I look for what I should be doing
Since I am captain of my soul
What is it I should be pursuing?
What should I do to be made whole?
Surely, I can make some changes
In my approach to living life
Surely I can rearrange this
Remove all this unneeded strife
And yet, and yet, and yet again
I know I am not in control
I bow my head, contrite amen –
So be it, God — I yield the goal
To “not my will, but Yours be done –“
It’s not my race, but Yours I run
A few weeks ago I had decided to try to process the Sunday sermon by taking notes and writing something later.
Last week was my first week doing it. It accomplished these things:
First, I went to church. I’ve been skipping so much lately.
I told Fr. N. that I was mad at God.
“Is that okay?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he replied. “Go ahead and swear at God. Tell Him this is shitty.”
It’s just that I spent so much time and effort praying about a situation that did not resolve the way I wanted to do. What’s up with that, God?
Second, I semi-paid attention. Okay — I was distracted that morning. I pulled myself away from the distraction long enough to write a single line which I read back to Fr. N. later in the week.
“You paid attention!” he said. That may have been an overstatement. Here’s the line:
The places where we have fallen flat on our faces — those are the places where God comes.
Third, I wrote a post to process it. It turned out to be pretty personal so I didn’t publish it. I realized that writing something and NOT publishing is okay, too. It felt good to write and process, though.
This week, I went to church in part because the lectionary readings (and therefore the sermon fodder) were some of my favorites passages: Isaiah 6 and John 3.
Fr. N. went with John 3. I settled in, waiting for him to talk about the wind. You know, how it “blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8)
It’s verses like that that encourage me to embrace the mystery. Too long I attended churches that knew all the answers.
Fr N, however, didn’t get the wind memo. He went in a different direction: baptism.
He talked about how Nicodemus wanted something that he, Nicodemus, could do, and instead Jesus told him something that was impossible.
Rereading my notes from yesterday’s sermon led to today’s sonnet.
It’s not entirely what Fr. N said, but it’s what I needed to hear.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 