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United Church of Jaffrey
7/28/19
“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
On a hot day, during the first week of my vacation, I went to Champney Falls — a waterfall that is located on the northern slope of Mount Chocorua, in the White Mountains.
Approaching from the downhill side, the trail follows the river, so unless you are paying attention, or you are fortunate enough, as I was, to be with someone who knows the secret, it is easy to miss the first, and most dramatic encounter with the falls.
You have to leave the trail and clamber across the cascading brook, and enter a dramatic cathedral of rock that rises above you on either side, and it is here that you come upon the falls at its lowest extremity — a thread of water falling some fifty feet from the lip of a cliff above.
Barefoot, with nothing on but my swimsuit, I gingerly approached the spot where the falls splashed on the rocks. I was determined to get under the falls, but when I reached the spot, I was greeted by a fine spray of very cold the water.
At that moment, my body rebelled:
Don’t do it! It yelled.
But all of my spirit wanted to continue.
My spirit told me that it was not enough to see that waterfall.
My spirit wanted to experience the waterfall.
After a few seconds of hesitation, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and leaned into the falling water.
Since I accepted the call to become your minister, I have spent some time and energy pondering the nature of prayer.
I think about it a lot because, between you and me, I feel a little self-conscious about it.
When I travel in ministerial circles I have plenty of opportunities to hear my professional colleagues offer prayers, and I can tell you that there are some ministers out there who are really good at praying!
When I hear them, I console myself that it is probably a skill, like everything else, that just comes with practice, and I’m probably better at it now then I was 5 years ago.
But all of these insecurities only concern one kind of prayer – public prayer.
This kind of prayer –
our joys and concerns,
our prayers before and after church meetings,
prayers at civic functions and prayers at gravesides —
these prayers serve a public function.
They bring us together and acknowledge our sacred intention – our intention, that is, that we hold before God.
For the first two years, or thereabouts, of my ministry here, I was a little terrified of these prayers…
I didn’t want to mess up…
so I would write them out, and recite them from paper.
But then, after a while, I thought I would at least try doing it the way I saw other ministers do it.
I would center myself…
Take a deep breath…
And leap.
It’s scary.
Very scary.
And it involves trust…
A special and mysterious trust.
Trust in the Holy Spirit.
During the second week of my vacation, I went back up into the White Mountains with my friend Joel.
We did a quick overnight camping trip to Sawyer Pond.
As the crow flies, Sawyer is not too far from the waterfall that I described earlier – both are accessible from the Kancamagus Highway.
The places are very different though.
The falls were enclosed in a cathedral of rock, but when you get to Sawyer Pond, the world seems to open its arms to the sky.
The wonderful thing about Sawyer is that there is no road access to the pond.
The only way to get there is to hike in from the trailhead.
It is located in national park, so there are no private homes on the pond.
The only sign of human presence, is the lean-to that sits on the edge of the pond, and it is every hiker’s dream to be the first ones at the pond, so that you can snag the lean-to.
We were not so lucky.
But we did not spend time being sad about it.
Instead we swam.
There is nothing quite like swimming in a lovely New England pond.
I believe it is my favorite activity.
To take a dip in a pond is not simply a means of getting from here to there – it is an opportunity to alter your relationship with gravity – to transition, in a magical instant, from a lumbering lummox of a biped to a soaring water sprite.
Think about it.
Without the help of technology, the human range of motion is basically horizontal – we can walk forwards, backwards and side-to-side.
Birds and dolphins, on the other hand, have access in an extra dimension – they can do the back-and-forth and side-to-side thing, but they can also go up-and-down.
In the water, as I plunge to the silty depths of the pond, and swing back up toward the wavy light of the sun, I’m a new being – a creature with startling, hitherto unforeseen freedom.
Popping out of the depths, I fall into a lazy backstroke, my perception riding the joyous, splashy margin between water and sky.
Swimming is a place to meet the edge of things – land and water, heights and depths, life and death, daily life and dreams.
Out here I am free.
Keep your fancy iPhone.
Gimme a pond in summer, and I’m a happy man.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, one of Jesus’ more observant disciples notices that Christ has been praying, and asks him about it.
“Lord, teach us to pray…” the disciple asks.
Christ answers immediately. His answer is very specific. He does not explain how to pray, he actually dictates a prayer to them.
“When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
Sound familiar?
It should, because this, basically, is the prayer that we recite in church every Sunday.
It is, of course, the Lord’s Prayer.
Allow me to make one observation about it, this evening.
It is a public prayer.
It serves an important public function.
It does this by emphasizing relationship – our relationship with God, and our relationships with each other.
It begins by acknowledging what is really important – by making God’s name holy.
By keeping God’s name holy, we do our part to bring about the Kingdom – “thy kingdom come.”
Then the prayer acknowledges that we, as living things, have needs. We need bread. Not once, but everyday.
And then it talks about forgiveness.
Look at how forgiveness works.
We are forgiven, because we forgive.
This prayer acknowledges that we are collaborators with God – that by acting like God – by forgiving – we bring about the kingdom.
Religion, then, is not about the sky and about the heaven that we hope to go to when we die.
It is about how we treat each other right now.
Right here.
This is a very important public prayer.
It teaches us how to grow our faith through acts of love toward all.
There are different kinds of prayer.
Public prayer is one kind.
There is also private prayer.
In Mary Oliver’s poem, that Cynthia read for us, the poet writes,
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
As is my wont, I return now, to the beginning and bring you back to the moment that when, taking a deep breath, I leaned into that waterfall…
Something remarkable happened.
At first, with the touch of the water, I found myself in a curled up position, with my chest against my knees and my head inclined inward – almost like a fetal position – or, a position of humility…
A position that reminded me of prayer.
Then, slowly, I stood.
And standing, I reached out my hands to either side, and looked up into the water.
I did this without thinking about it, but this too, is a position of prayer – an opening outward of the spirit, an acceptance of the mysterious goodness that flows from the depths of the earth, from the heights of the atmosphere.
Reverence.
Prayer is the intention of reverence.
It has an important social function.
And it stirs at the core of our souls, ready, any moment to be awakened.
Thank you God, for your kindness.
Thank you for these kinds of prayer.
Amen.