Today is Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Pancake Tuesday). Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. This week marks the start of the season of Lent in the Christian calendar. Lent makes up the six weeks before Good Friday and Easter.
Lent starts in darkness and ends in light.
The bright days of spring can seem a long way off. The waiting has been particularly acute since Lent last year. After Easter 2021 we may be much further towards being able to gather again. There will be resurrection.
Prayer Meeting “Justander”
Sounds like a fairly obvious thing, but the words “Prayer Meeting” carry all kinds of meaning in evangelical churches. Over the next while, in various Evangelically Departed submissions, I will offer descriptions of evangelical prayer meetings and the characters who attend and participate.
Weekly Prayer Meetings:
Some evangelical churches have a gathering each week in which people can come and pray. These take on various tones and temperaments depending upon the denomination, the participants, the time of day and the general sense of how things are going at the church. In my experience the ongoing weekly prayer meetings were sparsely attended. They could be very positive or interestingly dangerous.
Years ago I wrote a compendium of “Prayer Meeting Characters” that I thought I might share with the church. I didn’t. I thought that people might assume that I didn’t like the characters described. I did. Still do. I shared it with some friends, but that’s about it. I’ll share it in pieces in Evangelically Departed. You may have met some of these people if you ever attended prayer meetings;
This Week: The “Justander”
I think that it is the case that “justanders” exist in virtually all evangelical communities.
These pray-ers constantly use the words, “just” and “and” when praying. It works like this, “Dear God, JUST bless Bob, AND really be present in his life AND JUST help him to know you. God, JUST strengthen him AND help him AND hold him up.”
Praying out loud in the company of others can be intimidating. “Just” and “And” can demonstrate that prayer is often a humbling act. One concept in Christian theology (from scripture), is that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, “interprets our groanings”. This can mean that sometimes we ourselves are not aware of what we feel. We are often not sure of what to pray for others or for ourselves.
So - “just bless us, Oh God, and help us.” Sometimes it’s the prayer we need.
From the news…
Last week a woman who lives on Long Island, New York received an anonymous note in her mailbox. It simply said. “Take Down Your Christmas Lights! Its (sic) Valentines Day!!!!!!” The woman who received the note had recently lost her father and her aunt to COVID-19. Her dad lived with her and her family at the house. He had put up the Christmas lights in question just around Thanksgiving in November.
When people in the community found out about the aggressive and exclamation laden anonymous note they decided to do something. Very many local residents took out the lights that they had recently put away in storage, and re-decorated their homes in a show of support for the woman who had not found the time or emotional energy to take on the task of taking down her lights. On Valentine’s Day the neighbourhood lit up again.
It does recall a saying that I have heard attributed to very many people. Not sure actually who said it or who said it first. It was told to me that Meister Eckhart, a 13th Century mystic theologian said something like it.
“Be compassionate. Everyone you meet is engaged in a great struggle.”