“Be Still…” (Tune: ‘Be Still and Know That I Am God’)
Be still and feel the presence of God,
the presence pulsing, pulsing through Earth,
be still and feel the pulse of God.
(Silence)

Be still and hear the Spirit of God,
the Spirit breathing, breathing through Earth,
be still and hear the breath of God.
(Silence)

Be still, behold the glory of God,
the glory filling, filling this Earth,
be still, behold the face of God.  (Norman C Habel)

In nearly everything I researched this week about approaches to today’s selected scripture, information about responses to climate change, and the very content choices of todays service, in the back of my mind is Nepal.

The songs I wanted to sing with you today: the poems I cherish about all of creation, the images that could be our back drop to the presentation… all of them seemed inappropriate,  in the face of  Nepal.

In a similar way to the numbness of September-11, so too, the reoccurring image of the wall of water crashing through the valley towns and villages… it is too much.  The interviews of people, looking for people… it is too much.  The satellite images, the before and after… it is too much.

When you are over whelmed, what do you do?

• Are you one who retreats?
• Are you one who wants to problem solve?
• Are you one who steps up to help?
• Are you one who prays?  Or finds it impossible to pray?

In an interview on ABC Melbourne this week, a scientist from Monbulk, Australian engineer Professor Arnold Dix, informed us that he was at the forefront of searching for the trapped miners in the Hydro tunnels of Nepal.  With no visible signs at the surface geography of where the hydro scheme once was, Arnold and his team used mathematical triangulations and other technical methods to ‘guess’ where the tunes entrances should be, if they could only try to drill down… And then the first responders risks of beginning the tunnelling, not knowing if, behind where they were digging, there was a torrent of trapped water rather than survivors.

I want to call that work,  ‘prayer in action’: especially when you have those gifts and skills and technical imagination to apply to what seems to be a hopeless case.

• My prayers fall silent.
• I don’t have that technical imagination.
• But I do have heart. And we do have prayerful practice, whether we know what we’re doing or not.

Clare Boyd-McCrae, in her 2008 book, “The Whole Shebang”, reminds us of the other side of prayer.  She says, that for most religious traditions, prayer is shared in public spaces like this one: and those prayers have structure, intention, and are sometimes described as ‘talking to God’.  Which, in deed they are.  And in some traditions, only the trained, the noble, the powerful offer those words… that’s not our tradition.   But beyond this, Clare draws us to the other side of prayer: she says “But it’s the other side of prayer that gives me solace, energy, insight, courage and the power to endure.  Wordless prayer – described in one place in the Bible as ‘sighs too deep for words.’

The thing for me, maybe you too… is that to be confronted with climate change in this way; and to be reminded of the impending heat from the El Niño, as the Pacific Ocean temperature raises beyond 3 -4 degrees; and the worldwide spread of Bird Flue … is that it is overwhelming.

• My prayers fall silent.
• I begin to lose heart.
• And what I feel is heavy, helpless, resignation, …

Be still… and I feel sick to the core

Be still… and I re-imagine the powerful forces of nature

Be still…and I am over whelmed by the smallness of our human condition

But I am drawn to God… fearfully, and trustingly, and full of questions and the deepest sadness… and the psalms remind me of the pain of the land and it’s people.  And the dream of todays creation story narrative from Genesis chapter 2, reminds me of the heart of God: and the imagining of gospel writer John in chapter 1, with Jesus as a light shining the the darkness… well, it reminds me of what Christian hope looks like.

One of the miners found, said, during the days in darkness, he sang the Krishna mantra… he sang the Krishna mantra…

What’s the Christ mantra you sing?

And how do you hold the silence to pray, wordlessly…

Clare Boyd McCrae help us be brave in entering into silent prayer.  She liberates our prayers from even thinking we’d have the right words to say or that any outcomes we imagine in words would be the right or helpful outcomes in prayer. Clare says, “With wordless prayer, you don’t even have to pray about anything.  You just have to pray.  All you need to do is set aside time to be with God in stillness and things happen, change, develop, grow.  Not instantly, usually not the way you’d expect.”

With the start of this month of  Season of Creation, we are given a period of time to focus intentionally and re-connect with the Earth.  In the light of the terrible natural disaster we have witnessed as a world wide community, we have both practical work to do to help: and we have spiritual work to do in prayer.  The invitation I am inviting us all into, is to practice prayer intentionally when you are in your garden, near your indoor plants, at the local park, maybe a walk in the streets amongst the trees, or to a specific place… wherever you can be to be near the earth.  And as you pray, to invite the place, the presence, the rhythm of the earth to meet you; greet you; address you; and welcome you.