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 50^th 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.

About the Author
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.