Miranda Writes

This past Sunday night, the St. Andrew’s Youth Group and a few accompanying adults joined the youth group of St. Paul’s, Concord, for their monthly Taize service. It’s a short service, less than half an hour, based loosely on the worship style of the Taize community in France. We sing a number of Taize songs, which are generally short and melodically simple, with prayerful lyrics or words from Scripture. We sing each song repeatedly for several minutes, which allows it to become familiar enough for singers to begin to harmonize, and for the words to begin to become a prayer for each singer. The service also includes ten minutes of meditative silence. 

This is the second time we have gone, and our youth love it. Our singers love the music – and they all seem to respond to the silence. After our first visit it surprised me a little to hear that (knowing how little this group generally gravitates to silence!), but I suppose it shouldn’t have. I know the silence is refreshing for me, a prayerful break from the busyness of life. Why shouldn’t it feel the same to young people of 12 or 13 or 14, who lead quite busy and demanding lives as well? 

I am delighted that our young people are being fed spiritually by this service, and grateful that St. Paul’s welcomes us to share so willingly. Come with us sometime, and try it out yourself!

Looking for information on Eucharistic Prayer D, I ran across this lovely and informative post by Cathy Cowling, the Director of Christian Formation at an Episcopal church in Philadelphia, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. She explains a little of the background and meaning of the Great Thanksgiving, and then briefly discusses the main themes and seasonal appropriateness of Eucharistic Prayers I, A, B, C, and D in our Book of Common Prayer. Check it out – it’s not long, and you’ll learn a lot! Click here to go to Ms. Cowling’s post. 

I’ve resolved to try to write more for this blog, as well as posting pieces I write for other settings. I may even try to dash off a quick thought every week – but we’ll see how that idea holds up to the vagaries of my schedule! 

This week I thought I’d share another “cutting room floor” thought – a train of thought that didn’t fit my sermon on Sunday, but that seems worth sharing. (Actually, I squeezed this in to the 8am version of my sermon, in passing!) I wanted to think a bit more about the word “abide.” It’s a key word in both the 1 John and Gospel of John texts from this past Sunday (read them here). Abide is a lovely, old-fashioned word that we may need a little help getting into, because we don’t use it regulary. Other translations or interpretations: dwell, live inside, live deeply into, make your home within, rest in, stay rooted in, …. 

Years ago I heard a sermon in which the preacher pointed out how counter-cultural it is to talk about abiding. Our culture is all about mobility. We assume our young people will grow up and move away; we tolerate living thousands of miles from our nearest and dearest, and regard it as a matter of course, entirely normal. We hop onto jetliners and travel state to state on a regular basis. When we have time off, we plan ambitious trips; a vacation where you stay at home, rest, and play seems dull and second-rate. 

The dominance of mobility as a way of life has deeply imbued how we talk about spirituality, too: the spiritual journey or spiritual path, the walk of faith. We’re always going somewhere, even in the relationships that root us most profoundly: with our God and our community of faith. 

Journey is a powerful metaphor. I’m not proposing we throw it out. I know my faith-life is a story of movement and change over time, and journey is one way to put that into words. But what if we tried also to bring in that sense of abiding? What if, in dynamic tension with all our journeying and zipping around, we upheld the value of staying put? growing roots? making a home? Would that different language, those different images change how we think? how we live? …