It is Right to Give Him Thanks and Praise

I was a first-time visitor at a church today that seems to be a unique blend of at least two traditions (or non-traditions) that I’ve had experience with in the past.

When I connect with assembled Christians for worship, message and communion, typically for me (and like most believers) we are (or should be) listening and searching for something that personally connects us to Jesus in a deeper, meaningful way. We are looking for some substantive something.

For me, it can be anything from a particular song selected, or scripture text/message to a inward, conversational “still, small voice” experience with God. It could be anything, everything or nothing that we take away from some assembly of believers at any given time.

Today, as I listened, observed and contemplated a number of things, there seemed to be an internal highlighting of a well-familiar phrase of liturgy: It is Right to Give Him Thanks and Praise.

Because, as I recall off the top of my head, it is good and right at all times and in all ways to give thanks….it is a holy and pleasing thing…because in His great mercy…

These days I have mixed feelings about a plethora of things as I occasionally take baby steps exploring where I might better locally connect with Christians, and this definitely includes liturgy. Not all who wander are lost, however. But, it can appear to me that I’m most definitely at a loss in a number of ways, on a number of fronts.

In fact, I feel I am facing deep and seemingly-unending life battles/spiritual assaults on just about every possible front–pressed on every side, as Paul might say, in some other context. It can feel like some War of Attrition or possibly, being seemingly hit with wave upon wave Blitzkrieg, somewhat like Job. But, as I’ve written here before, it is good and right that we be slow to identify with Job since I doubt any of us are at the same blameless starting point of that man in the well-known account of quite a remarkable series of devastating losses and distresses. (For those interested, I started a series of my very personal thoughts on the book of Job last year but my circumstances have brought that ongoing series of reflections to a seeming halt, at the moment….)

I will go on to comment here about the rightness of giving God thanks and praise, especially as the Church celebrates Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry of King Jesus into His ultimate ordeal with all that could be most wrong in this world. But for a moment out of curiosity, I will search the actual full and accurate text of The Great Thanksgiving, that is used in the Episcopal/Anglican traditions. After doing so it appears that my top-of-head memory is not too perfect, but I suppose it is interesting that I think generally of phrases such as holy, pleasing and God’s great mercy.

I feel like when I hear Episcopalian/Anglican liturgy, every word is quite familiar in the moment and my memory can kick it to many responsive parts without reading. In fact, at times in my Christian life when I’ve more deeply embraced liturgy, it has been important to me to do as much from memory as possible and literally put aside the references.

I just personally have experienced it that way. I would rather be a second delayed in the united voices, or stand silent and listen, than to mindlessly recite. Not saying that those who read (which I also must do given my faulty memory!) are doing it wrong. I’m just saying that my past life-season of encounter with such liturgy came after well over twenty-five years in evangelical/charismatic circles where liturgy was mostly frowned upon.

But since every church I’ve ever been part of has been some mess in some ways (some more than others) and especially as soon as I enter in it’s an even more mess because I’m a human mess (I’m making a play on some meme/quote I once heard along the lines of “there being no perfect church because as soon as I show up I bring my imperfections!”) I’m not picking on liturgy per se.

In fact, I felt touched today by the reminder that It is Right to Give Him Thanks and Praise.

I often think upon the concept-word of shalom, or all that is good, right and holy in the world and the juxtaposition of the world increasingly seeming very upside-down. In fact, I like the term South of Eden. It feels to me both on a personal level and as I look all around me these days that things are not just in that directional land of Cain’s banishment from the Garden, nor Steinbeck’s East of Eden, but as they say, it has gone far South.

I came away today with some good, connecting experiences, but I also came away on my drive home and into this time of writing with a sense of anger. This is not an anger at God, but it seems to be a general anger at the number of things affecting me personally and the number of things that involve my family, and by extension, the number of deeply destructive things that seem to be swallowing up all that is good, right and holy in this world.

“But although the wrong seems ‘oft so strong…God is the Ruler yet.”

I often feel that I’m quite a complicated person–and I am, in ways, as we all are–but the bass note and structure of my many ins-and-outs and thwarted, frustrated desires is and always has been for all of my adult life really quite simple:

Love God ~ Love Others ~ Love Life

Holy Darkness (Songwriter: Daniel L Schutte)

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven’s answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night

I have tried you in fires of affliction
I have taught your soul to grieve
In the barren soil of your loneliness
There will I plant my seed

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven’s answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night

I’ve taught you the prize of compassion
You have stood before the grave
Though my love can seem
Like a raging storm
This is the love that saves

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven’s answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night
In your deepest hour of darkness
I will give you wealth untold
When the silence stills your spirit
Will my riches fill your soul

Holy darkness, blessed night
Heaven’s answer hidden from my sight
As we await you, O God of silence
We embrace your holy night