St. Mary Abbots, Kensington
When it was decided by officials in British Airways that I should be granted the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world for thirty days, it soon became evident that there was to be much more to this experience than hopping on free airplanes and doing the tourist thing. The world in its titanic struggles was certainly not in need of more tourists. Perhaps it does need more explorers making a very special kind of voyage. After nearly a week into my expedition, I gained powerful evidence of the true nature of my voyage.
In ancient writings, dating as far back as twenty six centuries, during the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Daniel prayed that the king’s officials would have a change of heart and allow him and his companions to observe Jewish practices that were important in their devotional lives. It is recorded that the commissioners had favor on Daniel and granted him his wish, contrary to all the accepted practices in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. These early writings also document that Daniel and his companions became highly effective in their appointed roles in Nebuchadnezzar’s government.
Some years ago I was facing a situation in my own life that required a decision by government authorities; one that would have long lasting financial consequences of great magnitude in my life. For a number of weeks before this decision was to be forthcoming, I found myself praying exactly as Daniel did; that the hearts of the officials concerning me would have a favorable disposition towards me. With no legal representation I was granted a profoundly favorable decision. I found myself thinking of the ancient imperative, attributed to Paul, a former member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us,”
Today I found myself again doing exactly the same thing, praying for a change of heart, only this time it was not with respect to those in authority; it was with regards to a common thief. One does not think of thieves as listening to prayers of the disenfranchised, but I had few other options.
At mid-day I was again drawn into one of those quiet numinous sanctuaries that provide repose for the soul. Twelve and a half million people crowded into a small space can create a lot of noise and chaos. I had just completed several hours of tedious photo work in a poorly lit palace, work requiring me to get down on all fours and to perform contortions of all sorts. While walking back to the subway station I noticed a gothic portal leading into a vaulted cloister. Ever curious, I followed it through to find myself alone in a vast space illuminated with the iridescent glow of ancient stained glass. Instantly, I was in the moment, perhaps too much so. The sunlight cascading through the million prisms of brilliantly colored glass along with clear light from above created a pearlescent sensibility that was almost breath taking. Alone in this grand sanctuary, armed with two cameras, I endeavored to capture the visual essence of this magnificent parish church.
At one point I turned around to look at a magnificent window in the transept and make an image of it with my secondary camera. Turning back around seconds later my primary, very expensive camera was gone. No one had even been near me, as the church was nearly empty, except two women who wandered into the back of the church. With a leaden dismay I knew that some of my best photo work ever had been taken from me. I had been ‘worked.’ Those images could have no possible value to anyone else and that camera would quickly prove useless without the special voltage adapters and chargers needed to make it work on European current. All I wanted was the images on that little blue chip of plastic, worth perhaps $6 on a good day.
I thought back to the miraculous healing of my leg and deliverance from surgery six weeks ago. I thought back to other amazing documented miracles I have experienced. Could there be yet one more? Could a thief actually be compelled to bring my camera back? Did God really care if one tourist got his camera back? Thieves bag cameras all the time and people don’t get them back. But, this wasn’t about cameras, not at all. There are ten thousand cameras for sale within walking distant of St Mary Abbots and I have plenty of credit cards. A better replacement could be had in five minutes. It became profoundly important to know that God was operating this far down into the affairs of my life.
For an hour I and several others paced up and down every part of St Mary Abbots looking for that camera, knowing that it really was gone. One of the women praying up front even offered to let me search her purse. I swiftly declined. I finally left the church, disheartened that my numinous experience of such a sacred place had been sullied by a thief who really didn’t know anything about taking her shoes off on holy ground. Over reactive, I wondered why I had bothered to come.
Taking the subway back to the university, it occurred to me it could have been far worse. I took inventory. I am in the habit of uploading and indexing all of my photo work each night. I have a couple thousand other images already safely archived. I could have lost them all. In my secondary camera I still have some images of my morning work in the palace and even some of St. Mary Abbot. The purpose of my journey was not in jeopardy. I had not been mugged and injured in a dark alley. My wallet had not been stolen. I had options. I could get another camera and go back to the palace, and even come back here, if I wanted to.
