Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord

This speech was delivered April 19, 2013 at the Banquet of the Providence University College 86th Graduation:

Well, here we stand at the end, and as most of us have learned here at Prov over the past few years, there is a specific way to end our times of worship together:

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

With these words we have ended our times of worship here at Prov over these last number of years. And as much as Providence has been a fact of our daily lives for the duration of our time here, life at Providence has been one giant act of worship as we have learned, grown, and served in a plethora of ways. As this year has been drawing to a close the question that has been burning on my mind, as I’m sure it has been on many of yours, has been, “soooo what now? Where do we go from here?”

There have been a couple mottos that have terrified me and encouraged me throughout my time at Prov. The first is the official school motto, “Knowledge and Character for Leadership and Service”. This always kind of scared me, “Do they expect me to actually serve and lead at some point? Don’t they know what kind of person I am?” The second motto is similar, and it is carved above the doors to the school, “Enter to Learn, go forth to Teach” which always made think, “oh no, I better make sure I actually learn something here if they expect me to teach somebody someday”.

            Fortunately, these mottos also carried with them the promise that somehow, we would “Learn”, that we would receive “Knowledge and Character” – in short, we wouldn’t be left up the Rat River without a paddle.

            So, where do we go from here? Presumably we’ve learned something, received some knowledge, and had our characters shaped by our various triumphs, trials, and tribulations at this institution, and now it is time to Teach, now it is time to Lead and Serve. The sending that we have heard time and time again at our worship services over the years begins to make sense. In the midst of the confusion and mystery of transition, we are empowered to go forth in the peace of Christ to love him and serve him in whatever shape that ends up taking. Really, the only response appropriate to such a promise is an exclamation of praise and thus we say, “Thanks be to God, Hallelujah.”

Now, one last time, please join me in the sending;

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

Farewell

Facebook, you've been a good friend to me for many years now. Always showing me the carefully polished version of myself that I want to see, my narcissistic ego has never been better than during our lengthy and intimate relationship. Now, however, it is time for us to, "see other people".

I thought we could just be friends, but you wanted more than that didn't you? I've shared more with you than with most of my non-virtual friends, which, upon thinking about it, is really quite pathetic.

Don't think that I'll forget all the good times we had, I'm grateful for the ways in which you helped me make and maintain friendships that I would have otherwise not had, but I really want to get to know those people now, not just the shiny pixelated version you offer me.

Maybe I'll see you again someday Facebook, but for now, I think it would be best if we just existed in this shared world together, but apart.

Love,

Ryan

In Memoriam

Dr. Schell there are really no words to describe how much you meant to me. Always ready with a quiet smile, a witty comment and a beautiful song, you touched deeply the lives of all your students. Thank-you for all that you taught me, my love of choral music is due in large part to your patient work. Whenever I sing in a choir I will think of you and your sacrifice of praise. I can't wait to sing with you again in heaven.

O God Beyond All Praising

O God beyond all praising,

we worship you today

and sing the love amazing

that songs cannot repay;

for we can only wonder

at every gift you send,

at blessings without number

and mercies without end:

we lift our hearts before you

and wait upon your word,

we honor and adore you,

our great and mighty Lord.

Then hear, O gracious Savior,

accept the love we bring,

that we who know your favor

may serve you as our king;

and whether our tomorrows

be filled with good or ill,

we'II triumph through our sorrows

and rise to bless you still:

to marvel at your beauty

and glory in your ways,

and make a joyful duty

our sacrifice of praise.

Sing on Dr. Schell. Sing on!

Vanity of Vanities: A Stumbling Beginning to Advent

My Homiletics class recently finished a preaching series through the book of Ecclesiastes. It struck me again this evening how true the words of Q'oheleth really are. 

Vanity of vanities.

The Teacher, or Q'oheleth, explores all aspects of life to find that everything is inherently meaningless. Vanity of vanities, meaningless, all is meaningless, like a chasing after the wind. Everything that seems to hold so much promise, when pushed, turns out to be yet another bitter disappointment. 

Vanity of vanities.

Look at life, we spend so much time pursuing pointless things, keeping up on celebrities, sports games, trying to be popular, to look a certain way, trying to achieve at the things we are in, get good grades, win trophies, scholarships, bursaries, awards and accolades. We are all enslaved to the pointless dance of trying to make meaning out of our meaningless lives. 

Vanity of vanities.

I've run myself ragged lately trying to achieve. I'm so busy that I don't enjoy anything that I do, yet I am commended for doing all that I do. People look to me as a leader, I know everyone, and I find it impossible to say no to any request. 

Vanity of vanities.

If everything is meaningless, what's the point? Should we not all succumb to the natural conclusions of nihilism? Or perhaps we must continue in our deluded existentialism, denying the vanity of existence and forcing our reality to take on a semblance of dignity. 

Vanity of vanities.

No. Today is the start of Advent, the beginning of the Church year and a time of anticipating the coming of a Saviour. Our pursuits may be meaningless, yet there are many things in this life that make life worth living. A sunrise, a good cup of tea, a beautiful line of poetry, fresh snow, a smile from a friend. As vain and meaningless as these might be, they are good. 

Vanity of vanities?

The Teacher reminds us to remember the Creator of our youth, to cling to the one who gives meaning and purpose to our truly vain and obscene little lives. We remember, and anticipate, for soon, Emmanuel will be here. And so we wait, appreciating the small, sublime moments of bliss, and knowing that purpose, meaning and life are here in the waiting.

