"To Touch the Heart" by Rev. Thomas Schade

[Memos from Rev. Barbara Merritt and Rev. Tom Schade]

M I N I S T E R’ S   M E M O

“To Touch the Heart”




There are members of our congregation who are grieving the sudden death of
people they love, who have died in improbable accidents.

There are members of our congregation who are grieving the expected deaths
of people they love who have succumbed to long illnesses.
There are members of our congregation who grieve for those who died
unexpectedly of natural causes.
There are members of our congregation who visit nursing homes, almost every
day, speaking cheerfully to people they love who have outgrown their
memories.
There are people in our congregation who have received diagnoses of truly
terrifying diseases, and whose thoughts of the future include an element of
dread.
There are people in the congregation whose children are struggling with
addiction, or are in deep trouble with the law, or who suffer from mental
illnesses. Some face all these challenges themselves.
There are people in the congregation whose marriages and relationships are
coming unglued.
There are people who walk with no one but loneliness as their companion.
There are people in the congregation for whom the situation in the world is
so distressing that that they cannot clear their minds of anger and
depression.
There is so much sadness and pain among us, as there is among any group of
human beings. There is also much joy and happiness: new babies needing to be
blessed, people falling in love, people recovering from both physical and
mental illnesses, people enjoying their hard-won sobriety.
With a certain amount of detachment, perhaps, one could see life as a cosmic
square dance: first we dance with Pain and then with Sorrow and then with
Joy, each a new partner.
‘For everything there is a season.’
It may look so to an outsider, but from within a life, there is no vast
pattern to be seen. There is only an uninterruptible sequence of
experiences, unpredictable and sometimes seemingly unbearable.
People need a “spiritual practice” to help them live with all that life
places before them. They need a way of taking time to feel their lives more
deeply. I mean by that, a way of both engaging what they feel about what is
happening to them, and also stepping back to remember that all of this shall
pass.
Congregational worship is the spiritual practice of our community.
There is a lot that goes on in a worship service: music and singing, words
spoken together, readings from ancient and modern sources, an interesting,
informative and we hope, inspirational sermon.
But the goal is for something to happen within your heart:
      That those who grieve might have a moment to feel more fully their
mourning.
      That those who are anxious and worried have the room to remember
something that they can trust, some source of hope.
      That those who are caught up in the endless whirr and clatter of the
world can find a moment of silence and feel, not hear, a deeper harmony.
At the core of the spiritual experience of worship is that elusive moment in
which you see yourself in a new way. There are so many ways to talk about
this:
      You remember your best self;
      You are reminded of who God is calling you to be;
      You touch your undistracted and mindful self;
      You see yourself with compassion.
In worship, you don’t have to explain this new view of yourself to anyone
else. You don’t have to make a promise to do better next week. You don’t
have to do anything beyond living with a glimpse of your life lived beyond
dread and grief and anger and with joy and excitement.
Our faith trusts that if you, or any person, glimpses a deeper and better
truth, you will move toward it.
Sitting in a worship service can seem a small and tiny effort toward a
richer spiritual life. It will not make death and disease and suffering
leave your life. One trip to the gym is not going to make you trim and one
serving of broccoli will not make you slim. But as part of a habit for a
lifetime, worship can make all the difference.








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