ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Every Step a Prayer. Thomas R. Hawkins
Читать онлайн.Название Every Step a Prayer
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780835815222
Автор произведения Thomas R. Hawkins
Жанр Религия: прочее
Издательство Ingram
Therefore, all physical gestures are charged with spiritual possibilities, and all spiritual practices can employ physical gestures legitimately. By acknowledging concrete, down-to-earth activities—eating, drinking, making decisions, generous sharing, hospitality, and walking—as the means through which God comes to us and by which we participate in God’s work in the world, Christian practices remind us of the sensible, everyday qualities of Christian life. Christian faith involves more than simply believing certain things about God. It is also a matter of practicing our faith. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. . . . Those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing” (James 1:22, 25).
Practices can establish a deep, embodied connection between us and God, whose grace permeates all things. They join us with each other, with Jesus, and with the communion of saints throughout time and space in an embodied way of life that overflows with God’s love for us and all creation. Practices awaken in us the same love and devotion that Jesus’ first disciples must have felt in his presence.
Christian practices are thought-full. They invite us to a reflective, thoughtful way of life. They guide us toward increased mindfulness of how we live a life that becomes the gospel. Christian practices enable us to experience everyday gestures and actions as channels of grace through which we glimpse the depths of God’s love and care.
These practices are not burdensome tasks or rules required to become “good Christians.” Instead, they are gifts from God that nurture openness and receptivity to divine love that streams continuously through the people, events, and places of our world. Walking represents one such Christian practice.
Walking is not only a way to move ourselves from one place to another but also a Christian practice imbued with the same intent as every other Christian practice: to guide us into a way of being human that bears witness to God’s work of healing a broken, wounded creation.
When I walk, my life slows down. Rather than speed past the world around me, sealed in my car with the radio playing, I move slowly. Moving at the speed of my feet, I hear the sounds of birds, insects, and the wind blowing through the trees. The rhythm of my footfalls invites me into an awareness of myself and the world around me. This awareness leads me beyond creation to the Creator. When a friend and I walk across the campus where I teach, our conversation takes on a different quality than when we sit in an office or around a lunchroom table. Walking, like all Christian practices, makes me more open and receptive, more mindful and aware.
Walking is woven into many parts of Christian worship, hinting at how it functions as a Christian practice. In the church I serve, acolytes walk down the aisle to light candles as worship begins. They return at the close of the service to walk the light of Christ out into the world. The choir and pastors walk down the center aisle in a procession as the congregation sings the opening hymn. People leave their pews and walk around the sanctuary to share the peace of Christ. Worship leaders walk into the midst of the congregation to read the Gospel lesson. Ushers walk up and down the aisles to gather worshipers’ tithes. They walk the offering plates forward as we sing the Doxology.
When my church celebrates the Eucharist, worshipers walk forward to receive the bread and cup. Patrick, a member of the congregation, now uses a cane as a result of a stroke. He moves very slowly as he comes forward to receive Communion. Patrick could sit in the pew and let the servers bring the bread and cup to him, but coming down the aisle expresses his gratitude to God for walking beside him during his hospitalization and recovery. “Every step I take is a prayer. It’s how I praise God for my recovery,” he says. Everybody waits patiently behind Patrick as he walks forward because they all know what it means to him.
On the third Sunday of each month the church takes up a special offering for hunger relief at the beginning of worship. People walk forward to drop pennies, dimes, and quarters into a large metal bowl, making it ring with the sound of offerings. Coming forward with coins enacts in a concrete, visible way the congregation’s commitment to feeding the physically and spiritually hungry. Church members can feel the energy in the room as people come down the aisles. Walking reminds us that we are a pilgrim people on a journey toward God’s future, seeking to be signs of healing in a broken world. Passing the offering plates in the pews would not have the same impact. It might be quieter, less confusing, and more efficient, but symbolism and spiritual power would be lost.
During Lent and Easter, my congregants take to their feet more frequently in worship. On Ash Wednesday, they walk forward to have the sign of the cross made on their foreheads. They gather for Lenten midweek services of evening prayer, which begin when someone walks down the aisle with a lit candle and places it on a stand. On Palm Sunday they walk in a procession that begins in the fellowship hall and concludes in the sanctuary. On Good Friday, they walk the Stations of the Cross to accompany Jesus on his way of sorrow and suffering. At the Easter Vigil on the Saturday night before Easter, church members gather in a garden courtyard outside the church. Following prayers and songs, they walk in a procession to the sanctuary for the first celebration of the Resurrection. Throughout Lent, we receive invitations to walk with Jesus as he journeys to Jerusalem for his passion, death, and resurrection. These opportunities for walking throughout Lent offer a clue to its critical importance in the Christian life.
“Whoever sings, prays twice,” a choir director noted. But no one has ever said to me, “Whoever walks, prays twice.” A spiritual director once asked me to calculate the percentage of worship that involves spoken or silent prayers: opening prayers, prayers for illumination before the reading of scripture, prayers of confession, prayers over the offering, or pastoral prayers. She emphasized the centrality of prayer in worship and the need for worship leaders to be people of prayer if they are to lead the Christian assembly in praise and prayer. But no spiritual director has ever asked me to list all the times when people walk in worship.
We take our many ways of walking during worship for granted without pausing to consider their spiritual significance or their connection to other times and places that we take to our feet. When we think about walking in worship, we usually see it only as a practical matter. But walking in worship is so much more than a practical matter.
Worship as Rehearsal Time
In Christian worship, we use the familiar gestures of everyday life to proclaim God’s activity in our lives. In worship, we rehearse in a distilled, concentrated way the gestures—the practices—through which we grow in the love, knowledge, and service of God. We stand when we recite the creed, for example, as a rehearsal for all the occasions when we will stand up for our beliefs and values in our workplaces, homes, and neighborhoods. We share our tithes and offerings in worship to practice living generously with others.
The times that we take to our feet in worship are not merely incidental, random movements. When we take to our feet in weekly worship, we rehearse the dance steps with which we move to the music of God’s grace throughout the week. Recognition of how walking is woven into the fabric of Christian worship acknowledges it as a Christian practice in which every step is a prayer. When we take to our feet in worship, we rehearse together how God desires us to live as God’s pilgrim people in the world.
Just as athletes and musicians need regular opportunities to rehearse their skills and hone their techniques, we need rehearsal time for Christian practices. Worship etches into our habits and muscles the movements of mind and spirit that enable us to participate in God’s project of redeeming a broken world. Walking in worship prepares us for walking to alleviate hunger or to oppose violence against women. It gives us cues for how to walk the corridors of power where people make decisions that affect the lives of many.
Without such opportunities, we can wander off the path and find ourselves in some cul-de-sac of existence. Our frantic schedules can throw us off balance. Cable news and social media distract us with an endless tsunami of information and images that encourage us to skim along the surface of life. Living in the shallows of being, we never “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Ps. 34:8). Speed limits our ability to live mindfully