An Invitation to Pray

What is prayer? This is a question I have been asking for years and every so often I gain a small insight. For the last year and a half I have been involved in a small group of people that have committed to gathering every morning for prayer. This experience has been life-changing for me and has taught me a lot about prayer.

A few weeks ago, the new of Chief of Police in Winnipeg made a request to the citizens of the city to pray for one another and for the well-being of the city. He said that if everyone were to pray for the good of Winnipeg, regardless of religious affiliation, the city would become a better place to live.

This got me thinking about what happens when people pray. A lot of discussion about prayer is focused on the dialogue between human and divine that takes place, but it would seem that this is only one part of prayer.

Praying is an action, you actually have to actively do something (I know, I know, some people like to talk about living a lifestyle of prayer; they always have the big guy on speed dial or some such nonsense. But in reality, these people are saying this to make up for their lack of praying, I know, because I used to be that guy). We know from developmental psychology that one of the major ways people learn how to do something is through repetition. Repetition of various scripts or narratives become very influential in how we think, and ultimately how we act. Take advertising for example, we are exposed to certain messages over and over in the hopes that we will heed the content of these messages and act out on them.

Prayer, on a very human level, functions this way. When we pray, we repeatedly come before the divine in a posture of humility, acclaiming the deity, contemplating the deity, thanking the deity, and bringing forward supplications to the deity (these are the A. C. T. S. of praying...). We are training ourselves to
a) acknowledge our own weakness, b) speak out our problems (which is basically what we spend a lot of money talking to counselors to do) and c) intercede for others.

An interesting thing happens when you pray, particularly when you pray corporately, or pray intercessory prayers for others. Barriers come down between people. The prayer group that I am a part of consists of everyone from freshmen to one of the deans at my university. Yet, when we come into the prayer-room, all office and division falls aside and we earnestly turn our attention to the Lord. We lay aside anything that regularly separates us in our united lowliness before God.

Daily we practice this, and after a while, I have noticed that the people of this group are much closer in other areas of daily life than they were before. There is a sense of camaraderie that exists between the members of this fellowship. We don't ever really pray specifically for one another, in fact we mostly say liturgical prayers that the Church has said for hundreds of years, but the act of praying together has had some miraculous effects.

Now, I think Chief Clunis was on to something when he asked the citizens of Winnipeg to pray for one another. After my own personal experience of praying in community, and praying for a community, I find it very difficult to act in a way that would be damaging towards the people of that community. What Clunis has hit upon, is the simple human ability to form positive habits, and he is asking everyone to form positive thought habits towards the city.

As a Christian, I would say that prayer actually does change things because God steps in and acts when we ask in Jesus name. I find it interesting however, that the very way in which we ask for miracles from God can actually cause miracles to happen.The goal of the Student Council that I sit on this year has been to foster community in my school. Here, in a very simple, tangible, yet miraculous way, we have a way to accomplish this goal. We now have an even greater sense of urgency to heed  the words of the apostle when he urges the Ephesians to pray in the spirit on all occasions.

Pray on my friends.

Healer

Healing God.

You who heal the deaf, give sight to the blind and raise the dead,

We come to you requesting that your healing power be poured out on our loved ones. 

Heal their bodies, make them whole and healthy, that you may be glorified.

Amen.

Have you ever listened to evangelicals who are about to pray? They ask for prayer/praise items and inevitably it disintegrates into a list of all the people present, known, or heard of that are suffering from physical malady or illness. Prayers for healing definitely top the charts in most prayed prayers. Ironically, though these are the most prayed prayers, they are also the least expected to come true. We pray for healing fully expecting that God can heal, but fully expecting that he won't. Oh we have all sorts of ways of explaining why prayers remain unanswered, but they all ring with a rather hollow sound as we stare down death, evil and suffering, begging God to somehow intervene. The above prayer is the prayer I might pray in public, but the true cry of my heart goes a lot more like this:

Jesus,

You healed the lame, restored sight to the blind, and raised the dead. 

I come to you begging for the lives of my dear loved ones,

Knowing that you heal, yet fully expecting you not to.

I pray that despite my expectations, you would heal. 

Lord, surprise me, disappoint my expectation of you,

make your name mighty among your people!

I know what you can do, I am afraid of what you will do, 

But I know that in it all you are God.

Amen.

Praying for healing is the only occasion I question the validity of my belief. Luckily, right at the heart of the Christian message is Easter. Easter, the death of God, his passage under the earth, his glorious resurrection. Threaded throughout those darkest of days is the pain of unanswered prayer, but yet even there, these three remain. And so as Eliot wrote "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Heavenly Father;

sometimes we come before you and things aren't alright.

That's alright.

sometimes, i can't say thank-you for your goodness.

You are always good.

my prayers get stuck in my throat and come out in feeble groans and whispers.

You hear my voice.

i am alone and unwanted.

You have called me by name.

sickness and death are lurking.

You are called healer.

vanity of vanities, all is hopelessness.

We hope against hope.

numbly sitting in the pew, i am incapable of worship.

Trees clap their hands in praise.

guilty, oh so guilty.

Declared innocent.

Your mercies are never ending. We, your people, rage tirelessly against your holy name, yet time and time again you reiterate your promises to us. Not only did you come and die, but you also came and lived. In your life lies the promise of life for us all. The world can be a pretty dark place. A lot of stuff happens that I don't have an answer for, and that kills me, but it also killed you.  This Thanksgiving, I thank-you for your promise to me that when things aren't all right, that with you, it's alright. Thank-you so very much Jesus. Cheers!

Glory be to the Father, 

and to the Son, 

and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the Beginning,

is now,

and shall be forever.

Amen.