Month: May 2015

A few weeks ago as the leaves were coming into bud, I saw these trees alongside the River Nene in Peterborough.  The sight reminded me of this poem by Macrina Wiederkehr:

Slowly

She celebrated the sacrament of

Letting Go…

First she surrendered her Green

Then the Orange, yellow, and Red…

Finally she let go of her Brown…

Shedding her last leaf

She stood empty and silent, stripped bare

Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust…

Shedding her last leaf

She watched its journey to the ground…

She stood in silence,

Wearing the color of emptiness

Her branches wondering:

How do you give shade, with so much gone?

And then, the sacrament of waiting began

The sunrise and sunset watched with

Tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes

They kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that

her vulnerability

her dependence and need

her emptiness

her readiness to receive

were giving her a new kind of beauty.

Every morning and every evening she stood in silence and celebrated

the sacrament of waiting.

Macrina Wiederkehr

I was recently in a church I love for an act of worship with a small congregation, and I found myself wondering ‘At what point does this act of worship begin? And when does it end?’ Does it begin with the words of the opening prayer? Does it end with the Blessing?

I wonder.

Is worship something that we do from time to time in a particular place? Or might it also be a quality of being that could happen at any time or indeed all the time?

The previous afternoon I sat in the sunshine in Greenwich Park smoking my pipe. In front of me were flowers of many different colours all beautiful: red, orange, purple, yellow, white. And all, so it seemed to me, offering worship to their Creator in the only way they knew, simply by being.

There were trees, with fresh bright spring leaves, that have been there from before I was born and will be there still when I am dead, all worshipping their Creator simply by being.

The squirrels worshipped as they played, the birds as they sang and courted each other, the ducks as they bobbed up and down in the water. All worshipping their Creator simply by being, and seeming to enjoy it, and without undue effort.

As I walked back across the heath the sun shone and warmed me as it worshipped, the clouds hurried across the sky as they worshipped, and the wind worshipped as it buffeted my face.

If the rest of creation can worship simply by being, and all the time, then why not me? What is so difficult?