and any others the Spirit brings to mind as I ride. You see I don’t really mow, the mower mows, I’m just along for the ride and to notice. It’s free time.
The field is most definitely a sacred space and the mowing is becoming more and more a sacred act, because Robert is right, ”All things can become prayer, when we come to see them as such.”
