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#RevThread # 148
A Very Present Help

1/ “God,” according to the opening of Psalm 146, “is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.”
2/ I'm thinking of the mother dying in the hospital alone because her husband and child cannot be allowed to visit her. I’m thinking of the young man who pays his rent from the tips he was receiving as a waiter at a restaurant now closed;
3/...of the elderly woman whose scheduled knee replacement is postponed indefinitely, though the pain is now too great for her to walk; of the dad whose micro-brewery has to close and he can’t see how to feed his family and keep the business going with no income.
4/ All these are known to me, but I can’t visit them personally except by Facetime or Zoom. I’m glad to do that. But I long to be sharing holy communion with them and anointing them with holy oil and just sitting at their bedside and maybe reading the psalms with them.
5/ And I’m thinking of the people whose lungs are hurting so painfully, and of the brave, noble people risking their lives to give them what care they can, even though our leaders are too hapless to get them the masks and gowns and gloves they need...
6/.. What are they thinking when they hear that this pandemic and its attendant isolations may go on for 18 months?
7/ I don’t have great practical advice about how to manage the hardships. I’m grateful that others do --like my governor, Andrew Cuomo. But I’d like to share three disciplines that have helped me as I attend to the news quite closely.
8/ Centering Prayer. This is both easy and weirdly empowering. Pick a word that you like. Just one. For me, I usually choose “Welcome” but all that matters is that you like the one you choose...
9/.. Sit comfortably, attend to your breathing and let the tension seep out of your shoulders. Now imagine that the doorbell has rung and you open the door, and you find that the Lord is right there on your doorstep...
10/.. Invite the Lord in, listen for whatever the Lord says or watch what the Lord does. (Of course, you are imagining all this; but then, the imagination is a big gateway to insight.)
11/ Your mind will wander. Our minds are made for wandering, so don’t scold yourself. Just say the word you’ve chosen again and go back to where you were before the wander or start fresh. (No one is grading you.) That’s why it’s called centering prayer.
12/ When I take all the folks I’m thinking about into my prayers, my mind wanders because I get so angry with the leaders who are so inept and so I wander into cursing and blaming. And then I remember: “Welcome, please come in.” And the Lord does.
13/ There's no right amount of time or best word or best image of God. This way of praying helps me understand why our ancestors used the word “collect” for prayer. Centering prayer helps me collect myself.
14/ The second thing that helps me handle being physically distanced and confined is to take some piece of writing that I love and memorize it. TV is a jangling experience. A couple of months ago I counted the number of ads on 1 hour of cable tv: 54.
15/ For me, getting the inner strength to contemplate what is happening and decide what to do about it, requires something that lifts me out of the sh*t show that is the news.
16/ So, every few weeks I’ve been taking a great short piece of writing -- an Emily Dickinson poem or a short Psalm or a song lyric -- and repeating it until I know it by heart. This month I’m going over and over chapter 4 of John’s Gospel.
17/ Whatever piece I choose, I need it to be rich enough and sly enough so that the more I go over it, the more I see and hear in it. It becomes in my mind a patch of territory that the Orange One and his millions of followers cannot occupy.
18/ And the third thing – maybe the most powerful thing – is to make music. I’ve been a hopelessly bad piano player, so I decided to work on that. Working away until something beautiful happens is deeply thrilling, even if it’s just a few measures.
19/ Listening to music is great – we watch “The Voice together,” which is lots of fun. But making music, for me, creates a sanctuary from the horrid cacophony of our cultural moment.
20/ I picked these three because I think it’s important to be away from the TV for some time every day. There are great ways to connect using Zoom and Facetime...
21/..Yesterday my wife and I attended a funeral of a marvelous soul, held on Zoom. I think about 150 of us were virtually there. It was wonderfully moving. On Sundays we go to church in our bathrobes, watching and listening to our pastor on the computer.
22/ Given that we have to deal with both this disease and Trumpism, some self-care, some inner strengthening, seems called for.
23/ I close for today with thanks for my best help. The deepest soul I know is my wife. (Of 53 years! My daughter has wisely observed that I am the luckiest SOB on the planet.)...
24/...One day when I was ranting away and calling the Trumpsters stupid, she asked me to stop. She said she couldn’t stand it: "I’m trying to get to a place where my heart breaks for these people.” I knew that was from the Lord. I want to get there too.
25/ Hope this helps and that others will share what they find helpful. With love, Jeff
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