It's early morning. The day is waking to summer in all its blue-skyed glory. Birds sing and chirp loud in chorus - a liturgical chant to welcome the day.
I am standing at our icon corner, the place in our home where we say our morning and evening prayers. It is here where I try to begin the day. It is here where I take a few moments from the frantic busyness that can take hold if I'm not careful; here where I thank God for the morning, for a new day. I shake my head in wonder as I read the words "at dawn I might sing the glories of thy Majesty" - this is what life is to be.
It is less than an hour later when my morning peace is challenged, where I shake my head in frustration at someone who jostled me on the subway, where I hold my breath because the smell of urine is so strong in the Park Street T stop.
This is my life. Perhaps it is yours as well - peace and contemplation forgotten as we face everyday life wherever we are. My everyday life is the city, where homeless find shelter in door ways and tourists meander, their faces hidden by maps and sun hats. My everyday life is data mixed with stories, real people who need cancer screenings, real communities that face various difficulties.
I stop for a moment and think of the words of Frederick Buechner: Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.
It's at the end of the day when I hold out my hands in a physical gesture of surrender. We are doing our evening prayers, a discipline we began three years ago. We stand with our faces lifted toward icons: The Christ Pantocrator, the Theotokos, and our particular saints - St. Sophia, St. Mary of Egypt, and St. Isaac the Syrian. A tall, thin beeswax candle made by nuns at a monastery is our only light, but it is enough.
There is something about this evening prayer time, something about this physical opening of my hands in release. Those things that I have worried about and held tight, the backpack full of burdens, even the pain in my body is held out to God. It's during evening prayers that I fully accept what I know to be true - I can't do it alone. This thing called life is too much for me. There is too much hurt, too much sadness, too much pain. I cannot go to bed with all this - I must release it.
So I do.With hands lifted up, I give it all to God. I pray the words "Visit and heal our infirmities for thy name's sake."
For those few moments, all that matters is this time where earth drifts away and Heaven seems a bit closer.