What I Wanted to Say

There was something unsaid this morning in Sunday School--by me--that is. Not that I didn’t get multiple chances to speak, even sitting in the back of the room, low down on the sofa, I am fortunate to have a long arm and be experienced making eye contact with the teacher—today, Patricia.

In fact, today, I sat in the back of the room just so I wouldn’t feel so compelled to chime in, to let others speak, to listen for a change. But it’s just that listening to what others have to say makes me want to add my two cents in the first place. Anyway, for other fellow compulsive talkers in Sunday School—the back of the room will not help you.

Discernment. Of course that’s all we’ve been talking about lately. In fact, I find myself this Sunday afternoon doing a little discerning of my own—where do I find God? How can I live in a way that values a human life, every moment, every person I come into contact with. I mean, in a perfect world.

And even in an imperfect world, what if I could just stop and find God once, just one time in a 24-hour span? That wouldn’t be too bad. Lately, I guess at St. Dunstan’s I’ve been finding God in the faces and presence of fellow parishioners. I’ve been looking hard but really just have been sort of disconnected lately—hence no blog post by me for at least a month—and God has not been as obvious as She usually is. Breaking through the fall leaves early in the morning in a soft, buttery light.

As a parish, our individual lives are bound together somehow--we stumble and fall and help each other up again. My life in the church is certainly a testament to that. It really does matter when life comes at you hard with all kinds of unwanted surprises, it matters that you have a spiritual community around you to remind you and show you how to put one foot in front of the other.

At the Eucharist, I pay mental lip service to first asking for strength, because I feel that it would be better if I just always knew the right thing to do and was sort of living out God’s will in the world. The pardon part, the same. I can reason myself into asking for pardon half-heartedly as much as I can really be having a come to Jesus moment. (I know that’s not an Episcopalian phrase but it says so much I think I like it.)

But whatever the prayers, the words that are spoken, the Eucharist is always for me like the physical ingestion of God’s love and blessing. That’s what you get whether you deserve it or not, we all do. The key is knowing that that’s what you’re getting, I guess.

Oh, that one last remark I wanted to make in Sunday School? I can’t remember. I’m sure it will come to me.