(This prayer is part of our Evening Prayer service, in Evangelical Lutheran Worship. I have just prayed it this morning, because it is also appointed for Fridays for Morning Prayer in the the Daily Prayer book I use, which comes from the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Book of Common Worship. It is a joy to be part of the ELCA, a church that shares with others in ecumenicity!)

The prayer is a reminder that we are on a faith journey, through our day-to-day lives and experiences.

I am intrigued by an article from the Wall Street Journal (that several of you referred to me!) about a literal faith journey. An acquaintance of mine, Sarah Hinlicky Wilson and her husband are walking 1,000 miles to replicate the same journey that Martin Luther’s took, in 1510, from his Augustinian priory in Erfurt, to Rome.

Sarah writes, “Christians are and remain in the grip of an ‘ecumenical winter.’ … [T] past 25 years have seen waning interest in ecumenism on the popular level, and scandal and schism consuming the churches’ attention at the institutional level.

“Under the circumstances, it seems to me and my husband Andrew that the only thing to do is go for a thousand-mile walk.

“…We are trying to fix the broken links, reconnecting Erfurt and Rome with our feet,” as the world approaches the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

Sarah and Andrew are six days into their 70 day journey. If you are interested, you can follow their blog, at www.hereiwalk.org, to “follow our daily progress and read our posts featuring snippets of Luther’s writings, Catholic theology and ecumenical documents.”  You can also visit them on Facebook: “Here I Walk An Ecumenical Pilgrimmage”

For me, today, I will not be so literally mobile on my faith journey. Today is a day off, to be spent in the garden and with my books.

I may travel a few miles: to a computer store as part of a new attempt to re-establish the wireless network in our house, which has been down since our computer decided it didn’t want to “recognize” our old router.

The feeling persists. Not much sleep that night. Awake early. Some reading, but a feeling of disconnection. What’s going on?

I’m grasping too much. Trying to force a resolution too much. Feeling the need to loosen my wound-up thinking: so I sit in the early morning, listening closely to some jazz. (Jo Lawry this time.) Still, murky thoughts. I can’t even name what’s going on.

Further distraction won’t help. I follow monastic practice: go deeper. Listen.

I put on my bicycling clothes and start pedaling. Somewhere around the seventh mile, some clarity begins to dawn. I keep pedaling. A few miles later, a plan of action occurs.

I love what the Spirit does with me when I’m pedaling! For me, it’s an important form of prayer.

I guess you could say my monastic prayer stall has two wheels.

One would think that nearly dying would be a life-changing experience. But it’s so easy to forget what I learned during that ordeal. Over the past few days, my prayer time has led me to remember things such as:

Each day is a gift. I do not deserve a single day of life.

God made me and God loves me. My value is not defined by what I do. What’s important is who I am.

God has given me talents, and God calls me to work hard, doing the work God gives me to do. But results are a gift from God.

Even though I live in a culture that worships productivity and efficiency, it is not up to me. It is up to God.

I had a difficult time finding the house. I got off I-20, and drove north. But nothing looked familiar. I did seen the sign for a Cokesbury book store, which is run by the United Methodist publishing house and, since I had no schedule, I stopped, and spent an hour or so browsing. Then I wondered: if I could get to the church she belonged to, would I be able to orient myself so I could find Grandmother’s house?  I asked the store clerk whether St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church was towards Columbia or away from it, and he told me where to find it. But, in the church parking lot, I was still confused. I thought to call my brother, who lives in South Carolina: would he still remember the address?  He did!  He told me that it was further out. So I drove back the way I’d come, paying attention to the addresses — and what do you think?  The house was right across the street and down two doors from the Cokesbury store!! I’d had no idea.

When I was a child, Broad River Road was a two lane mid-20th century version of a highway. The house was comfortably away from the road. But long ago the road was widened.  There are two lanes in each direction, with a turn lane in the middle, and the road comes right up to the sidewalk that’s now in front of the house. And the business owners of the house have paved what used to be the front yard, for parking. And the area is economically depressed, with many empty buildings. (Two doors down from Grandmother’s house is an adult video store.) I don’t think I’ll visit the location again.

The community hasn’t changed much, though, in Little Mountain, SC, which is about 30 miles northwest of Columbia. My Uncle Bob and his wife, Marcia, live in Little Mountain, on family land, just across the street from where the family homestead was. Next to Uncle Bob’s house is Mt. Tabor Lutheran Church, where he was confirmed, and where my father worshiped while he was in high school, and where their parents worshiped. Indeed, my great-great grandparents, Jacob and Catherine Shealy, were founders of Mt. Tabor, and are buried in the cemetary just outside the church building, along with a number of other ancestors. (I have a charcoal drawing of Jacob and Catherine on my office wall; my grandmother was a Shealy.)  I spent Saturday night with Bob and Marcia, and went with them to worship at Mt. Tabor the next morning.  At one point, I stopped to think: “Wow.  What roots I have here.”  Indeed, many of the people I met are relatives!

