Grounded and Open
I have been an evangelist for NBC’s The Americas on Sunday nights at 7:00. It is a mesmerizing blend of my childhood favorites, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and The Wonderful World of Walt Disney, both of which also aired on Sunday nights. Narrated by the everyman Tom Hanks, The Americas explores a different ecosystem each week, from the Arctic north to the tip of South America. The technicolor, camera sophistication, and captivating storytelling about our planet’s beauty and its creaturely inhabitants will leave you gaping every week, unable to comprehend, “How did they do that?” At the same time, you’ll find yourself inspired by the detail and beauty of God’s imagination. It is a “wilderness” experience of a completely different kind, yet connected to what we traditionally mean when we talk about being in the wilderness—like the people of Israel, like Jesus, and like us during this Lenten season.
In both The Americas and our individual wilderness experiences, we are given the opportunity to re-ground ourselves in the awe and wonder of God, who is ever-present all around us—dazzling us and beckoning for our attention. In both instances, we are given the opportunity to see a much bigger picture than the small worldview that too often dominates our sight, hearing, and emotions.
In The Americas—as in our prayer time and places, wherever they are—we are given a different vantage point, one that enlarges and inspires us by reminding us that our creating and re-creating God is always our starting point. But how do we attain and sustain that perspective?
St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 15th-century Basque Catholic priest and theologian who helped found the religious order called the Society of Jesus, gives us a tool to center our prayer lives on God rather than ourselves. Known as the “Surrender Prayer” or the “Emptying Prayer,” St. Ignatius invites us to pray:
“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.
All I have and call my own, you have given to me. To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace; that is enough for me. Amen.”
As we enter the home stretch of this Lenten journey toward Jerusalem, I pray that you empty what needs to be emptied, ground yourself in God, and open yourself to being filled with God’s technicolor love and peace. Amen.
Yours in Christ,
Matt Gaston, Lead Pastor
