Alone Together

This weekend, the majority of my church family (for lack of a better term; the portion of the church with whom I spend most Sundays) camped in the back yard of our building, from Friday night until Sunday afternoon. The grounds were crawling (both literally and figuratively) with children by the dozens. The elder members sat on lawn chairs and chatted with the younger members. We shared meals that were cooked on shared camp fires. We slept elbow-to-elbow in tents (well, the tents were elbow-to-elbow anyway). We canoed and swam and rode around in the country in a wagon full of straw. A man baptized his son and four grandchildren in the lake. Children played tee-ball with their daddies. Teenagers played soccer and capture-the-flag until the wee hours. Older folk played cards. Everyone played corn hole. After dark, old episodes of The Lone Ranger were projected on the side of the building. People prayed together and sang together and laughed together and helped each other and hugged each other.

I've been thinking so much lately about prayer and the church and the kingdom of God.

In the last week, I've had three conversations with different people about the attractiveness of communal living among Christians, caring for each other and cultivating the land. We want to return to the Garden, to be naked together and unashamed. So many people are so isolated, and they long to be together. But longing is the end. No one comes together, except for the fleeting and rare times that create the longing. We forget each other and we forget our forebears; we're just alone, in space and in time. But isn't the kingdom of God supposed to be at hand? I think we're called to a better way.

It occurs to me that one way to enter communion with the church of ages past is through prayer. To recite the words of psalmists and sages that have been recited by Christians over centuries is to join a chorus of crying out to God. When I pray, I usually don't speak; I simply open my heart and mind to God and invite him to read what is there. How do I speak to the Divine One who already knows? My words are inadequate and rehearsed. And what is within me that has not at some time been within someone else? Yet perhaps the someone-elses were far more eloquent that I and have left to me the words and the invitation to enter the song that God eternally hears. Maybe praying the prayers of the ancients can begin to relieve the present seclusion.

Lord, make me an instrument of your shalom;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.