Amazing grace

Sunday night, Janey and I drove Philip and Robert to the airport in Toronto and then made it back to St Catharines just in time for my concert: Amazing Grace. I had friends there, some of them waving wildly in the back of a very full auditorium just in case I didn’t notice them there. I noticed. It made it easier to say goodbye to my family as they took off, knowing I was going to sing my heart out in an hour. We just about blasted out the stained glass windows, I think. THIS IS AMAZING GRACE!!!

Part of the exhilaration is the performance itself, the adrenaline, the concentration, the pay-off from hours of practice, the wall of sound (as the director puts it) that comes out as if the choir were one rich multi-faceted voice, and not many. But part of it is because…how many times do you get to shout out what is central to your whole life, what defines you and gives you meaning and richness and joy? How many times do you get to sing with your entire being that your life is governed and freed by grace? It’s the one time in your day when your high emotion matches your faithful reason. For once, you get to say (sing) exactly what you mean! THIS IS AMAZING GRACE!!!

And today I thought, as I prayed, how thankful I am for prayer, whether it’s spoken, written down in a notebook, whispered mentally, or sung out at the top of your lungs. I am so glad there are no rules. I’m glad we can think short prayers throughout the day or give thanks over meals, or “do devos,” or gather for communal prayer like the ancients did or my Indian friends still do. I’m glad for such freedom. I remember how a Mixtec friend of ours met Jesus for the first time in a migrant camp and introduced Him to his family with this prayer: “Lord Jesus, good morning. My name is Regino. I am well. Beside me here is my wife, Betina, and these are my children, Alberto, Mauricio, and Jose. We live here in this Camp “El Niño. Bless us.” How many of us say “Good morning to God?” The Mixtecs do not grow up having access to God through prayer. Only priests and shamans pray, and these prayers are rituals, inaccessible to laymen. Regino was speaking to Almighty God for the first time in his life: a heady thing.

And I thought how glad I am that Jesus taught us to pray, not to a distant God with an unpronounceable name but to our Father. And he kept things so short and simple. “May your way come to us—your kingdom, your will—because You are good and trustworthy and honorable.” We learn that it is ok (though painful) to adjust our ways to God instead of trying to manipulate the powers of the earth so that they adjust to us. This is the definition of animism, which the Mixtecs and most of the world are now, and which all humans are by default. We are constantly trying to find ways to manipulate the world to fit us. I am so glad God has revealed Himself to be a God to whom it is safe and worthy to adjust, though it cost us everything, including our selfishness.

I am glad that Jesus not only taught his disciples to pray (they knew that he knew how), but he showed them, too, getting up on random dark mornings to talk to Dad. Oh, what did he say? What did they say to one another? We were not meant to know because our own time with Dad is just as precious, and there are no rules. There are no rules. He is teaching us to pray.

THIS IS AMAZING GRACE!!!