Leslie Brandt, an
American Lutheran pastor, in the 1970’s translated the first part of Psalm 42
this way:
As a desert wanderer longs for springs
of cool water,
so my thirsty soul reaches
out for You, O God.
…
I remember so well the faith of my childhood.
How real God was to me in those days
when I prayed and sang
praises
and listened to His Word
in the fellowship of family and
friends!
Then why am I so depressed now?
… my heart is empty,
and waves of doubt flood over
my soul.
I understand the feeling. But I don’t think I
want to go back to the faith of my childhood.
Back then I feared God and being Christian seemed to be about obeying
hard and rigid rules. I don’t think that
faith served me well.
But the faith of
my adolescence and early adulthood! That’s
a different matter. I fondly remember discovering
Jesus as a rescuer from the fear of hell, as a saviour-friend, a kind of big
brother-hero from another realm. I felt passion
about him and about following him. I
prayed to him and counted on him as the answer to everything.
It felt good to
be part of a mission to tell others about him.
This was the time of the Jesus Freaks, and even though we were just good
church kids one year we too did our own door-to-door evangelism on the streets around
the church. In grade twelve I tried hard
to convince a girl friend from school of the rightness of Christianity, and to
convert her to be a Christian. In
first-year university I wrote at least one history and one English lit paper
about Jesus as the answer to the problems and questions we were exploring. (Still don't understand how I got an A for either of those efforts.)
During these
years I also had a taste of the Holy Spirit – a brush with glossolalia at a
charismatic Bible study group, that didn’t make me want to become Pentecostal
but certainly helped me feel the joy and vibrancy that can be part of faith and
openness to God.
I know I can’t go
back – and don’t want to go back, to the simplicity and naivete of my faith at
that time . But it would be nice to feel
the passion, the openness to God, the fullness and nearness of God, and that
vibrancy of commitment on a consistent basis.
I kind of envy
the simple peasant of the famous story about a farmer who stops in at the
parish church early every morning on his way to his fields, just sits there for
maybe a quarter or a half an hour, and then leaves. Not kneeling.
Not reading the prayer book. Not
saying prayers at all. Not going into
the confessional. Not approaching the
priest about anything.
Which makes the priest,
who sees this day after day, curious and a little suspicious. So one day after the man has spent his half
hour or so just sitting there and is on his way out, the priest stops him and asks
the man why he comes. Is there anything
he could do for him? Priests like to be helpful. To which the poor
farmer says, looking up for a moment at the crucifix, “No. No. I just
come to look at him, while he looks at me.
Is that all right?”
I wonder if this
is what sometimes makes the difference between a faith of the heart and a faith
of the head. Images. A particular image for us to look at, that
helps draw us in, that connects us with God, and kindles our passion. An image – peculiar to each of us, and maybe a
special place.
At one point in
my life, the statue of Mary in the front garden of Mt. Carmel Spiritual Centre
was a place of regular and deep devotion and prayer any time I was there on retreat. At other times, it was the life-size
sculpture of Christ on the cross, and the larger-than-life statue of Joseph the
carpenter on the grounds of the Ignatian Centre in Guelph that really spoke to
me. I even took pictures of them so I
could have them with me when I needed them. The statue of Joseph was my screen-saver for a while.
The chapel of Mt
Carmel in Niagara Falls has been a special place, as has been the little
Hermitage cottage at the Crieff Hills retreat centre where I’ve enjoyed a few week-long
personal retreats. This sanctuary here is
also one the holy places in my life.
And there are
people, too, that help open me to God like long ago. Any time I visit with my best friend in
London, who I grew up with in Winnipeg, and when I share memories or tell
stories of one minister from those days, named Richard, my soul is renewed.
And there are
groups and programs as well – a spiritual growth group I meet with every few months
at Five Oaks, and a spiritual recovery group I’m part of every Wednesday night
for the past few years.
All of these
things – images, places, people and programs, help me recover the passion,
vibrancy and reality of faith and faithfulness that I never want to lose track
of.
Which makes me
wonder, what helps you? What images do
you have or know that speak in deep ways to your soul? What places do you count on to be holy places
in your life? What people help you over
and over again to feel connected with God and the deeper meaning of your
life? What programs, what groups, what
activities or rituals feed you, and help keep you alive and strong and walking
with God?
If you were to
give thanks to God right now for what feeds your faith and renews your soul on
a consistent basis, what would you give thanks for?
And … one last
thought.
These past few
weeks Japhia was in the hospital and I was there with her, as much as I could
be. We were especially aware of our
weakness and need, our powerlessness and vulnerability.
And some time
into our second week I was struck by how often and automatically on my way in
and out of the building, I would stop and line up at the Tim Horton’s counter
or the convenience store beside it in the main lobby. To pick up a coffee, and maybe a glazed cinnamon
roll or sour-cream plain, or a chocolate bar or bag of Bugles. Even though I was neither hungry nor
thirsty.
I think it was
something other than physical hunger that I was trying to feed, and I noticed how
many other people did the same. The Tim’s
was always busy. Everyone in the lobby –
either sitting or just passing through, had a cup in their hand. And the volunteer in the convenience store said,
yes, they do a really good business in snacks.
Which makes me wonder
if having something in our hand to eat or drink, and if in our culture being able
to buy something and be a consumer makes us feel safe, makes us feel in control, re-assures us
that we need not fear. I was in a shopping mall a number of years that actually had a sign at its entrance recommending "retail therapy" for whatever ails you. And they were being serious.
It’s funny, the hospital
chapel is just a few feet away from the Tim’s and the convenience store. But it wasn’t until the middle of our second
week that I went in there – that I, a minister (!!) even thought of it as a place to go – just to sit,
to rest, and to be reminded we are not alone, but held always in the hands of a
loving God.
I wonder: were the
coffee, the sour-cream glazed, and the bag of chips also signs and sacraments
of God’s love? Blessings and gifts of a
caring God?
Or were they just
temporary salves – addictive crutches of momentary comfort in place of real
re-assurance of God’s presence with us, and eternal love for us?
As Leslie Brandt
translates the end of Psalm 42:
I must renew my faith in God;
I must again shout God’s
praises
even when I don’t feel God’s presence.
For truly He is God,
and God is my Help and my
Hope.
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