the world can wait

Liberating God,
your Son taught us to pray
for your kingdom to come on earth
as it is in heaven.
Let your kingdom come;
let justice roll like a river
and righteousness like a never-ending stream.
Let your will be done;
let those who mourn be comforted
and those in bondage be set free.
Strengthen our hope in you, O God,
for we long for your everlasting reign. AMEN
(from the Anabaptist hymnal, 732)

This week while at orientation, I discovered the Mennonite hymnal. It hasn't been used very much during orientation, but other orientees who grew up Mennonite or Brethren-in-Christ seem to be very familiar with it.

Not me. I grew up high Lutheran, got saved Pentecostally, attended a no-dancing-please-Baptist college, Knew-God-and-Made-Him-Known with interndenominational global nomads, ran away for a time to the local Catholic archdiocese, inhaled the heavy fragrance of Russian Orthodoxy while studying abroad, pondered Coldplay's profundity at a so-called emergent, communal house-church during grad school, and learned rhythm and soul while a member of Park Avenue United Methodist Church's gospel choir in inner city Minneapolis this past year and a half. There isn't much new under the sun when it comes to Christianity for me.

So it was surprising when this hymnal entranced me.

Most of the songs are foreign to me. The few we've sung strike me as simple and solid, like the whole-grain bread served up in the cafeteria here. One recent chorus did make me tear up but - honestly - that doesn't take much lately, especially if there is four-part harmony and references to a better land.

It's not the songs that capture me. Even in their simplicity, I'm worn down by all the sharps and chords encasing the lyrics like an ornate, gilded frame. "Too much bling-bling", as my old Somali coworker Awil loved to say.

Rather, I'm talking about the prayers: those final poems sequestered in the back of the book, economically bundled four to a sheet in keeping with Mennonite frugality. It's where I keep heading, using my soul like a Hoover vacuum to greedily suck them up.

They are short and stripped and honest, the Raymond Carver or William Carlos William of Christian prayers. I love them.

God of community,
whose call is more insistent
than ties of family or blood;
may we so respect and love
those whose lives are linked with ours
that we fail not in loyalty to you,
but make choices according to your will,
through Jesus Christ. AMEN
(736)

I know every tradition has these wonderful liturgical treasures tucked away, hidden only because we quickly lose eyes to see their truths. But if we have the good fortune of encountering them for the first time, like me with these; or if we step away for a time and then return again - particularly following a spiritual diet of Things Which Don't Satisfy (be that anthropological relativity or America's New Top Model)... then that return is not unlike backpacking on a mountain trail all day.

You are sweaty and grimy, trapped beneath a dense canopy of thick vegetation, the trail stiffling you with its heat and isolation, dark shadows depressing you, your eyes fatiguing from scouring for daylight which surely must still exist beyond this prison of decaying pine needles, humidity, and murkiness. The witching hour has come - you turn yet another blind corner when suddenly you break out beyond the treeline: into the open, maybe into a mountain glade you didn't know to expect. There's a cool breeze, pure and honest sunshine hits you from above, and - your ears perk up - you even see a mountain stream. You drop the pack immediately, tear off your shoes, and jump right in. Sweet relief.

That's what it can be like. Believe me.

I know my prose is anything but minimalist. Maybe that's why I'm so glad to have discovered the Mennonite hymnal.

Transforming God,
you come to us in expected and unexpected ways,
desiring to be known yet remaining a mystery.
Make your presence known among us.
Confront us.
Wrestle with us.
Change us, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN
(735)