Reflections

David's Reflections from David Perkins' episcopalatlee@yahoo group

Annie Dillard in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk writes
about her experience attending a service of Holy Communion, weaving in her reflections in response to each movement of the service. In that essay, she speaks of the unpredictability of a God too often tamed by our meager expectations.
She writes, "Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of
power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does noone believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life
preservers and signal flares; they should
lash us to our pews. For the sleeping
God may wake someday and take offense,
or the waking God may draw us to where we can never return.

I was most impressed by this part of
the devotional today. What imagery this evokes! Don't we "water down" God's
power by taking it for granted or by putting it into the box of our
expectations? What if we could BELIEVE great things, and PRAY for great
things? Perhaps we can help God empower us by removing our chains of
expectation. I recall a choral anthem from a large church where I sang as a
scholarship alto:
The text began: "Draw us in the Spirit's tether...." Are
we prepared, ready, willing, and able to be drawn to where we can never
return?