First Sunday after Renewal Leave

August 15, 2010

“Out of Africa”

Reverend Michael D. Powell

 John 15:7-11  

                                        

 

            Africa is often referred to as the ”root,” or the “cradle of humanity,” because it’s where the earliest known remains of humans have been found.  I’ve never actually been in Africa, nor have Anni or Chalice, Shawn and Morgan.  Kate’s been to Africa.  In fact, she just got back a couple of weeks ago.  This whole pretending to be in Africa thing was Kate’s idea.  And, I have to tell you, it was a good idea.  It worked!  I feel as though I’ve revisited my roots, gone back to where it all began for me.

            I chose John 15:7-11 as my scripture because it expresses my spiritual ideal.  Jesus says:

“Abide in me, and let my words abide in you.

Even as God has loved me, so I love you.

If you abide in my love,

you will experience the indwelling and everlasting spirit of joy.”

 

            My thesis in seminary focused on the Wisdom Literature of Ancient Israel, specifically on Psalm 73.  The 25th and 26th verse of that psalm perfectly express the relationship I wanted to have with God: 

Whom have I in heaven but you?
   And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
   but God is the strength* of my heart and my portion forever.

            For most of a year I lived with those words. They were my Africa.  I was rooted and grounded in them. I spent long hours huddled over my study of God, working on that thesis - and I finally did submit it and graduate, but I was never satisfied with it.  I realize why now - I was trying to express the inexpressible.  But, it wasn’t wasted effort.  We had a dog named Jesse in those days, and having a big dog in NYC is quite a commitment. Fortunately, our apartment on Morningside Heights was less than a block from Riverside Park.  So, every day, early in the morning and last thing at night, at noon and at dinner, four times a day, Jesse and I rode four stories down the elevator, walked down the block and across the street to Riverside Park. We had a beautiful routine, walking around Grant’s Tomb with a fabulous view of the George Washington Bridge, and along the Hudson River. Day after day, for hours, I walked slowly, meditating on those words, repeating them in my mind.  It was prayer. “There is nothing on earth I desire other than you . . . God, you are the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  I wanted to abide in Christ, and all I desired was for Christ’s Word to abide in me.  It was a glorious year and I experienced the intimacy of the Holy Spirit in more ways than words could ever describe.

            I graduated from seminary in 1973.  I have loved the ministry but, to be very honest, I have often felt like I have been backsliding for the past thirty seven years.  Ministry is distracting.  It takes up a lot of time.  I love my job, but I was ready for a renewal leave.  I was ready to spend some long hours just walking and praying again.  I was hungering and thirsting for my spiritual roots, for my own private Africa of the soul. I was ready to very intentionally, in a disciplined way, abide in Christ and be conscious of Christ’s Word abiding in me. I was ready to affirm once again that there is nothing on earth I desire more than God, to affirm that God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Did I already say I was ready for a renewal leave!

            Dearly beloved - thank you for your love.  Thank you for holding Anni and me, and Chalice and Shawn and Morgan in your prayers during the past eight weeks.  It has been a blessed time.  I am renewed!

            There is a dark side to this story. As you know, Anni had her second arthroscopic surgery on the first Monday of our renewal leave.  It didn’t work!  The bad news is that these past eight weeks have been physically very painful for her, but even that was not all bad.  It’s not like we actually travelled to Africa or tried to do anything that was overly demanding on her knees. We stayed pretty close to home, and better days are coming.  She’s scheduled for the first of two knee replacements on September 3rd.

            And, besides my spiritual ideals, I had a few other things I wanted to attend to during this renewal leave.  I think my eagerness about drove Anni crazy but the day after her surgery I began repairing our deck.  Chalice and Shawn pitched in and we finished it in a week.  We also accomplished three or four other backyard jobs that I’d been looking forward to.  But I wasn’t neglecting my vow to make this a Sabbath time of renewal.  I also spent a lot of time reading, walking, and praying.  I reread Vietnamese Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Peace Is Every Step,” and spent hours a day breathing deeply, slowly and mindfully walking.  I was often up and out in those dark, still and mystical moments before dawn.  I saw the sunrise and reread a dozen of my most treasured books on contemplative prayer. 

