A number of years ago, my brother lay dying in the hospital. He spent days in the intensive care unit while members of my family, including my mother, sat for many long hours on chairs in the hallway outside his room. Among visitors who came to share the vigil was a member of our church.
“How are you doing?” the friend asked.
My mother was too exhausted to tell anything but the truth. “I’m tired,” she said. “I’m very, very tired. I’m too tired to even pray any more.”
“But don’t you see,” her friend replied, “your very presence here is a prayer.”
There are times when all words fail us, all forms seem hollow, and no one out there or inside seems to be listening. At those times, our presence, just our presence, is prayer. Our bodies, our actions, become our prayer, our connection to God, whatever God may be.
by Jane Ellen Mauldin
...This is the holiest of holy work...
...There is no greater prayer than our loving action of being there for one another...This is the creation of the Kin-dom of Love right here right now
...It seemedd a little early for such words to be coming from my mouth, it felt like they were coming from another place...
As we sat together in silence I recalled how many times in my day I stumble, I also recalled how many times I had fallen and how often others had held and encouraged me rise up once again. I have been blessed by so much love in my life. I have known so many people who have had faith in me, even when I had none myself. How do I know this, well they have shown me so in their loving works, through their loving example, through their humble human being.
Following the reading we sat together in silence, as we always do. As I sat there, Paul’s letter to the Corinthian’s came mind, particularly those words on Love and the three keys that he says remain “Faith, Hope and Love”. I thought to myself, are these three the key to me? I sat in the silence and somewhere in the soul of me came an answer. Yes it was three things but three slightly different ones to Paul. It came to me that the three keys are “Being real, living in love and doing your job.”
What do you think about these three? Maybe you could consider three of your own. There you go there’s some homework for this week, for those who like it.
I’m going to attempt to explain what I mean by these three: “Being real, living in love and doing your job.”
I will begin by exploring what I mean by “being real”.
Sincerity is no easy thing. It is not easy being sincere about who we are, to show the world as we are, to live as we truly are “warts and all and beauty spots too.”
There is a phrase I often here in spiritual communities that irritates me. It is used as an attempt to get people started but to me I find it not only unhelpful but in the long term quite damaging. The phrase goes something like “You’ve got to fake it to make it.” I have found the opposite to be true. In my experience if you attempt to fake it you will never make it. I suspect that the most unspiritual thing a person can be is insincere.
If you attempt to fake it you won't truly make it...just because it rhymes it doesn't make it real...
The key is authenticity, being real, being honest, living by faithful uncertainty...giving it an honest go, no matter how many times you falter, stumble and even fall.
It seems to me that to live with authenticity is to be truly open in all four aspects of our humanity, the four being, mind, body, heart and spirit. I suspect it’s about truly being who you are.
Forrest Church suggested that to “be who you are” is perhaps the hardest task of all. To be who you are is to not "fake your existence." He claimed "each of us is unique, with unique flaws and gifts. The world doesn’t owe us a living; we owe the world a living, our very own." The key is to answer your own calling, going on to say "To envy another’s skills, looks, or gifts rather than embracing your own nature and call is to fail in two respects. In trying unsuccessfully to be who we aren’t, we fail to become who we are."
This is what it means to be real. By being real we can begin to live in love and in living in love we can begin to give our whole selves to life and begin to do our jobs.
Now what could it mean to live in love?
One of my favourite hymns is “Let Love Continue Long” it is inspired by the following quotations by one of the father’s of Universalism Hosea Ballou, no relation to that bear from “The Jungle Book” …Sing “look for the bear necessities”…I am told that I share some of his qualities…I digress
The quotation from Hosea Ballou is as follows:
“Let brotherly love continue.” If we agree in brotherly love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury; but if we do not no other agreement can do us any good. Let us keep a strict guard against the enemy “that sows discord among brethren.” Let us endeavor to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.” May charity, that heaven born companion of the human heart, never forsake us; and may the promise of the Saviour be fulfilled concerning us, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
When the Book of James says, “Faith without works is dead”, living in love, impartially is the actual works. It’s about helping to create that kin-dom of love right here right now, which in my view is doing my job.
Living in love is about living faithfully and hopefully with one another and with ourselves. It’s about stumbling along through life accepting that you will trip on many occasions and sometimes fall. It’s about encouraging one another to keep on and from time to time to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again and when we can’t to ask for help and let someone pick us up and encourage us to walk on once again.
This is doing our job, our loving work, to encourage one another whenever we stumble and fall.
You cannot do your job unless you are being real, living authentically and doing so in love, without partiality.
To do “your job”, to live faithfully through our works, is as much about how we do what we do as what we actually do. It begins close in, close at handand it begins with the little things too.
It is your love that will show through your works and this is what it means to be real. This is authentic love, the real work of life.
I was sat in my vestry one day waiting for a friend to come round to talk through some things. Suddenly I heard a loud thud at the door; I looked up to see nothing there. So I got up opened the door and still I could see nothing. I looked all around, but still I could see nothing. I was about to go inside, assuming that maybe somebody had thrown something at the window, when I saw a little bird laid at my feet. I was shocked and didn’t know what to do. I thought that is was dead at first, as it was lifeless, but saw that it was still breathing and was just laying there stunned. It had obviously flown into the glass, the “silly bugger” (as my granddad would say). I was going to pick it up but thought better of this and just left it there, as I didn’t want to distress it any further. I watched over it, kind of standing guard I suppose. I felt I had to just in case my friend arrived and didn’t see it lying there. After a few minutes it got to it’s feet, but did not move, just kept on breathing deeply. Then suddenly it just flew to a nearby bush and I never saw it again. Then my friend arrived and we shared tea and a wonderful conversation.
Later that day another friend of mine told me that they had been struggling with something that morning, but that all was well, it would be ok. This is of course true and I reminded her that today we both have the courage and strength to rise again no matter how many times we stumble and fall. Of course this is not always instant. Sometimes we do have to take whatever ever comes at us. At times it can even stun us and knock us unconscious. Sometimes we have to lie there for a while and simply get our breath back; then slowly get to our feet and fly off into the blue yonder to experience life once again.
That morning was definitely a tale of the unexpected but it has taught me a lot or do I mean it reminded, me once again, of one or two or maybe three vital truths.
I have discovered that if I continue to be real, live in love and do my job that every morning I find that love does indeed continue long and it does indeed show me the way for such love is always and eternal, and as a result no hurt can ever ever have a say.
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