Our summer thermostat seems to be given to too hot or too cool this year. It has been lovely for the ripening apples, which are hanging heavy on most branches this year. But this cool, hot weather has been unkind to our tomatoes. To think, my great-grandmother was a dry land wheat farmer in northeastern Montana. As you probably know, this means she relied on the rain and snow to irrigate her wheat fields. She and the fields were entirely at the whim of the weather year to year. A hard life to be sure.
This morning I am thankful that I am less at the whims of the weather than my ancestors. Although we have our own climate challenges to face, my daily life doesn’t involve watching the sky to determine what must happen next.
This past week, I was getting pretty deep into writing poems for my second book. I am always surprised where my curiosity leads me. In the past week, I started wondering what church hymns were “new” or “very popular” in the 1850s.
One hymn that was written in the early 1850s, went through several iterations and became very popular around the 1880s. I even recognized it when I played the song on YouTube. The hymn is “Tarry With Me (Oh My Savior).”
The first chorus begins:
Tarry with me, O my Savior!
For the day is passing by;
See! the shades of evening gather,
And the night is drawing nigh.
The hymn is asking Jesus to be with us in the evening, as the day comes to a close. This is what me might call an evening prayer or even its more formal name of “vespers” or a service of evening prayer offered by churches.
In the Lutheran Book of Worship, the evening prayer begins, “Jesus Christ is the light of the world,” and the people respond the light no darkness can overcome. It continues, “Stay with us Lord, for it is evening,” and the day is almost over. This sounds familiar!
Verse 2 of “Tarry With Me” continues:
Deeper, deeper grow the shadows,
Paler now the glowing west,
Swift the night of death advances;
Shall it be the night of rest?
True night has now descended with the sun’s going down. But also, the hymn is talking about night as a metaphor, evening as the end of our days (our life on earth). The singer is asking Jesus if tonight will be the night of their death, and if so, are they headed to heaven.
{There could be a whole other post about equating darkness with doubt and fear. About shadows and blackness being equated with sin and what is nonspiritual. I wanted to acknowledge this, and the problems of systemic racism and white supremacy in our liturgies. But for now, I acknowledge it, and recognize that it would take several more posts to address this with the sensitivity and depth it deserves.)
The hymn alternates for another three verses between hoping in the goodness of Jesus and also fearing death. This feels very true to me. I know that in the middle of any crisis, I am hoping for deliverance from it and that Loving One will be merciful. (Act quick God!) But also, what if there is no deliverance? What do I need to do to get out of this mess? Am I on my own?
I believe the Holy One and I are always present together in the present moment. But so often, I am not paying attention to it. I compared God’s presence like having the television on in the background, in another room. Something I am not really aware of as I get busy with other things. Just noise.
This is my normal way of moving through the world, and of course I will often rely on myself to figure things out. Because I mostly haven’t been paying attention.
Again and again, this is why spiritual teachers call their prayer lives, their spiritual lives a practice. Because it takes practice! How discouraging. At least I feel like that. I would like to just have faith, or always respond kindly to life’s upsets. But how I do not do that!
Athletes train for hours a day, for years to reach their full potential. As children, some of us may have dreamed about becoming pro athletes or being famous sports stars. But I suspect that many of us, when we saw how much work, how many hours went into things decided, NO THANKS! We became discouraged. We moved on to something else.
So, it shouldn’t surprise us that we don’t have perfect faith, an easy path through the trials of life, or total confidence in God. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been practicing very hard. Oh, the grace of the Merciful One is there in my life in abundance, but I have been doing other things. Easier things. Things that are less difficult.
I am NOT saying all of this to make you feel guilt or shame. I am NOT telling you that you need to spend hours and hours in prayer every day.
What I am saying, is that the hymn feels accurate to me, a movement between hope in God and doubt. Between faith and fear. This is, just as Luther said, because we are sinners and saints all rolled into one.
We are human beings. We are dependent on God’s goodness, daily. Just as my great-grandmother’s fields were dependent on the rain and snow that fell from heaven. We need God’s grace as wheat in the fields needs water to grow. To come into fullness. To be made ready for the harvest at the end of the season.
So too with our earthly lives. Which are, at the same time, our heavenly lives. For the Kingdom of God is both within us and to come.
At its simplest, the spiritual life is really just one thing. Waking up to the presence of the Joyful One in our lives and in the world. Waking up to the truth that Jesus is present in each of us, everywhere. Waking up the fact that we spend most of our days and hours asleep or on autopilot, missing out on the deep truth, that the Holy One is with us at all times.
Let us take some time this week to reflect on the areas of our lives that are asleep. Or maybe where there is some remaining darkness from the night. Or perhaps where we are just coasting by.
Where are we being asked to wake up? To be attentive? To enter into our days?