“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
My eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with its mother;
My soul is like the weaned child that is with me.”
—Psalm 131.
I came to early church with all the concerns of the day and the current and past week. I am not playing the harp because I am having difficulty replacing two strings that have recently broken. It was the first meeting for discernment for the Daughters of the King at St. Mark’s. We have a wellness forum during the adult formation hour that I have been working on. There are some pages missing in the Altar Book, including the Eucharistic Prayer for the next service. I decide to go and sit at the back of the church to try to quiet my anxiety over these concerns and more. The church is absolutely quiet. The short, simple “green season” hangings are more calming to me, as they are less ornamental than those for other seasons. The candles are lighted and flickering. The spring flowers are displayed in honor of the mother of a friend.
I am in a beautiful place that was built to bring us closer to God; but my head is still a mess. How can I see or taste a fragment of the holy before the service starts? Must I wait for some moment during the liturgy, at the Scripture reading, in the prayers, the sermon, the music, the Eucharist? I pray for guidance, actually for help. The message comes. Start intercessory prayers. You have not said your private prayers this morning before church. Too busy. I start praying for those I am committed to pray for each day. If I know them, I imagine them with Jesus. Almost immediately, I feel the calm—that peace that passes understanding.
Time after time, this is my experience. I begin to know a peace whenever I can get out of myself and my world and my concerns and send love to my neighbor by visiting, calling, writing, serving, or in a multitude of other ways—but especially through intercessory prayer. I rarely find out how these prayers affect those I pray for; but with each prayer, my mind and my body also take my heart to find Jesus, as I try to connect others to that healing love.
Joanna . joannaseibert.com