The One Line Sermon

The best antidote to fear is the heart at prayer.
(Fr. Jose Diaz, sermon at the bilingual service at Grace and Betania, June 24, 2012)

Open Space

A friend sent me the first 34 pages of what could become a novel. It takes place in the future, but not the distant future - 2037. Without giving away the story, the island nation about which he is writing has found that everyone has the need for a place to be quiet, to meditate on or to or about whatever. So one of the places they have built is a Peace Hall. Inside it is open space. Sometimes there are directed things, but mostly people just come and are still.

As I read this part of the story I think again of the church building in which I serve. I saw, once again, the pews removed, or at least most of them. I see again the beauty of that open space. In the Peace Hall in my friend's imaginary island nation, there are whole tree trunks where, in my church, are square, wood paneled pillars. I think of the space in my church, open in my imagination, and I feel stillness, peace, quiet.

I believe what the people of that imaginary island found to be true, that everyone has a need to feed their spirit in places like the Peace Hall, which is a place for all people of whatever religion or none. I want to open up the space. I want to open up the doors and leave them open to the world and the elements all day, all night, all year.

Sometimes I wish I wouldn't have these visions.

Free Before God

I find myself standing, suddenly, naked before God, for one blinding second. Just me. Not my job, or my thoughts, or my fears, or who I think I am. But me. And then it's gone, and I'm aware of, aware again of all the stuff in my head that I think makes me, me, but I remember that one naked second.


Today I remember, I have been here before, that momentary stopping and being, naked before God. For one second I do not have to do anything, or even be anything. In that second I am free.


Free, and tenacious: spiritual gifts. Where is this going?

Spiritual Gift

This past Sunday, having met after church with three churchwomen, and as we were leaving, one of them   thanked me for staying with them for six years. She noted gladly that I am tenacious.

Well, I had never thought of that. So I have been doing so ever since, living into tenacity as a spiritual gift. I'm finding it very life-giving.

Tenacity: The property or quality of being tenacious.

Tenacious: 1. Holding fast. 2. pertinacious, persistent, stubborn, or obstinate.
3. adhesive or sticky. 4. holding together; cohesive; not easily pulled asunder; tough.

Pertinacious: 1. holding tenaciously to a purpose, course of action, or opinion; resolute. 2. stubborn or obstinate. 3. extremely or objectionably persistent: "a pertinacious salesman from whom I could not escape". (I love this one. I think Jesus is the pertinacious one to which this definition applies!)

Spiritual gifts: Not necessarily high and lofty things. Sometimes just plain keeping on going.