JULY 31st – It’s Friday and Sunday’s Comin’!

WOW. Anne Lamott calls it the third great prayer:

…Wow is often offered with a gasp, a sharp intake of breath, when we can’t think of another way to capture the sigh of shocking beauty or destruction, of a sudden unbidden insight or an unexpected flash of grace. “Wow” means we are not dulled to wonder. We click into being fully present when we’re stunned into that gasp, by the sight of a birth, or images of the World Trade Center towers falling, or the experience of being in a fjord, at dawn, for the first time. “Wow” is about having one’s mind blown by the mesmerizing or the miraculous: the veins in a leaf, birdsong, volcanoes. (p. 71, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott).

“WOW” is a prayer that can be uttered with a hushed gasp of “look what you’re doing, Lord!” or a wondering question, “what does it all mean, Lord?”

Life in a pandemic brings us to the prayer of Wow. Overwhelming dismay, of course. Also stunning appreciation for the ways people are finding new ways to adjust, care for one another, protect each other. WOW. Nothing is easy right now it seems, but God continues to teach us, lead us, stir up in us the power of love. WOW.

I look forward to seeing you in worship on Sunday — either in person or online so that we can share our prayers of WOW and lift each other up in the transforming grace of God.

Blessings always,
Pastor Mary