Monday 9 March 2009

For the next week or so I will be using selections from "The Strength of Love" in which M.L. King focuses on this parable: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him."

This midnights in man's external collective life is paralleled by midnight in his internal individual life. It is midnight within the psychological order. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Deep clouds of anxiety and depression are suspended in our mental skies. More people are emotionally disturbed today than at any other time of human history.... Bestsellers in religion are such books as "Peace of Mind" and "Peace of Soul." The popular clergyman preaches soothing sermons on "How to be Happy" and "How to Relax." Some have been tempted to revise Jesus' command to read, "Go ye into all the world, keep your blood pressure down, and lo, I will make you a well-adjusted personality." all of this is indicative that it is midnight within the inner lives of men and women.

King is writing in 1963 - could be today. The fear and anxiety of the day is like mud that gets all over everything. Odd how we turn inward during these times. The real need is to open our eyes and move toward one another. This often takes place through the discipline of prayer - endless prayer. This is a discipline that brings that which frightens us and disturbs us out into the open so that we can face it all within the embrace of our God who calls us into prayer. A life full of prayer is one in which we continually remind ourselves of whose we are and who we become when we remember such things. Prayer is the foundation of our living. It shapes us and reminds us of the ethic among us and the power for life that is available to us even when the world around us seems to make us power-less. It can be easy to fall for the vision of life that is portrayed by pundits and politicians - but that is not how we are given vision for the day. In place of the threats that try to disturb us in a "Wolf Blitzer type Situation Room" where everything is urgent and desperate sounding, we are reminded in our prayer of the character of life that is available to us in and through all times.

Connection: However you pray - pray. In that prayer, keep in mind whose you are.

Come, Lord of Life, come and hold us again. When the time at hand seems like it is fright-filled, we need your word of promise to echo within our lives so that it stays fresh among us when we are tempted to fly away to simple and soft ways of facing the day - ways that never give us the rest that you promise. Be our rest and inspire us into fresh life within your Reign. Amen.