Chapter 3: Where to Hang Your Soul
WHERE TO HANG YOUR SOUL
EVERY Sunday morning in our church we repeat a creed. You know what it says, “I believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.” There’s a statement that has nothing whatever to do with my personal opinions or emotions. It’s a statement of objective fact, accepted by faith, and when I stand up in the company of other Christians and repeat this statement I am not talking about myself at all. The only thing I am saying about myself is that I submit to these truths. This is where I stand; this is Reality.
Very often (nearly always, I’m afraid) when I come to church my feelings are uppermost in my mind. This is natural. We are human, we are “selves,” and it takes no effort at all to feel. But worship is not feeling. Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We are to worship “in spirit and in truth.” Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.
Finding my thoughts scattered in all directions and in need of corralling like so many skittish calves, I kneel before the service begins and ask to be delivered from a vague preoccupation with myself and my own concerns and to be turned, during this short hour, to God. Often the words of the Jesus Prayer, which I learned from a book about a Russian pilgrim who spent his life seeking to know the full meaning of it, help in this “corralling”:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.” Orthodox Christians pray this over and over, in the rhythm of breathing. This prayer has rescued me from wordlessness in many places quite different from church services.
When I stand to say the creed I am lifted up to eternal verities, far past the trivialities of how I feel, what I must do after church, what so-and-so said or did to me. I hang my soul on those strong pegs, those “I believe’s.” And I am strengthened.
Sometimes we sing St. Patrick’s great hymn:
I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One, and One in Three.
I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, his might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.[1]
If in fact I do believe these great things we say and sing together, then those little things (and what is not little by comparison?) will be taken care of. I take my position, I get my bearings. I need to do this often —more often, it seems, in these days when so many have altogether lost their bearings.