Since we are not able to meet for our Wednesday evening worship, we’ll begin a series of short daily devotions. These will continue to tie in the theme of vocation, and at times, will simply attempt to embrace the realities of the present moment.
Watch the included video from Pastor Bri at https://youtu.be/zJG2OF7LHc0
For further reflection, an excerpt from In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World by Padraig O’Tuama, which can be read alongside John 20:19-23.
“I remember reading through an old National Geographic magazine. There was a story in it about a photojournalist who was returning, after many years’ absence, to Papua New Guinea where she’d grown up. She had taken pictures of a remote area of jungle. When she’d lived there as a child, her parents had worked—as medics, or missionaries, I forget the details—among a nomadic tribal group who moved between different homelands depending on the season. She recalled the language of her youth, a language she had learnt from her friends. There was no word for ‘hello’ in this local language in Papua New Guinea. Instead, upon seeing someone, one simply said ‘You are here.’ The answer, as I recall it, was equally straightforward: ‘Yes I am.’
Whether by fact or fiction, it remains that for decades I have thought of the words ‘You are here’ and ‘Yes I am’ as good places to begin something that might be called prayer.
Where is it that we are when we pray? We are, obviously, in the place where we are. However, we are often in many places. We are saying to ourselves ‘I should be somewhere else’ or ‘I should be someone else’ or ‘I am not where I say I am.’ In prayer, to begin where you are not is a poor beginning. To begin where you are may take courage, or compromise, or painful truth telling. Whatever it takes, it’s wise to begin there. The only place to begin is where I am, and, whether by desire or disaster, I am here. My being here is not dependent on my recognition of the fact. I am here anyway. But it might help if I could learn to look around.”