Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 14, 2023
Mother’s Day in the USA
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Water every flower
Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do so with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear. It is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.
Maya Angelou was a woman, a mom, a writer, a speaker at commencements. She spent time thinking and then sharing what she discovered. This was an energy she espoused to others, and I think especially to moms. Moms sometimes have trouble finding even a little time to be alone:
We need to remember and to teach our children that solitude can be a much-to-be-desired condition. Not only is it acceptable to be alone, at times it is positively to be wished for. It is in the interludes between being in company that we talk to ourselves. In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.
Think a minute about this: I get alone, and I talk to myself. I listen to myself talk, and often challenge what I hear. I ask myself questions. I describe what I hear to myself. At last, often, my monologue becomes a dialogue.
In the quietude I may even hear the voice of God.
Most of what Jesus spoke in his last speech to his disciples after their Passover Meal, their “last supper,” was how to spend their time in consolation and communion with God after he was gone.
The Father will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth. He remains with you and will be in you. You will see me because I live and you will live. You will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.
Jesus is describing how the “contemplative gospel” works within each of us, when we come to him alone, one on one. Then in Matthew 25 Jesus tells his listeners to spend time with others, especially the starving, thirsty, lonely, sick, naked and imprisoned among us. This is Jesus’ “social gospel.”And Maya Angelou wants us to teach our kids all of it, active and contemplative, in the way we live our lives with the “least of these” and with our own silent selves.
Some of us, including Henri Nouwen the priest and sometimes-monk, pray every day for an hour. Or more. It’s a way of life. As Maya described, he thinks, he asks himself questions, he learns from God, and sometimes he comes to a place where he can write a little of what he hears:
Prayer is not a way of being busy with God instead of with people. In fact, it unmasks the illusion of busyness, usefulness, and indispensability. It is a way of being empty and useless in the presence of God and so of proclaiming our basic belief that all is grace and nothing is simply the result of hard work. Indeed, wasting time for God is an act of ministry, because it reminds us and our people that God is free to touch anyone regardless of our well-meant efforts. Prayer as an articulate way of being useless in the face of God brings a smile to all we do and creates humor in the midst of our occupations and preoccupations.
Thinking about my own prayer, I realize how easily I make it into a little seminar with God, during which I want to be useful by reading beautiful prayers, thinking profound thoughts, and saying impressive words. I am obviously still worried about the grade! It indeed is a hard discipline to be useless in God’s presence and to let him speak in the silence of my heart. But whenever I become a little useless I know that God is calling me to a new life beyond the boundaries of my usefulness. –You Are the Beloved
Many church-going mothers will carry their carnations today, from the church door to the pew to the Sunday School class and then home in a hot car. The carnations won’t last long, but the mothers themselves are made to last forever, sharing their own commitment to action and contemplation with their kids, their families and their friends.
(Acts 8, Psalm 66, 1 Peter 3, John 14)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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