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A Word from Grace Street

God’s Continual Help Amidst Our Continued Works

April 29, 2009

My Dear People,

There is something to be said--much in fact--for having a few prayers that we can turn to easily, prayers that we know well, prayers that have nestled themselves into our memories and into our souls.  Maybe there's something about them that is especially fresh, evocative, or poetic.  Or perhaps they're quite humble and plain.

Following is a prayer to which I often return (The Book of Common Prayer, page 832):

Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings with your most gracious favor, and further us with your continual help; that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy Name, and finally, by your mercy, obtain everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Continual.  Continued.  If I had to put my finger on it, that's what I love about the prayer: the sense of God's ongoing, sustained presence and aid.  God's "continual help" amidst our "continued works."

This past weekend your vestry, wardens, and clergy went away, on retreat, to get some work done.  And we had a mountain-top experience, I'm glad to say.  Quite literally.  We went to "Skylark," a place well-known to St. Paul's.  Thanks to Mary Tyler Cheek McClenahan, a late and much-beloved parishioner, the annual vestry retreat takes place there, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, at what was once a farm and is now a conference center for Washington & Lee University.  It is an idyllic spot, with gentle, panoramic, leafy-green views all around.

We did some important work up there on that mountain top, work relating to the next year, as well as to the years ahead, with the parish-wide visioning process.  And things--our conversations, our work, the whole weekend--came together on Sunday morning better and more beautifully than any of us could have planned.

All our works begun, continued, and ended in you. 

Before getting in our cars and heading east for Richmond, we walked up the hill to the highest point on the property, from which you can see for miles in every direction.  And as we celebrated the Eucharist, out in the fresh air, with, as E.E. Cummings put it, "the leaping greenly spirits of trees" all around "and a blue true dream of sky" above, God's provision was evident and palpable.

Continual.  Continued.  God's "continual help" amidst our "continued works."

I can hardly wait to see what God will do in the coming months and years, right here in our midst, at St. Paul's, as we continue the holy work God has given us to do and as, meanwhile, he grants us his continual help.

Thanks be to God,

your brother in Christ,

Wallace+

 

Next entry: Find Ways to Retreat

Previous entry: You—Yes, You—Are A Theologian

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