(Part One: How (not) to Practice the Presence of God)
The mill whirs down to quiet and I open up its basin to flour, measure out kernels powdered, still warm from the grinding. I scoop a tablespoon of yeast, granules falling, scattering across countertop. Running hand along flour dusted surface, I collect these seeds smaller than faith, look through corner kitchen window, this eye out to firmament and the heavens.
Today the clouds glide high, gleaming white chariots for His ride through the skies. They make haste, billow, cast shadows in their wake. I watch.
It never ceases, this wind. It is endless, rippling through billions of wheat blades, dancing with the maple leaves all up the lane. Invariably, faithfully, this wind comes, sometimes whispering on breezes, sometimes roaring in the rush of it all; always more to say. It is constant.
But I know little of that, constancy. His inspired Word reads, “Pray constantly.” And I think, spooning honey into mixing bowl, if only I knew how to be the wind. Constant. Like the Spirit, always moved and moving, closer, onward, upward.
Life stifles under glaring sun, and I know prayers like a desperate gust, an imperceptible breath, hot and too near. Lukewarm.
Once I slept a July night in the nearness of a travel van, sweaty legs sticking, summer suffocating while I writhed. I needed wind. Opening the oven door, I went into night, searching. Toes found black surf rolling up the sand and the sky currents, wave after wave, washed cool over skin. That’s what I want, winds over water, fresh prayers, reviving, steady rhythms. And sometimes you have to move to find the wind.
So I do.
I stumble into it right there in the lulling routine of bread-making.
“Thank you, Lord, for grains of salt. For the color of this oil, sun streaming gold through its gold, the way it splashes into flour, pools into yeast foaming at the edge. Thank you, Father, for the stringy sinews attached to each bone in these fingers that scoop and pour and measure and stir…”
The wind sweeps in and I feel alive.
This is not practicing the presence of God, but the practice of waking to His presence. When I pray praise, I wake to Him who rides in on the air I breathe. That close. When, moment by moment, I attend to all that fills the now, and give thanks for it, this is to pray constantly.
“Wherever you are, be all there,” said Jim Elliot, that esteemed missionary martyred for Christ in Ecuador. Wherever you are, be entirely present to God who meets you in that space.
Too often, I don’t know how. The possibilities of problems that lurk around the next corner lure me on into worry. The pain of all that failed in the past trip me up in regret. I run ahead on the road, slamming into anxiety. I run back the path, grabbed by disappointment. I struggle to stay in the present, to be all here wherever I am. Yet attending to the beauty and bounty of each singular moment, paying attention to now by praying thanksgiving for this moment, and this moment, and this moment, I stay here. I become wind in this place, constantly present, constantly praying.
“Thank you for the warm softness of dough in hands, the tucking of this flecked goodness into pans old with history. Father, thank you for this stream of water gushing simply from a tap to wash away baking, for son who folded these dishtowels, the corners matching, folds straight.”
Is this communion unending?
“Wherever you are, be all there,” is possible as I give thanks for what is just now. This is meeting God who is the great I AM. I AM fills the present moment. I am learning that gratitude ushers into the grandeur of He who spills with glory now. Giving thanks is a way to be all here, a way to meet the I AM who is here.
But He too is the Alpha and the Omega, the One back there on the road, the One further up. He is both ahead and behind. We can rest in the memories of His past faithfulness , trust in the hope plans He has for our futures. So we are released to the joy of simply staying all here, knowing His goodness wherever this moment has us.
On a routine day in the kitchen, the clouds racing overhead, I find the sacred in the ordinary. I know wind. The practice of praying thanks for wherever I am, and whatever I have, this is to pray constantly, to meet God and live in His presence.
The bread rises, the wind blows, and I am all here, giving thanks.
Could there be more?
Part of this week’s focus on prayer
(Part One: How (not) to Practice the Presence of God)
