Heschel, Prayer, and Home

I'm writing from Wayne's apartment in Orlando. I got here last night to surprise him for his birthday. He got here in December, and it is a perfect environment for him to create beautiful and functional software. He can walk to the grocery store, the bank, the cathedral where he sings tenor in the choir, the public library... He can get out and take a brisk walk around Lake Eola if he finds that his mind is getting sleepy or distracted. He can drive to the University of Central Florida for research that he can't do online.

Paul is living here with him, attending the Motorcycle Mechanics' Institute and working part time at a sub shop for pocket and gas money.

This is my fourth visit. It's still "visit," though I may well be living here soon. Last fall I hit the perfect storm in my parish. Gender, politics, the anxieties of our region's financial climate, leadership style--all conspired to make it possible for a vocal and influential minority in my parish to force me out of my role as rector. My last Sunday was January 24th. My diocesan bishop was very supportive during the crisis, and I believe he will continue to be helpful to the parish as they look at some of the systemic issues that led to this outcome.

The county where my former parish is located is quite small and rural. Consequently, the set of my friends and the set of my parishioners is very nearly overlapping. The Episcopal Church wisely expects former rectors to stay out of the business of their former parishes, giving time for parish leadership and new clergy to establish their own leadership and authority without interference. This means that, at the moment, encounters with parishioners are more than a little bit awkward for me (and probably for them). It is time for me to get out of Dodge.

So I have been cleaning, organizing, and sorting things in my Jasper house. Every day I was making trips to the storage unit, to the dump (we don't have garbage service in Jasper), and to the Thrift Store. The painter is coming Monday. We will need to re-carpet the upstairs, do some rudimentary landscape spiffing up, "stage" the house, and get it on the market.

Jasper is not really my home any more. Orlando is not quite my home, either. The last hymn in the Lutheran Hymnal that we used in 3rd and 4th grade at Zion Lutheran School in Hinsdale, Illinois was not a German hymn. It was an English hymn by Arthur Sullivan: "I'm but a stranger here; Heaven is my home. Earth is a desert drear; Heaven is my home. Danger and sorrow stand round me on every hand. Heaven is my Fatherland, Heaven is my home."

So this morning, reading at random in one of the books I gave Wayne for his birthday, a collection of essays by Abraham Joshua Heschel, I read:

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. all things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home. Weary, sobbing, the soul, after roaming through a world festered with aimlessness, falsehoods, and absurdidies, seeks a moment in which to gather up its scattered life, in which to divest itself of enforced pretensions and camouflage, in which to simplify complexities, in which to call forhelp without being a coward. Such a home is prayer. Continuity, permanence, intimacy, authenticity, earnestness are its attrivutes. for the soul, home is where prayer is.

...Everybody must build his own home; everybody must guard the independence and the privacy of his prayers. It is the source of security for the integrity of conscience, for whatever inkling we attain of eternity. At home I have a Father who judges and cares, who has regard for me, and, when I fail and go astray, misses me. i will never give up my home.
What is a soul without prayer? A soul runaway or a soul evicted from its own home. To those who have abandoned their home: The road ma be hard and dark and far, yet do not be afraid to steer back. If you prize grace and eternal meaning, you will discover them upon arrival. (Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity,, pp. 258-9)