The Lark in my Heartbeat

This week I did two rather unrelated self-care activities. I went to a retreat about Benedictine spirituality and a Josh Ritter concert. On the retreat we talked about the importance of taking Sabbath time. One of the presenters shared one of her practices for introducing moments of Sabbath into her day. She has a CD of chants she plays in her office. When her favorite song comes on she stops what she is doing to devote her attention to listening to the song. For two minutes she takes time to breathe and re-center herself on God.

It seemed like a simple practice so I decided to give it a try. Only problem is I don’t have any chant music. Nor did I think I would like listening to a CD of chanting all the time. But I can listen to quite a bit of Josh Ritter. So I tried it using “Lark” off of Josh Ritter’s new CD So Runs the World Away. The chorus of the song goes like this:

I am assured, yes I am assured yes
I am assured that peace will come to me
A peace that can yes surpass the speed yes
Of my understanding and my need

The song helps me remember that in the midst of all the crazy I can find peace. The three minutes and five seconds of the song takes no time out of my day yet leaves me feeling refreshed, focused, and assured of God’s desire for peace in my life. Josh Ritter spirituality, somehow I think St Benedict would approve.

Theology Duck

A few weeks ago I found myself having to write a sermon on a Friday. Fridays are normally my day off so I really try not to do that, but on this particular week there was no getting around it. The other problem was this Friday was an absolutely beautiful day. Being stuck inside was the last place I wanted to be. What to do? Luckily, I live in beautiful upstate New York. I took my laptop and went to Skaneateles, a little village on the northernmost tip of Skaneateles Lake, just a half an hour from Syracuse. I got a cup of coffee and found a little park right at the tip of the lake. Here is a view from the bench where I wrote my sermon.


This duck helped.
Great text, beautiful day, friendly duck, decent sermon. The life of an intern is pretty good.

Prayer

“Listen Lord, Listen Lord, not to our words but to our prayers. You alone, you alone, understand and care.”

The lyrics above are from a song from the Taizé community in France. I led a Taizé-style worship for a while and know the song well, but the meaning of it never hit me until last week.

I’ve never been much of a pray-er. I’ve tried various types and styles and methods, but nothing has ever really stuck for me. I struggle with that. After all, I’m in seminary, I’m studying to be a pastor, shouldn’t I be good at praying.

But we were singing this song in worship last week, and I was feeling totally overwhelmed by the experience of being in a new place, juggling new responsibilities, and trying to figure out who I am in this new role that is “vicar,” when suddenly it hit me. Maybe my problem is I have been defining prayer too narrowly. Prayer doesn’t have to be carefully composed soliloquies. (As one of my favorite bloggers points out: “I leave that to the real professionals like Thomas Cramner and the Blessed Mother.”) God doesn’t need my words; God hears my prayers. Even the ones I don’t know or cannot speak; the ones “too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).

And not only does God hear, but God cares. The God who is creator of the universe and Lord of all, cares about the worries and concerns of one small, lonely intern in upstate New York. This is, as Dr. Satterlee would say, some good news.

Home

Saturday was the one-month anniversary of arriving in Syracuse. On Friday I will have been on internship a month. Nestled between those anniversaries lies another one. One month ago tomorrow marks the day I decided to drive six hours in the middle of the night to spend the day with people I love. Rationally, this was probably a terrible decision. One could argue it was not responsible of me to start internship on as little sleep as I did. But for my soul, it was perfect. I stayed on my old roommate’s couch, snuggled a friend’s new kitten, met my pastor for coffee, and generally immersed myself in the wonderful feeling of being home.

What is home? In the past ten years I have lived in eleven houses in five states, as well as several periods of extended couch surfing. In this transient stage of my life, home has become not a building, but a place where there are people who know me and love me. Thus my parents’ house in California is home, but so is Washington, DC, where I built a community for myself after college. LSTC is home. Syracuse is not home yet, but I can see how it could be. And in this strange year where most of my classmates are in diaspora across the country, sometimes it seems like Skype is home.

So here's to that ever-expanding place called home. Where people love you and the space feels familiar and safe. Even if sometimes those places are virtual.