Every Moment Holy
Years ago I picked up a copy of Carmina Gadelica, a compendium of poems, prayers and charms passed down from pre and post-Christian Scotland. When these were created, the world was seen as a place penetrated with the spiritual. There was no such thing as “secular,” there was only our world and the spiritual world, and these two worlds were intertwined. In this kind of world, it made sense to ask for God’s blessing for every little thing that happened, no matter how mundane. So they crafted beautiful, simple prayers for the circumstances of life, things like cattle making it home.
Pastures smooth, long, and spreading,
Grassy meads aneath your feet,
The friendship of God the Son to bring you home
To the field of the fountains,
Field of the fountains.
Closed be every pit to you,
Smoothed be every knoll to you,
Cosy every exposure to you,
Beside the cold mountains,
Beside the cold mountains.
https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cg1/cg1112.htm
We just don’t pray prayers like that anymore. Our modern age thinking leaves God out of the mundane, out of the “natural,” and only calls on him when we need the super-natural. If I were a cattle farmer, would I believe that Jesus was a friend to my cows, walking along them and helping them avoid pits? Or would I just call on him when I thought my cow was in trouble?
The truth is, there are many moments in our lives that we pass by without considering that God is involved or cares about these moments. We miss how beautiful and sacred things are, simply by missing how near and present God is every moment.
Ironically, this can even happen in the midst of our worship. For a while now, we’ve had a nondescript box sitting on our welcome table for folks to drop their giving in. And many do, simply and discreetly, and we rightly make little fuss about it. And yet, we run the risk of missing what makes the moment more than just dropping a check in a box. Here is an act that says, to some degree, what’s mine is yours. That recognizes need and responds. That sees something greater to be a part of. An act that is also a prayer. It’s a holy moment that we might pass by too quickly in our rush to not be awkward. Recently, we reproduced a prayer from the book Every Moment Holy Volume 1 (more on that in a bit) and printed copies to put next to that little box. If you’re someone who drops a gift in that box, don’t move on so quickly next time. Pause and read the prayer, even if you have to step away for a bit.
Eating tacos is another holy moment that could be missed (yes, I just wrote that). We just had a feast benefiting Cedar Heights students at Taqueria 2.0. At face value, we ate some tacos, laughed, rested, talked. But in our God-suffused world this was so much more: an expression of love, a declaration of shared humanity, a recognition of God’s provision. We said as much in a few words when we raised a toast, “To the King.” If you were part of that feast this weekend, it’s not too late to pause and recognize the nearness of God in that moment, even to raise that toast as a prayer now.
I write this to encourage you to reflect on these moments particularly, but also to encourage you to consider how many more moments might pass us by without recognizing how close God is. We can learn much from those ancient Christians in the highlands of Scotland and their beautiful prayers.
I’d also encourage you to pick up your own copy of Every Moment Holy Volume 1 or Volume 2 . These volumes are kind of like a modern day Carmin Gadelica, meant to awaken us to where God may be at work in the ordinary and provide us words to meet the moment.
May we be a people who see God at work everywhere!
Pastor Larry
