To be of use

Yesterday was the first "Worship in the Woods" at Camp Christian.  Wendy suggested that we try this and I said yes to making it happen and designed and led the worship.  I wasn't sure how many would come and was delighted to have 12 in attendance - some staff, some counselors who arrived early, audrey, Melanie and me and Wendy.

What I wanted was worship that was quiet, meditative and interactive.  We decided that it would be low tech and so no issues about sound system - just some people gathering at vesper spot to worship God.  What I wanted was to create an environment where people would hear or see God.  So we had times of silence and looking and listening in creation, singing, praying, hearing and "digesting" the word of God and the ritual of communion.  It is what I want when I worship - a sense of spirit and sponteneity and also structure.

While I was there Wendy asked me to be the chaplain for this week and, of course, I said yes.  Soon I will be driving up there to attend a counselors meeting.  And later in the week I will meet with Wendy, the camp director, and Ted  (camp superintendant) for conversation and prayer. As always, I don't know what I am doing, but I trust that my little bit of effort will be graced by God's spirit and that more will happen than I know.

I spent some time this morning looking for a reading to take up to the group and found one called "A Step Along the Way" written by Bishop Ken Untener for Oscar Romero's funeral.  That is not what I am going to share here though.

As I looked through my file of prayers and poems I  found this one.  I don't know the circumstances, through which I found it - but it spoke to me this morning and  here it is.

To be of use

By Marge Piercy

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.