After writing some correspondence and taking a bit of lunch, I remembered that I am on a journey of a life time, and sulking in my room was not part of my itinerary. I decided I would go to the zoo, an activity especially suited to a Sunday afternoon. I eventually got to the zoo, where I was quite taken with the quality of the education work going on in the exhibitions. I fell into rather pleasing conversation with a zoologist in charge of a walk-through butterfly house. Distracted by his commanding knowledge of butterflies and the cooperation of the butterflies, I was able to get some really fine images of them with my remaining camera. There I was in one of the world’s great zoos after all the other visitors were gone, being a rapt student of entomology. Life was evening out again for me.
After finally being tossed out of the zoo so the staff could go home for dinner, I rode three trains back to St. Mary Abbots. The whole time I was wandering in the zoo I was asking that God might prove He really does have the last word and that it is always a good one. I wanted to know he was in charge of my life, not a thief. Even Zbignew Drecki was able to figure out that God was in charge of his life, and not his Nazi keepers who kept him locked up and tortured in death camps for five years. He said that he knew God had a plan for his life despite it including a detour through a man-made hell. Losing a camera is not hell, but if Drecki could make such a declaration about God’s omniscience, then I wanted to be able to do so in the trivial matter of being detoured by this theft. I knew the answer would be found in my returning to St. Mary Abbots.
Could there actually be waiting there this incredible miracle of a thief having had a change of heart, coming back to this church, and depositing aluminum and plastic proof that prayer works? I wasn’t going to miss finding out? The evening service was already started by the time I arrived, so would have to wait an hour to make inquiry of the staff. I slipped into a pew and had only intermittent attentiveness to the proceedings. Would this camera turn up so that I could declare the goodness of God? Does declaring the goodness of God require the retrieval of my camera? Obviously not, but some of us are a bit infantile in our faith. Is there something here in the midst of these two dozen old people in this vast space that can speak to those vast cosmopolitan young hordes outside chasing a thousand vanities?
During the communion I attempted to remind myself of what really is important. My spiritual well being and serenity are far more important. Nurturing the faith of others is far more compelling than my touristic pastimes. After the service a hospitable woman asked me how I was, sensing a bit of discomfiture in my affect. I gave her a brief account of my loss. She then suggested I see the priest. The priest suggested I see the Verger. The Verger suggested I see the Warden. All were gracious and the Warden suggested I leave my e-mail in case something turned up. Fat chance. Thieves don’t usually repent.
Again, the whole place cleared and I was alone with the staff. They agreed it would be really important for a miracle of some sort to happen. They sensed the need for something to de-stain my experience in their parish. I actually had a season of pleasing fellowship in the sacristy with Susan, the Warden, who commiserated with me. We agreed meeting was a happy business, only for the wrong reason.
This hospitable staff too wanted to go home to dinner. I felt compelled to walk around the back of the sanctuary despite the main door already being closed and locked; the staff waiting at the other door for me to get moving. Rounding the back I saw my camera sitting in absolutely plain open view, in a place I and others had looked a dozen times in full daylight. Suddenly there was no great urgency to closing up, just yet.
In this vast city of frenzied, often lonely millions, God is still speaking to hearts. The same God who talked to Nebuchadnezzar’s commissioners, to Nazi prisoners, and to United States government officials, talks to thieves who lurk in church, even telling them to come back for the evening service and to make an offering. Those two dozen old people really are on the inside track. It seems that the One who really can hear their prayers shows up in this place, staying ahead of the thieves.
Recently while on a plane I met a theoretical physicist who has lived an immense life, blessed in all measures beyond the conception of most of us lesser mortals. She describes working in the most prestigious scientific facilities on earth and working with stimulating people who will capture the next crop of Nobel prizes in physics. She is one of the most intelligent intuitive people I have crossed in all my journeys. Here I was on the beginning of a thirty-day dream voyage around the world, and what she described in her life made mine seem utterly trivial and ordinary. