Moving can be a pain in the butt. I have moved myself and other people enough times over the years that I am well familiar with just how tedious and overwhelming the moving process can be – all of the pre-sorting and organizing, deciding what to take and what to give away, what can be recycled and repurposed and what has to be thrown out, what can be put in the trash can, left on the curb, and what has to be taken to the city dump. What might I need to save that will be useful to me in the future? (This one I’m never good at – the moment I decide to throw something away is when I end up needing it), weeks of begging for boxes from my place of employment to do the packing, wrapping all of the dishes in paper so they don’t break, labeling all the boxes so you can find stuff again, enlisting the help of friends for heavy lifting and the things you absolutely can’t do yourself but also not wanting to impose on the friendship, finding a way to transport all your stuff to the new place, and when you are finally at your new place you have to do it all again, in reverse.
And then, Just when you feel like you are making progress and may even be ahead of schedule, it happens. A card, or photograph, or a letter slips on to the floor as you move a box. Something that has been buried for years suddenly triggers a flood of memories that leaves you sitting teary-eyed cross-legged on the floor. For two hours. Just remembering. Has that ever happened to anyone?
Someone once told me, “You don’t know how rich you are until you have to move your blessings.”
We often forget how rich we are simply because we often don’t take the time to unpack the blessings that we keep stored in a box on the shelf out of sight and out of mind. And one of the great tragedies of life is that often we don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. And the great paradox of it all is that it’s often the things that we rely on the most that we take most for granted.
Last year a water main broke on my street and the city had to tear up the road to fix it, leaving the residents in my area without water for 24 hrs. Just 24 hours, but let me tell you, that was one long 24 hours. No running water, no toilet.
Usually once or twice a year the electricity goes out and all of a sudden I can’t cook, can’t see, can’t do laundry, can’t listen to the radio, etc. and I become acutely aware of how hopelessly dependent I am on something I rarely give a second thought to. I also become aware of just how fragile a creature I really am in this world all by myself and how much I need other people and their help just to survive. Turns out I’m not as independent and self-sufficient as I like to think.
It doesn’t even take something that big to rattle my cage and get me upset. Any little disruption in my routine or habits will do it. I’m usually reminded of this every Christmas. The one day of the year where all the stores are closed – the one day – and wouldn’t you know it, that is the day I absolutely have to have something from the store that can’t wait until tomorrow. I can’t even survive a single day with the stores being closed. Guess I’m not as tough as a thought. Turn off my water, my electricity and close the store for a day and you’ll have me crying in a corner. Don’t even get me started on losing my internet connection.
The things that we are most dependent on are the things we often take the most for granted until there is a problem. When was the last time you thought about your breathing? Or swallowing? Hearing? Seeing? If you haven’t had problems with them you probably haven’t thought much about them lately.
When I worked my way through college at a bakery. I remember my boss would go down in the basement once a week to take inventory. Taking Inventory is making a list of what you have so you can determine what you need. Sometimes my prayer life is kind of like that. Mostly I focus on what I need and sometimes I’m grateful for what I have. But the times I have experienced what I consider real prayer have come unexpectedly when in to course of my taking inventory I have moved something that causes some insight, some glimpse of the Divine, some forgotten memento buried deep in my soul to slip out triggering a flood of emotions leaving me sitting cross-legged on the floor for two hours in stunned silence, awe and wonder.
Anne Lamott speaks about how there are really only three types of prayers that we say. Every prayer we say can fit into these categories–Help, Thanks, Wow. That’s it. Help, Thanks and Wow.
And we usually say them in that order too. I know help is always where I go first. My brain seems to be hardwired to always focus on lack, preoccupied with what I need. Sometimes I get around to being grateful for what I have and giving thanks, often times simply because I think I should – kind of like knowing you should read the card from Grandma first before you just take the money out. But on very rare occasion, I’ve been surprised by the grace of being able to simply stand in awe and wonder and amazement at this crazy thing called life and the mysterious energy that makes it all go, seemingly moving all that is toward the fullness of potential that we can’t even imagine. Those are the “wow” moments. Those are the moments of sitting teary-eyed cross-legged on the floor for two hours.
I wonder how much richer my own prayer life would be if I could somehow rewire my psyche and reverse the order of my prayer, If I could begin with Wow more often than I do. I know you can’t force a wow experience any more you can force a deer to come out of the woods by shouting its name or force someone to fall in love with you, but is there a way to quiet myself so that this experience will be more likely to make and appearance? It seems as though that is the natural order of the way real prayer should be. At those times when I start with Wow, the gratitude seems to flow from my lips as a simple natural progression, not a contrived response rooted in guilt, but an involuntary echo of the majesty of which I just caught a fleeting glimpse. And then when I have gotten around to asking for help, my prayer for help is grounded in a faith and confidence that can only come from first having the experience of awe and wonder.
Today’s scripture is a good example of beginning with Wow. The psalmist reminds himself, reminds his own soul, to start his prayer by taking an inventory and standing in awe and wonder of all the things God is for him and God has done for him. He starts, “Praise the Lord, O my Soul, and forget not all his benefits…” And he continues to with his inventory:
- Forgives sins and heals diseases
- Brings justice to the oppressed
- Does not hide his ways but makes them known to his people
- Does not harbor anger forever
- Does not treat us as our iniquities deserve
- Understands us because he made us
- Cares for us even though our days are temporary like the grass and flowers of the field
- Though our days be temporary, his love is everlasting
- Loves us like a parent compassionate towards their children
- As high is the heavens above the earth is his love for us
- And our own transgressions he has put as far from us as the East is from the West.
This was how the psalmist experienced the Wow of God thousands of years ago with the language and tools he had as this disposal to express it. What is it about God or the mystery of life that makes you say Wow today? How do you name it?
My invitation to us this day is that we follow the example of the psalmist and experiment with beginning our prayers with Wow. Quieting our own soul enough that the Wow of God makes and appearance, and that we have the grace to notice it. The rest of the prayer happens by itself.
ryanwriting 