I found the Mepkin community to be in mourning. Perhaps it’s just my perception. They’ve suffered three gut-punches over the past four years. Their 56-year old abbot, Francis Kline, died four years ago, from leukemia. Francis was a personally warm, open and outgoing man, and the community reflected that in its welcome of visitors. Three years ago, another monk, Aelred Hagan (a classmate of mine, actually, at UVA), discerned that he was no longer called to be a monk. He was the same type of warm and open person as Francis. And both of them were accomplished musicians and worship leaders (Aelred on the guitar and Francis a Julliard-trained organist). With their leadership, Mepkin worship was quite extraordinary for a monastic community. Now it’s only ordinary – which, to this Lutheran accustomed to fine music and singing, means, “pretty bad.” The third gut-punch was the cowardly attack by PETA on the monks’ supposed maltreatment of the chickens they cared for. The monks’ way of earning money — Benedict directs them to support themselves — was selling eggs to Piggly Wiggly supermarkets. When PETA started harrassing them, they simply stopped the egg production. They couldn’t live their quiet life if they were embroiled in such controversy. And they couldn’t welcome visitors (again, as Benedict directs) if they were worried about the visitors’ motives. (That’s how PETA had gotten in: posing as retreat visitors.)

Now the monks grow mushrooms, which they are selling to supermarkets. And they have a fine abbot, a veteran member of the community. But they also have a list of rules that they now give to retreat guests when they check in, of what is permitted and what is not. And the monks are not as likely to engage guests in conversation, or even to offer pleasant smiles or to make eye contact. 

I grieve the changes in the community.

The Mepkin monks are still not nearly as closed as the Trappist community at Berryville, VA (which would be much more convenient for me). And there is such quiet at Mepkin! The place is just steeped in prayer.

And the community hasn’t entirely lost its sense of humor. On the tables of the guests’ dining room, or refectory (which is attached to the monk’s dining room) there’s a sign: “We ask, friends, that you join us in an ancient monastic discipline. Please do not leave the refectory with your coffee or tea mug!”

I love it.

Weeks earlier, I’ve gone through the lectionary, paying attention to which of the three passage catches my attention. I jot down a few ideas of why the passage seems important.

Then, on the Monday of the week that the passage is going to be read, I do my work with the commentaries, jotting down notes from the writings of real smart people who are Biblical scholars. Then I don’t think about it — consciously. But the process is going on, at a deeper level than my consciousness. Because, when I return to the sermon preparation on Tuesday, I’m way past where I was the day before.

This morning, it happened as the sun was coming up. I was sitting on the screened porch, in the humidity, listening to the birds, looking at the trees. I had been reading Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, “Prodigal Summer.” And, suddenly, I knew what this coming Sunday’s passage was saying to me. I knew how to begin the sermon outline. I sat down and wrote it out in about 10 minutes.

Next I’ll begin the writing. The writing is always the easiest part — once I’ve heard what to write.  And often, what I’ve heard is helpful to those who will listen on Sunday morning.

Sermons come from the Holy Spirit.

For the second morning in a row, this morning, when the clock struck 4:00, I was instantly awake and alert. The verse that has come to mind is from 1 Samuel 3: “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

I think it’s part of the discernment process in our search process for a new staff member. We’ve interviewed four of the five people we’ve invited to meet with us. And I’ve spent a number of hours with each candidate informally, getting an idea of how easily we can talk together and understand how each other thinks. I surely don’t want a relationship that would be hard work, and I have found that communication either happens easily or it doesn’t.

What’s making the process wonderfully difficult is that we’ve been blessed with more than one person who would bring great energy and vitality to our congregation. I find that reasoning only carries me so far, in making a decision like this. Listening to the wise folks serving on the committee with me is essential. We have become a discernment group.  The 4:00 AM listening is essential, too. I don’t think this is just me, churning in my own thoughts (which is sometimes the case). I think it is a call to prayer: “a God thing,” as my spiritual director likes to say.  It’s a listening for God.  Who is God calling to be our Ministry Associate?

A week from now, at 4:00 AM, I will already have been up for an hour. I’ll spend next week at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina. Wake up is at 3:00. Vigils (the first of the seven daily prayer offices) begins at 3:20. The day ends following Compline, at 8:00 PM. Then it’s time for sleep.

I’m such a morning person! After a week of that monastic schedule, my mind and body are really charged up!

Unfortunately, back here in the real world, there are folks who expect me to be awake and attentive later than 8:00 in the evening.  And there’s another major impediment to my becoming a monk.  It’s that darn rule of celibacy.

Since I think of life in terms of Christianity, I keep returning to Paul’s lists of virtues, such as patience, humility, generosity, self-control …   George Steinbrenner?  Hmmm…

The best commentary on Steinbrenner that I’ve come across is in this morning’s conversation between David Brooks and Gail Collins on the New York Times website:

David Brooks: Gail, I have to admit I’ve always had a soft spot for unpleasant people. This comes to mind as a result of the death of George Steinbrenner.

