Our prayers are weak and poor. Nevertheless, what matters is not that our prayers be forceful, but that God listens to them. That is why we pray.

                                                Prayer (2nd Edition)

                                                Karl Barth

Prayer is a subject that is difficult for people of faith, even though it is central to a faithful life. Even Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray. (Luke 11:1-13) The result was the Lord’s Prayer that has come down to us through the ages as a model for us in our prayer life.

Prayer is both communal and private. One prays at church and one prays at home. Karl Barth, a great reformed theologian of the last century, indicated that the reformers did not distinguish between explicit and implicit prayer. Sometimes words are enunciated and at other times prayer lies in sentiments, attitudes, conscience, and thought. He said “prayer is at once word, thought, and life.”

Barth asserts that prayer proceeds from God’s grace:

Wherever there is the grace of God, human beings pray. God works in us for we know not how to pray as we ought. It is the Spirit of God that incites us to pray . . .

This is good news. It does not depend on us, but on God’s spirit working in us. Barth states: “When we are comforted by the grace of God, we begin to pray with or without words.”

Ultimately, what matters is that God is there and God listens. And if we listen, we have been assured that we will receive God’s word for us. And that word is good news!

Peace and Blessings,
Rev. James M. Long
Minister of Pastoral Care

We too should be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, should cry to God continually although our cry seems to be swallowed up by the endless silence and solitude, and even when there seems to be no answer to our call. We shall hear the answer.

“A Voice in the Wilderness”

Biblical Homilies by Karl Rahner

All of us experience difficulties and challenges at certain times in our lives. Some of these bring great personal suffering. It generally is not helpful to compare these experiences with those of others, since there always are people who seem to have a greater or lesser share of grief and sorrow. While comparison may help put our sufferings in perspective, it should not be used to diminish the reality of our own pain and suffering. Also, I have come to know that what binds us together is this common experience of vulnerability and loss.

Many things may happen to us in life. Whether it is the death of a loved one, the breaking of a relationship, sickness or injury, financial reversals or loss of work, or natural disasters of all kinds, they bring a dislocation in our lives. Even good things such as graduation, marriage, children, getting a new job, buying a house, or retirement bring a transition period before we enter something new. Like the Israelites going out of bondage in Egypt, we do not immediately go into “the promised land,” but wander in the wilderness before entering into our inheritance.

The Bible speaks of wilderness experiences. John the Baptist and Jesus each spent time alone in the wilderness. Karl Rahner, the great Catholic theologian of the last century, said that we too should be like John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness. (John 1:19-28) As human beings, we may cry in the wilderness and feel that we are alone, perhaps abandoned by God. In the silence and solitude, we may hear no answer. Our world may seem desolate.

However, the eternal reality that is the only reality already has entered into our world. God in Jesus Christ has entered our sufferings. By grace, we hold out a little while in the wilderness because “in all our wildernesses, in every feeble self-denial, in every whispered cry to him, he is already here.” Rahner recognizes that there is a now, but not yet, reality to this experience that seems harsh. But in faith, he says: “Even then shall we not say to the unshakeable centre of our lives: You are here.” This is what we hold on to when we cry in the wildernesses of our lives.

Peace and blessings,
Rev. James M. Long
Minister of Pastoral Care

To speak the truth in love is a difficult, and sometimes impossible, achievement. If you speak the truth unqualifiedly, that is usually because your ire has been aroused or because you have no personal attachment to the object of your strictures. Once personal contact is established you are very prone to temper your wind to the shorn sheep. It is certainly difficult to be human and honest at the same time.

Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic

Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr was a great theologian of the last century. He wrote many lectures, sermons, and books on ethics, politics, history, and human nature during the tumultuous events of the great depression, two world wars, and the cold war. However, before entering academic life, he was a parish pastor in Detroit. During those years, he kept a lively and entertaining journal on his ministry, which he published as Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic.  

He recognized that pastors had a difficult time speaking prophetically to their congregations the more they knew the people and loved them. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., another prophetic preacher, went further and said that a preacher only earns the right to speak prophetically to his or her congregation if he or she is also willing to be there as a pastor to the flock. The dilemma is to be able to speak the truth with love, to be human and honest at the same time.

I really believe this is a challenge for all people, not just ministers. I have observed how easy it is for people to just “blast” others when they are speaking or writing anonymously or when they have no personal relationship with the person being criticized. We speak what we believe to be the truth, but without any real concern for, or attachment to, the person. We have to look no further than our radio and television airwaves to see this reality. I knew a political leader who said how much harder it was to criticize his opponent when he knew him or her personally.

Obviously, we are not going to have personal relationships with all we encounter or to whom we need to speak the truth as we see it. The tension comes from trying to speak the truth in love, recognizing that we are speaking to other human beings. The challenge of faith is in speaking the truth in love. Our world would be much better for it.

Peace and blessings,
James M. Long
Minster of Pastoral Care

Can you, from time to time, just nurture a little warm feeling towards yourself? I truly believe that’s all it takes. A little warm feeling creates an atmosphere of acceptance, of allowing, of permitting. And within that atmosphere there is a kind of encouragement for the goodness to grow: the goodness that is you, the goodness that is life in you, the goodness of creation in you, God’s goodness in you.

Simply Sane: The Spirituality of Mental Health

(Second Edition, 1993)

Simply Sane was Dr. Gerald May’s first book. A psychiatrist at the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, May wrote extensively about the spiritual life and spiritual direction. He came to believe that human growth and healing in our society had become “self-fixing” and “self-building” that destroys our sanity. In reflecting back on his first published work, he wrote:

In all my experience as a psychiatrist and as a human being, the deepest, most pervasive pathology I have seen is the incredible harshness we have towards ourselves. I don’t know where it comes from originally, but I know it is at the core of so many of our troubles.

Thus, he argues against our “jerking ourselves around” by “berating” and “driving” ourselves. We are not “objects” to be manipulated, fixed or improved, but “beings” created for life and love in the present.

Consequently, May urges that we be more gentle, tender, and kind to ourselves. This should not be a new self-improvement program or extra burden, but a momentary touch of gentleness. It does not require sophistication or self-mastery, but “a simple truthful desire for life and love and goodness.” It is the warm feeling of compassion that by God’s grace is for all.

Peace and blessings,

James M. Long

Minister of Pastoral Care

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

                                                                        Romans14: 7-9

There always has been speculation about the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life. It has been the witness of the church that the tomb was empty and that “the Lord has risen indeed.” (Luke 24: 34) Yet, the post resurrection appearances in the gospels are puzzling. Jesus comes to the disciples in unusual ways, and often he is not recognized until he reveals himself, such as through his teaching or the breaking of bread.

Nevertheless, these accounts make clear that the disciples experienced Jesus as being alive. Luke Timothy Johnson, a noted biblical scholar, has written: “The New Testament’s testimony that the risen Jesus exists in a new and more powerful way – a way discontinuous with his previously circumscribed humanity – is matched by its insistence that it is truly Jesus who exists in this fashion, and that his new life is also continuous with his previous one in that it truly extends his personal presence in the world. (Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel)

Since the 18th Century enlightenment, many Christians have struggled to find a rational religion. Reinhold Niebuhr was a great theologian in the last century. I remember listening to his taped lectures on Christian ethics. A man of great intellect and learning, he dealt more with the political and ethical issues of this world, rather than of the next. However, in the course of the lectures, he said that he could affirm, along with the apostle Paul, that if he lived, he lived unto the Lord, and if he died, he died unto the Lord. For Niebuhr, this was enough.

Every Sunday through the church year is a celebration of Easter and the gift of the Resurrection. And every funeral or memorial service, is not only a celebration of a life, but also of life eternal. He is risen indeed!

Peace and blessings,

James M. Long

Minister of Pastoral Care