            We did take trips to Magruder and Silver Falls with Chalice and Shawn and Morgan, and Anni and I went to Portland to see The Lion King (so, we did get to Africa, after all!).  We did a lot of things, and I accomplished a lot of projects, but the one constant for me was my walking meditation.

            I love our banner that Mary Jo Gilson made, using the words of Psalm 46:10:  “Be Still and Know That I Am God.” That’s the kind of stillness that is the goal of meditation and mindfully walking, but if you’ve ever attempted that kind of stillness you know just how difficult it can be.  The human mind is not naturally still. I like the way Jack Kornfield puts it: 

“When we examine the thought stream with mindfulness, we encounter the inner sound track.  As it plays, we can become the hero, the victim, the princess, or the leper.  There is a whole drama department in our head, and the casting director is indiscriminately handing out the roles of inner dictators and judges, adventurers and prodigal sons, inner entitlement and inner impoverishment.  [In meditation] we are forced to acknowledge them all.  As Anne Lamott writes, ‘My mind is like a bad neighborhood.  I try not to go there alone.’”

            But, very gradually, the mind does become still and we realize that we are never, ever alone. With devotion and practice, our minds become less like a bad neighborhood, and more like a sanctuary. Very gradually, with enough quietness, enough stillness, we come to experience sacred presence, even and especially in the most common, the most ordinary of circumstances.  Our eyes and our ears open to perceive the miracles that are all around us, in every rock and tree, every flower, bird and blade of grass, and we remember that we are being remembered, in every breath and in every step we take. We return to our roots and remember once again what we’ve always known, but sometimes forget: We are abiding in God.  God is our strength, and our portion forever.

             We spent a couple of days at a colleague’s house in Toledo, where I spent most of the time reading Mary Oliver, who is a contemplative, an early riser, a walker and a poet who perceives God everywhere, and most vividly in the common, so-called ordinary things.  Here’s an example: 

“Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.  It is what I was born for – to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over in joy, and acclamation.  Nor am I talking about the exceptional, the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant – but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, the daily presentations.  Oh, good scholar, I say to myself, how can you help but grow wise with such teachings as these – the untrimmable light of the world, the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?”

            She’s written hundreds of poems like that, and my heart and mind were so primed, so ready and so receptive to her words.  Her poems express the spiritual sensitivity, the awakeness and the feelings of love and joy and appreciation that this renewal leave has opened up in me.  My prayer as I began to contemplate returning to work was that I be able to bring a bit of this “sanctuary consciousness” back to the old neighborhood, that my inner drama department would continue to be under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

            My last activity before returning to work, and really the only thing I did by myself, was to spend a couple of nights at Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Lafayette.  That place is also part of my roots.  I’ve been going there since 1973, and there are several monks there whom I dearly love.   It’s very quiet, and very still at the abbey.  I sat in their zendo, allowing my mind to gradually and gently return to thoughts of Morningside and to the many people I love here. It was the perfect transition.  I felt spiritually renewed.  I felt the joy and the peace of abiding in Christ, and I felt strong enough and awake enough to perhaps even share some of that peace and joy with you.

            So, Monday was my first day back on the job: e-mails, phone calls and meetings, staff issues, fall programs, a stewardship campaign coming up. The list goes on.  I could immediately feel my mind picking up speed.  But that first night at Vacation Bible School Chris gathered the kids in a circle, read a scripture and then tossed out some pie plates with the words of the scripture on them, asking them to assemble them in the proper order.  The words were from Psalm 73: 

God is the strength* of my heart and my portion forever.

I knew I was home. And it’s good to be home.  I know I am not alone. Thanks be to God.  And may Christ be your shalom.  Amen.