Gail Collins: Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid the second sentence was going to be something like: “And I guess that’s why we’ve always gotten along so well.”  It’s New Yorkers like Steinbrenner who have largely averted the triumph of the milquetoast.

David Brooks: Back in the 1980s and 1990s, much more so than in recent years, Steinbrenner was an overbearing jerk. His employees lived in fear of him. He hired and fired managers as if they were pieces of meat. He was shameless about buying championships. He was the personification of the tough, obnoxious, imperious, hyper-demanding, win-at-all-costs business owner.

Gail Collins: A friend just sent me a quote from Harvey Greene, the former Yankees PR director: “The phone would ring in the middle of the night and you knew it was either Mr. Steinbrenner or a death in the family. After a while you started to root for a death in the family.”

David Brooks: From a distance (I spent my nights over at Shea Stadium, not Yankee Stadium) Steinbrenner was, at least, colorful. He was, at least, New York. I’ve always been willing to forgive people like Steinbrenner and Bobby Knight and Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani a lot, because their incandescent competitiveness is so fascinating to watch.

Gail Collins: Can I propose that these obnoxious, overbearing egomaniacs be confined to running sports teams? Once you let them get into the real world, they can do some damage. In a worst-case scenario they might even put the New York City emergency command center inside the World Trade Center because even though the building is known to be the No. 1 terrorist target in the country, it’s close to their office in city hall.

David Brooks: Most people have a desire to be liked. Most people have some interest in comfort and pleasure. But men and women like that are in the grips of something uncontrollable — a desire to achieve some all-encompassing conquest that will satisfy their inner drive. They seem to torture themselves even more than they torture others. I don’t know what implants that ambition in them (Steinbrenner’s father was famously harsh and critical toward his son) but it’s epic and tragic at the same time.

Gail Collins: I’m still thinking that we could enjoy him because he only took his raging ego out on very well-paid adults.

David Brooks: People like Steinbrenner are also an antidote to — if I can be pseudo-intellectual for a second (and if I can’t who can?) — Tocqueville’s great fear. The Great Frenchman had many nice things to say about the culture of democracy, but he was plagued by the sense that democratic culture would be gentle, mild and mediocre. It would seduce people with its pleasantness into giving up strong passions and grand ambitions.  Under the influence of compromise and affluence, he predicted, Americans would lose any sense of honor, any hunger for immortal glory (which was the ambition that proudly motivated our founders). Instead, we’d all just chase tepid and mediocre pleasures, like good food and easy comfort.

Gail Collins: The really great heroes almost all had great self-control. (Well, not Hercules, but look how that worked out.) And to me the thing that defines people like Steinbrenner and the other guys you mentioned above was an unwillingness to give up the comfort of perpetual self-assertion. People like that aren’t heroic because they can’t ever put anybody else first. And if I can move this over to politics for a minute, the last thing we need is more people who think that greatness can be achieved by yelling louder than anybody else and pushing lesser mortals around.

David Brooks: Well, people like Steinbrenner cannot be accused of being tepid non-entities. Whatever flaws they suffer from, lack of spirit is not among them. If Tocqueville was wrong about those fears, it’s New Yorkers like Steinbrenner who have largely averted the triumph of the milquetoast. Maybe, at times, too much so.

Gail Collins: I’ll give you this: they’re great for the news business. Anybody who’s good copy is fine by me, as long as I don’t have to live with them, or under them. Maybe we can celebrate the fact that George Steinbrenner had the good sense to park his ego in a place where it couldn’t do any harm.

I was planning to ride my 17-mile exercise route around Queen’s Lake. I especially enjoy riding that route during the summer. That’s because there are only a third as many vehicles on the early-morning road, compared to fall, winter and spring. School is out, you see, and there is no traffic entering and exiting the two school’s parking lots that I ride past.

Why is there such a dramatic decrease in traffic during the summer? It’s because very little school traffic is composed of actual school buses. Nearly all of it is made up of a parent driving a child to school — a trip that is, of course, totally unecessary, because there is indeed school bus service.

I wonder how much gasoline is burned by such trips? (Certainly, there is much pollution, because a car pollutes the most during the first two miles it is driven.)

All of us who burn petroleum products bear responsibility for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The incessant demand for oil in our country, and the refusal to encourage the use of alternative-energy sources, is what drives more dangerous methods of drilling for oil, such as what BP attempted.

Cain’s question (Genesis 4:9) is, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” God’s answer, of course, is “Yes!” Cain is under judgment.

In the same way, we are our pelican’s, and turtle’s, and fish’s keepers. We are all under judgment for their deaths in the Gulf of Mexico. Let us pray forgiveness, and for the healing of God’s creation.

The alarm woke me out of a dead  sleep.  And rain was pouring down outside. 

Was it only localized weather?  What about in Waverly?  I waited for an hour, and checked e-mail.  The ride leader wrote that he was cancelling the ride because it was raining in Waverly and Richmond too.

Sigh … 

We need rain, desperately.  Yes we do. But couldn’t it have rained yesterday?  Last night?  This afternoon, even, after lunch?

OK.  Enough self-centeredness.  Each day is a gift.