Hide and Seek
“There is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.” – Luke 12:2 (NKJV)
Back to school items are everywhere—even for those of us who long ago lost the need for pencils or a backpack.
I was very aware of my inattention to the rhythms of the school year when I attended my 50th college graduation this summer. It seemed I was supposed to be somewhere else. I wasn’t really there but on my way elsewhere.
I got invited to give the prayer at the Saturday night dinner. This is what I said, commenting on the blue and orange colors of the Gettysburg athletic teams, many of which I played on in uniforms sporting colors I barely saw.
“You whom some call Jesus and others call Christ; you whom some call Allah and others Yahweh or Breath; you whom others know as Energy and Force; you beyond the captivity of any one name; you so misunderstood and still so tender about it;
Draw near and reunion with us—
we who didn’t know what the sixties were even though we made them and they made us; we who never fully appreciated the orange in the blue or the blue in the orange; we now 50 years out or in (but who is counting);
Let we and you, us and them, I and thou come together,
one anniversary after another. Amen.”
I pray today to pay attention to today. I pray to write postcards that say, “Having a good time, wish you were here,” instead of that joke one I get so often, “Having a good time, wish I was here.”
Prayer
For the capacity of attention and appreciation, we pray, knowing that it is a prayer already and regularly granted, if we but notice to notice, or remember to remember. Amen.
![ddauthordonnaschaper.jpg](https://www.ucc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ddauthordonnaschaper.jpg)
Donna Schaper is Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. Her most recent book is I Heart Frances: Letters to the Pope from an Unlikely Admirer.