A Place to Pray

By Pastor Bruce

Last Sunday, on Zoom Fellowship Hour, we talked a bit about tree houses, green houses and she-sheds. What these places had in common was that they were places to be away from the noise of life and to be able to sit and pray, journal and ponder.

This is actually an ancient theme of the Celtic Tradition as seen in this poem which Esther de Waal has collected along with many others in her book, Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition.

 O Son of the living God, old eternal King, I desire a hidden hut in the wilderness that it may be my home.

A narrow little blue stream beside it and a clear pool for the washing away of sin through the grace of the Holy Ghost,

A lovely wood close about it on every side, to nurse the birds with all sorts of voices and to hide them with its shelter,

Looking south for heat, and a stream through its land, and good fertile soil suitable for all plants,

A beautiful draped church, a home for God from Heaven, and bright lights above the clean white Gospels,

Enough of clothing and food from the king of fair fame, and to be sitting for a while and praying to God in every place.

“These early Celtic scribes and hermits lived,” De Waal writes, “by the destiny of their dedication to a life of prayer and solitude, in places of great beauty, and they brought to their environment eyes washed miraculously clear by continual contemplation.”

And they open our eyes to the blessing of having a place of natural beauty where we can go to pray. Living in Elbert County makes this blessing even more accessible as many of you have a window next to which you have placed a comfortable chair to watch the sun come up or a path out your back door which leads in a few minutes to a spot of breathless beauty which city dwellers must drive a number of miles to experience. These places are “beautifully draped churches” where you enjoy God’s presence and can pour out your hearts in prayer.

Even city dwellers like myself who take walks along that token of nature called a “green belt” have a bridge or a bench along the way where we can stop to listen and notice the artistry of God around us. And in these trying times we are living through, nothing is as important as the calming, renewing presence of God experienced in contemplative silence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the turbulence and horror of World War 2 longed for these moments with God and was continually upheld by these times of prayer. He writes:

Thousands of years ago, a devout person, tossed by the storms of life, knelt down before God in the silence of the temple. Only when this sacred silence had penetrated the depths of his soul was he able to say these words: “For God alone my soul in silence waits; from him comes my salvation.”

O you ancient poet, you appear to us like an image from a pleasant dream that we long for yet find so distant from us. We are attached to you, but we no longer understand you. Teach us something about the silence of the soul, the soul that waits for God.

Where is your favorite place of prayer and how has it been a refuge for you these past few months?

I’ll leave you with this conversation between the seventh century King Gooary of Connaught and his brother Marvan who had renounced the life of a warrior-prince in his brother’s court to take up a life of silence and prayer.

King Gooary:

Why, hermit Marvan, sleepest thou not

Upon a feather quilt?

Why sleepest thou abroad

Upon a pitchpine floore?

Brother Marvan:

I have a hut in the wood:

Only my Lord knows it;

An ash tree closes it on one side,

And a hazel like a great tree by a rath* on the other.

The size of my hut, small, not too small,

A homestead with familiar paths.

From its gable a she-bird sings

A sweet song in her thrush’s cloak.

A tree of apples of great bounty,

Like a mansion, stout:

A pretty bush, thick as a fist,

Of small hazelnuts,

Branching and green.

Fair white birds come, herons, seagulls,

The sea sings to them,

No mournful music:

Brown grouse from the russet heather.

The sound of the wind against a branching wood,

Grey cloud, riverfalls,

The cry of the swan,

Delightful music!

* an earthen bank

de Waal, Esther. Every Earthly Blessing: Rediscovering the Celtic Tradition . Church Publishing Inc.. Kindle Edition.