May day

I have given up all non-obligatory devotions and prayers and concentrate on being always in His holy presence; I keep myself in His presence by simple attentiveness and a loving gaze upon God which I call the actual presence of God ..., an habitual, silent and secret conversation of the soul with God .... (Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, 1614-1691)

It is not a sense of sin or wrongdoing that brings me to a Sunday pew. Forgiveness is always welcome and needed, of course. But this is not what I seek nor what I imagine those scattered around me truly desire.

I doubt our desires are different than those of the dog walkers who pass by with absolutely no intention of ever darkening the church door on Franklin Street.

I want to feel the smile of a spring day, the joy of warmth and light enfolding me and quieting my heart so that I am at peace, one with myself, with nature and with the mysterious Source of May mornings.

I doubt the dog walkers would put it that way, and those sitting around me would likely find better and clearer words than these. But our desire is the same: We hunger for loving union with the grace we see and feel as the earth warms and greens, bringing lilacs and lilies to bloom, enlarging our hearts to human size.

So why come out of the sun to sit a pew? I ask myself that on some days because some days little happens as I pray the prayers and listen to the words we speak.

But then come moments when ancient words and hopes, prayers and praises awaken wordless joy that leaks from my eyes so that I lose my place and trip over the words we are praying and singing together. Stories of Jesus awaken scenes in my mind so that I see him and feel his presence as he heals and touches and gazes over crowds with a compassion beyond anything I have known or felt elsewhere.

And amid it all, I feel and know the great smile of One I cannot see, a face whose warmth and light embraces me whole, shining across the scope of my existence, indulging my fumbling efforts to figure life out, taking joy in loving me, the dog walkers, the pew sitters and all the rest—pleased that I should bask, one, with the Light who shines through May days.

David L. Miller