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| "Pacific Currents" by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast,
Conference Minister, September, 1999 Drenched to the Soul
Here's a confession. It's hard for me to go to church. No, it's not particularly difficult for me to preach or preside at the communion table or offer public prayers. At those times God steps in decisively, the Holy Spirit engages me and I ride that whoosh! of exhilarating ministry with and to the Body of Christ. But it's hard for me to go to church, to be a worshipper. I blame Howard Thurman for this. Until I read his autobiography several years ago, it would not have occurred to me that you can actually soak up the spiritual juices of a group of people who are gathered together, focused on the Divine. Dr. Thurman, of course, not only absorbed the emotional molecular energy that spun off in free radical style, but was then able, on the spot, to wring out the sponge of his saturated soul so that words of prayer flowed from it. Tears turned into the rain of grace. I, however, simply sit there drenched. Take last Sunday. I came into the sanctuary and slid smoothly into the third pew from the back, only a few minutes past 10. Fumbling for my hymnal my glance brushed against the gaze of a young woman who had begun chemotherapy on Wednesday. The dedicated political activist sitting in front of me was coping, just barely, with the escalating exuberance of her two pre-schoolers. A family came forward with their baby to be baptized; little Julia, dressed in a long white christening gown and a bonnet, waved her bare feet in delight. The congregation prayed for a member in prison, a friend skirmishing with drug abuse, for victims of catastrophe in Atlanta. A high school graduate, preparing to leave for college, said good-by to the church to which she had brought her parents when she was 3 years old. Hope in the stronghold of fear. Frantic responsibility. Joy and unbounded beauty. Connection beyond time and distance. Farewells. These highly-charged ions filled our breathing space. I was a wreck. Tears oozing. No Kleenex.
I guess I need to be better prepared. Slipping into sacred space is risky. Jacob's story warns us about combative spirits and disturbing visions in the wilderness. Moses alerted us to fiery talking shrubs. Mary prepared us for obstreperous angels barging into our lives and disrupting everything. But somehow we've deluded ourselves into thinking we're safe at church. Or maybe I'm the only one who's been so misled. Maybe the rest of you already knew that beneath those vaulted ceilings, through the scent of candle wax, on the strains of shouts and hymns, cradled in awkward clumsy gestures, the atmosphere is crackling with surges of raw pain and need and grief, desire, delight, and determination. Invisible inaudible lightning bolts fling themselves through the congregation, only to turn liquid as they strike your heart. And there you are, drenched to the soul. Unable to sing all the way through the third verse of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," much as you'd like to. Grabbing the puny stump of a pencil somebody dropped on the floor to make a few notes on the back of the special offering envelope, to maybe make some sense out of this wash of feelings. To maybe wring out some drops of blessing. ~ Mary Susan |
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