audio – Writing to Pray

Theology within English Grammar

I was shocked at the age of 50, despite having taken a plethora of courses for my BA in English eons ago, to learn that our language does not have a future tense. According to the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, the word we assume and use to indicate a future tense, will, does not behave as it should, but rather acts like a mood marker and is thought to specifically signal the hypothetical.

You might argue, if I use a word to indicate the future, then that is what it does, however, our language seems to instinctually understand we simply cannot know the future. Any plan, intention or expectation for a future occurrence is never certain. For example, I might say, “I will take out the garbage… it’ll rain… you’ll have a great time when you visit.” These are indeed hypothetical: a million things could prevent them from coming to pass. In fact, all that can go wrong in the course of a day causes most of us significant anxiety and we put great effort into steering our ship so our desired future is more likely.

But we are not each a universe of one. Other people, with their attitudes, motivations, preoccupations, often derail, interrupt, and interfere with our clock-work precise plans. Conflicting agendas abound. Very frustrating …

… but then I remember we together comprise The Body of Christ, the Church. The Lord has counted the hairs on annoying people’s heads and knows their hearts and souls as well as He knows mine. I do not know the invitations He has issued to them. I have no clue as to the options, potentials, hypotheticals which might spring into my life as a result of their response, their acceptance or rejection of His Love and Gifts.

With the Lord at our side, witnessing the unfolding of hypotheticals can be rather like watching a draw bridge open when we did not realize that that piece of road could swing and shift, rotate and be moved.

Reflection Exercises:

- - With a three or 5 minute time-limit, jot down your hopes for your future.
  - Then return to the list, asking yourself, if it is a hypothetical, what other possibilties or options may surface. Write about each in turn.
  - Finally, reflect on how you feel after reframing your future as a hypothetical.

Fourth Sunday in Lent 2019

Three stand-alone explorations sprung forth from the parable of the prodigal son and on notions of home

Thought 1: The Prodigals

The Prodigal Son is referred to as such because, as the first definition of the word prodigal indicates, he has recklessly and wastefully squandered his share of the inheritance. He returns home, but we do not call him the Homecoming Son. He confesses to his father, “I have sinned against Heaven and against you,” but we do not call him the Repentant Son.

He remains to us as the static Prodigal Son. We do not know if the repentance-inspired transformation is permanent, or if it fades as his belly fills. This detail is not overly important.

But this parable contains a Prodigal Father, as well, which is noteworthy.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the second definition of the word means having or giving something on a lavish scale. Our Prodigal Father offers grand-scale forgiveness, a lavish banquet, an over-the-top welcome home, while the Prodigal Son personifies gluttony, greed, and selfishness.

So today, will I be the Prodigal Son or the Prodigal Father?

Reflection Questions for Journaling

1. 1. When I am prodigal, as in wastefully extravagant, what do I over-do? Because prodigal also means to have or give lavishly, I also ask, what is it I do and/or give lavishly?
  2. The prodigal son came home because he was hungry, but this parable is also the story of our spiritual home-coming. So, I might ask myself, what do I hunger for?

Thought 2: What Comes First

The Prodigal Son’s home-coming reminded me, early people had no homes. In modern-day Turkey, there is a pre-pottery Neolithic site, Gobekli-Tepe, 11,000 years old, at which there is archeological evidence of religious belief. The site was inhabited before the domestication of plants and animals, before people ever established homes. “It may be that because so many people were gathered at this site— creating stone rings, carving the standing stones, and so on— that greater supplies of food were needed” (Archaeology, National Geographic & Great Courses, 2016). This lead to the domestication of plants and animals, which lead to the establishment of fixed abodes.

While we do not know what beliefs they were seeking to express, we know their desire and need to express them was their number one priority, superseding other concerns (such as the available food supply).

Could it be that expression of religious belief is so innate, instinctual, primary, and fundamental to our existence that it must come before we address our other needs? How does this play out, here and now, for you and I?

Reflection Questions for Journaling

1. 1. Putting aside my actual religious beliefs, for a moment, how does the need to express them impact, guide or shape my life?
  2. What have been some of the results or consequences of my expressions of religious belief?

Thought 3: A Little Story of Sisterhood

I’d never been on the floor before; it was my first day of a new job. I stepped off the elevator and onto the memory care unit. A woman ran up to me, huge grin on her face, beaming, “How have you been! I’ve been waiting for you; it’s been an age!” Before I could say anything in reply, she told all those around us, “This is my sister! Oh, it’s wonderful to see you!”

There’s a saying, a stranger is a friend not yet met. Therefore, if I follow Christ, a stranger is simply a sister or brother I’ve not met yet. The Lord’s home is Heaven, which makes it our home too, so should I not greet everyone as if I were welcoming my brother or sister, friend or stranger, home and into Heaven? It’s something to strive for, certainly.

Reflection Questions for Journaling

- - - Do I greet others as if I am welcoming home a long-lost friend or relative?

In the Fullness of Time

Might an idea contain and carry power so profound and strong it can shove the ground upon which the state of being anchors itself forward or upward a few inches?

I don’t mean the general endorphin induced euphoric slip which occurs ephemerally, after a really clever thought dances through the cortex. No, life returns to what it was, as these sorts of feelings fade like morning fog in fall.

Don’t get me wrong, such experiences, while spanning only a second or two, are lovely.

I’m talking about a concept, perhaps it will become a concrete cornerstone, which shifts the internal landscape of the faculties 4 or 5 degrees north, or maybe east, so that all which is surveyed and perceived from then forth will never be again what it would have been or tended to be previously.

The realization regards zoning laws and property lines of the spiritual universe, for in it was constructed untried infrastructure, a contemporary byway and a new but narrow gate into an old abode, a mansion which had stood before the beginning of the creation of day and night. But it had laid empty.

In the fullness of time, a heartbeat thumps. The moment is no more dramatic for its cruel disregard of the divine dignity of human life than the flash of millennium before it. But a new dawn arrives! The trumpet’s clarion call announces the dismissal of His long lament. “I visit my Kingdom, but my people know me not. They seem so far from me; this not what I want. On top of the basement, on top of Sheol, has always existed the mighty and extensive palace where I dwell. From whence-forth, they will have admittance into Our castle and they may remain with Us for Eternity. We have missed the joyous clamor of the children playing in the garden, dancing through the rooms and hallways.”

How has such a truth escaped me?

The manor house has always been, I knew that, but I did not understand the path to its door had not already been cut. Indeed, the tree had to be chopped, and the Son split open upon it, for the entrance to be made visual and the traverse to the steps be possible.

I do not ken how such an old teaching from timeless tutors had slipped by me. I know it now, or maybe again, but will it creep away as the morning fog in fall, or will it remain behind and beckon me forward?