Every Step a Prayer. Thomas R. Hawkins

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СКАЧАТЬ everyday human gestures become signposts that direct us from one way of being in the world to another. In worship, we rehearse these gestures. We distill and intensify them so that a clear pattern of cues and signals shape our lives, moving us from one way of being human toward another. As more people engage in these practices, the path becomes clearer and more focused. No one has to talk about what we should or should not do. Everyone simply follows the signs and cues that others have left behind them. It is a bottom-up way of organizing the Christian life. Stigmergic practices quietly direct people toward a certain way of life.

      In Hebrews 12, the author reminds us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses who invite us to lay aside every weight and sin that cling so closely and “run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (vv. 1-2). Having rehearsed in Hebrews 11 the stigmergic signals of faithfulness to God that patriarchs, matriarchs, prophets, and monarchs across the ages have laid down, the author admonishes readers to “lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet” (vv. 12-13).

       Every Step a Prayer

      Christian practices that incorporate everyday gestures and actions typically involve our bodies: We speak, sing, eat, wash, or bow. We walk. By investing these gestures with new meanings, Christian practices shift our way of being in the world. The Incarnation means that God invites us to experience our physical, embodied existence as a dwelling place of the holy. As Paul says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).

      Therefore, all physical gestures are charged with spiritual possibilities, and all spiritual practices can employ physical gestures legitimately. By acknowledging concrete, down-to-earth activities—eating, drinking, making decisions, generous sharing, hospitality, and walking—as the means through which God comes to us and by which we participate in God’s work in the world, Christian practices remind us of the sensible, everyday qualities of Christian life. Christian faith involves more than simply believing certain things about God. It is also a matter of practicing our faith. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. . . . Those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing” (James 1:22, 25).

      Practices can establish a deep, embodied connection between us and God, whose grace permeates all things. They join us with each other, with Jesus, and with the communion of saints throughout time and space in an embodied way of life that overflows with God’s love for us and all creation. Practices awaken in us the same love and devotion that Jesus’ first disciples must have felt in his presence.

      Christian practices are thought-full. They invite us to a reflective, thoughtful way of life. They guide us toward increased mindfulness of how we live a life that becomes the gospel. Christian practices enable us to experience everyday gestures and actions as channels of grace through which we glimpse the depths of God’s love and care.

      These practices are not burdensome tasks or rules required to become “good Christians.” Instead, they are gifts from God that nurture openness and receptivity to divine love that streams continuously through the people, events, and places of our world. Walking represents one such Christian practice.

      Walking is not only a way to move ourselves from one place to another but also a Christian practice imbued with the same intent as every other Christian practice: to guide us into a way of being human that bears witness to God’s work of healing a broken, wounded creation.

      When I walk, my life slows down. Rather than speed past the world around me, sealed in my car with the radio playing, I move slowly. Moving at the speed of my feet, I hear the sounds of birds, insects, and the wind blowing through the trees. The rhythm of my footfalls invites me into an awareness of myself and the world around me. This awareness leads me beyond creation to the Creator. When a friend and I walk across the campus where I teach, our conversation takes on a different quality than when we sit in an office or around a lunchroom table. Walking, like all Christian practices, makes me more open and receptive, more mindful and aware.

      Walking is woven into many parts of Christian worship, hinting at how it functions as a Christian practice. In the church I serve, acolytes walk down the aisle to light candles as worship begins. They return at the close of the service to walk the light of Christ out into the world. The choir and pastors walk down the center aisle in a procession as the congregation sings the opening hymn. People leave their pews and walk around the sanctuary to share the peace of Christ. Worship leaders walk into the midst of the congregation to read the Gospel lesson. Ushers walk up and down the aisles to gather worshipers’ tithes. They walk the offering plates forward as we sing the Doxology.

      When my church celebrates the Eucharist, worshipers walk forward to receive the bread and cup. Patrick, a member of the congregation, now uses a cane as a result of a stroke. He moves very slowly as he comes forward to receive Communion. Patrick could sit in the pew and let the servers bring the bread and cup to him, but coming down the aisle expresses his gratitude to God for walking beside him during his hospitalization and recovery. “Every step I take is a prayer. It’s how I praise God for my recovery,” he says. Everybody waits patiently behind Patrick as he walks forward because they all know what it means to him.

      On the third Sunday of each month the church takes up a special offering for hunger relief at the beginning of worship. People walk forward to drop pennies, dimes, and quarters into a large metal bowl, making it ring with the sound of offerings. Coming forward with coins enacts in a concrete, visible way the congregation’s commitment to feeding the physically and spiritually hungry. Church members can feel the energy in the room as people come down the aisles. Walking reminds us that we are a pilgrim people on a journey toward God’s future, seeking to be signs of healing in a broken world. Passing the offering plates in the pews would not have the same impact. It might be quieter, less confusing, and more efficient, but symbolism and spiritual power would be lost.

      During Lent and Easter, my congregants take to their feet more frequently in worship. On Ash Wednesday, they walk forward to have the sign of the cross made on their foreheads. They gather for Lenten midweek services of evening prayer, which begin when someone walks down the aisle with a lit candle and places it on a stand. On Palm Sunday they walk in a procession that begins in the fellowship hall and concludes in the sanctuary. On Good Friday, they walk the Stations of the Cross to accompany Jesus on his way of sorrow and suffering. At the Easter Vigil on the Saturday night before Easter, church members gather in a garden courtyard outside the church. Following prayers and songs, they walk in a procession to the sanctuary for the first celebration of the Resurrection. Throughout Lent, we receive invitations to walk with Jesus as he journeys to Jerusalem for his passion, death, and resurrection. These opportunities for walking throughout Lent offer a clue to its critical importance in the Christian life.

      “Whoever sings, prays twice,” a choir director noted. But no one has ever said to me, “Whoever walks, prays twice.” A spiritual director once asked me to calculate the percentage of worship that involves spoken or silent prayers: opening prayers, prayers for illumination before the reading of scripture, prayers of confession, prayers over the offering, or pastoral prayers. She emphasized the centrality of prayer in worship and the need for worship leaders to be people of prayer if they are to lead the Christian assembly in praise and prayer. But no spiritual director has ever asked me to list all the times when people walk in worship.

      We take our many ways of walking during worship for granted without pausing to consider their spiritual significance or their connection to other times and places that we take to our feet. When we think about walking in worship, we usually see it only as a practical matter. But walking in worship is so much more than a practical matter.

       Worship as Rehearsal СКАЧАТЬ