Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent: Hope and Shipping Lanes

Lessons: Psalm 69; Jeremiah 22:13-23; Romans 8:12-27; John6:41-51

You would think I would have noticed more deeply before now that there is a shipping lane out beyond the cottage as I look out to sea.  I have sat here in early Morning Prayer for years.  It is just that this year I have sat here more often as we have been here more steadily. I realize it does not much matter to me where these ships are going or from where they come. It is more that they are a steady if infrequent rhythm of this place.  It is like life.  There are rhythms of coming and going and behind them, meanings we either notice or don’t. I could explore the internet to learn more but what value is the shipping schedule if my comfort is simply the rhythm?

There are scriptures which put before me a rhythm which I know and live by and yet know it more in the heart or feeling than in the mind and intellect.  They, like any hope, are a comfort and a reminder that time and life and people live deep.  They remind me we are made for such and often our doing and our being rests on deep places of habit.

One of such lesson is found in the Romans reading today. Verses 15-17, 22-27 are here.

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-if, in fact, we suffer (tend our daily life faithfully) with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

For me life is a doing gift.  We rise from our slumber and set ourselves on a day of doing, be that going to the office, reflecting on literature, tending children, washing decks, making meals, tending relationships, improving our understanding, throwing in a load of laundry, reflecting on meaning, playing a round of golf…the list could go on.  Behind all these doings are meanings and they are not always obvious.  Usually the meanings have to do with what we give priority place in our life, our loves and first cares.

I rise from bed and am grateful for another day of life.  I sit by the sea or the fire or my attic chamber at Greenacre with the scriptures and open to meaning.  I do the laundry, cook a meal, and use my gifts in a creative and caring way because of two relationships, one with God and the other with my companions in life.  I live by hope that all my doings and deepest thoughts have meanings, seen and unseen.

Faith is the belief that the Spirit is rhythmically at work in our life, weaving purpose and only some of that is seen in the “schedules”.  Most of it is out of sight in what we call hope, deep purpose treasured both in our heart/mind and in the heart/mind of God.  The cry, “Abba, Father,” is an intentional or accidental opening to this meaning and hope.  For me, Paul here refers to our yearning to be aligned with God and good and faithfulness.  But the sheer gift is that when I am too tired or occupied to yearn, the Spirit yearns for me, that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

I know those sighs.  They are like the ships in the shipping lane passing by on their way, carrying their load to some place I am not always interested enough to know.  I find such hope in the notion that in them the Spirit is interceding and my doings find meaning and connection deeper than I may have intended.

Hoping and doing are the held in joyful tension in the Christian life.  Beneath them is often Spirit weaving. 

 

It does me good to sit by the sea and see.