Last fall I had the good fortune of spending many hours with my two grandchildren, age four and six. During one of our many adventures on the playground, the two of them wanted to go down the BIG slide, together as a three person train. Halfway down, the sheer joy of the moment overtook my four year old and he screamed “Yippee, I love the slide”. I, a grown man of 53 and a veteran of many a slide, already had a big grin on my face and could only agree. Only recently did I realize how profound this statement from a four year old actually was.
In the exclamation “I love the slide”, the slide can mean the physical object or the action of sliding. I am sure my grandson meant the object, as most of us would, but his exuberance clearly expressed the action. It is the somewhat uncontrolled decent, the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you first let go and the motion you are subjected to without doing anything. It is not the object – just try sitting on the slide half way up and see how many screams of delight you get! The real thrill comes from the action of sliding.
As adults we still have moments of sheer joy like this. However, unlike my grandson who just lived in the moment, we grown-ups try to capture the feeling somehow. When we are at a party with good friends, we take pictures to relive the moment later. When we attend a concert or sports event, we try to cement the experience by buying a T-shirt, hat or poster. Unfortunately those tokens are just that, tokens. They are not the real thing and cannot evoke the emotions we felt at the time. Most of us realize this vaguely but take the wrong follow up actions. Instead of doing it again, we buy more expensive tokens or formalize the picture taking process. We want to capture it all for later consumption and re-experiencing. If you doubt this point, just think about the ordeal wedding pictures have become!
What I have come to understand is that the truly important things in life have to be experienced over and over again. It is not the result but the doing that matters. Try giving your sweetheart a recording of you saying “I love you” for later use and see how well that would go over! On your Facebook page you might have a picture of your friends at your favorite hangout but would you ever call drinking a beer at home while looking at that picture a good time?
In the Episcopal Church, significant portions of the service are the same every week. Or are they? If we think of each service as one object or a single block of words, then they pretty much are the same. In that case, the bulletin from the first Sunday of the year becomes the record of our experience. On the Sundays that follow, we could just look at that bulletin and relive the moment. Or not! By living in the moment and experiencing those same words according to how we feel at that time, we make every service a little different.
It is not the words themselves but the purposeful saying of those words that create the conversation with God. Otherwise we could just write half a dozen good prayers on large index cards and hold them up when needed. If you are sad, #2; happy gets #1 and #5 for a friend in need. If you still have doubts, try emphasizing random words while reciting the Nicene Creed or the Confession and see how your relationship to the words changes.
The point of communion is not to be at the altar and to have the wafer and wine in you. The point is to come to Jesus, receive His body and blood so that He can live in you and to give yourself to Him with a repentant heart. It is not in the result but in the doing that we grow our personal relationship with God.
One conclusion could be to pray often, read the bible frequently and go to church all the time. However, I am learning that it is not how often I do these things but to live in the moment while doing them. For me, this means to be aware of how I feel when I read, to make an emotional connection with God through prayer and to participate purposefully in church services.
When you pray, ask yourself whether you said it the way you would say it to your best friend or spouse. They could probably experience your joy or sorrow regardless of the words, just from your tone and body language. Could God?
The next time you take communion, may you experience the walk from the pew to the altar a little differently by living in the moment!
In Christ,
Martin Frank
Frankly Speaking 