September Saints and Seasons

The antiphon on the first psalm at Morning Prayer (131) was “Whoever humbles himself as a little child shall be great in the kingdom of heaven.” And the Office ended with the Collect for Guidance, that ”in all the cares and occupations of this life, we may not forget you, but may remember that we are every walking in your sight....”  With that as my mediation verse, I walked down to the early morning Eucharist. Phil and I were the only ones there, as we often are these days. Usually we sit in silent mediation. But we’ve been together doing this for so many years now, sharing our personal and communal ups and downs that, if we are so moved, and if it’s just the two of us, we’ll chat about things before Fr Jim arrives. Phil has been at St David’s even longer than I have, a faithful and quiet presence who always recalls me to the Divine Presence. I need to be reminded that we are, together, a royal priesthood, a people called out of darkness into the Light.  Because I forget. The world’s messages are loud and clear and persistent, and the darkness is often nearby. 

At the Eucharist, we celebrated some folks new to the church calendar, clergy from Colonial times. The phrase that struck us was that one of these guys “viewed the ordered liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican polity as the proper alternative to the dissent and local power struggles of the Congregationalists in which he lived and worked.”  This summed up what we had been saying in our time together. The surrounding culture is full of dissent and struggle and it spills over into how we respond in our life together.  The answer is spiritual, and the direction we all need is available to us as we each listen in the silence of prayer and worship, and as we reason together with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Dissent and struggle we will have with us always. But if I consistently, persistently,  sit and listen to God speaking in my depths and let Him fill my heart and expand my vision, I’ll have a chance. As Bill Mahedy said “Feed the light, The darkness feeds itself.”                           September 2011       

Saints and Seasons @ is a monthly (except for August) column written by Louise Buck for the community at St David's Episcopal Church, 5050 Milton St, San Diego CA.