Answer to Prayer
Proper 5 The Sunday closest to June 8
O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your
inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by
your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by
your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Collect prays for God’s help in thinking and doing the right thing. How is one to know that the prayer is being answered? Some would say that our every thought, word (because speaking is action, doing), and deed should meet the test of Scripture, and if this is the case, then we know. A problem with this is in our propensity for “proof-texting,” finding in the Bible the rationalization for our thoughts, words and deeds; because if one knows just where to look, or searches with determination, one can find a verse to “prove” whatever one intends to justify. By that misuse of Scripture, people have “justified” every meanness, bigotry and hatred since time out of mind, and still do so; all one needs is a Bible verse. That, of course, is not the sense of the Collect.
Summertime when school is out gives me an opportunity to check out the Bill Lloyd Building, the old Cove School at 205 Hamilton Avenue, where I was a student from September 1941 to May 1949, and that is now our Holy Nativity Episcopal School. We have eleven grades on campus, three-year-old kindergarten through eighth grade. As a member of the Holy Nativity School Foundation that owns the property (which we have leased to the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast for the school’s use) my responsibilities, privileges, and special joys, are as “landlord” and include keeping an eye on this beloved property that is right in the heart of my very being. And trying to help make it best for the students. Comfort is always in mind, for example, and the Foundation has been having the windows tinted in a few of the classrooms that are heated up by the sun. The tint cuts 95% of the sun’s infrared rays and 75% of the sun's heat from entering the classroom, and makes a marvelous difference in comfort for these light, airy classrooms. At the moment we’re having the windows tinted in the computer classroom, which gets the sun as well as the heat from the thirty or so computers in the room; and also considering having ceiling fans installed in that one classroom for air circulation. This, happily, has me in the building this week.
The school is best when filled with children, especially mornings when they are arriving happily at school for eight o’clock class, and the chatter in the south end of the hall when the middle schoolers are getting stuff from their lockers and changing classes; but it’s a good, holy, even sanctified place, every day, hour, moment year-round, sometimes even midnight hours when I’m the only person strolling the hall. Secretly, it’s my personal chapel: January 2011, early the Sunday morning before heading off to Cleveland for my open-heart surgery-and-the-unknown, I went to the school and wandered the hall and grounds instead of going to church! A person can get a blessing there, in fact, the very place itself is a blessing.
But, the Collect, the Collect for Proper 5. In the hall of the school there are posters that say,
“Treat others the way you want to be treated.” It’s not only the essence of life in an Episcopal school, it’s the answer to the prayer.
Actually, this one between the water cooler and the fire extinguisher might better symbolize Middle School reality.
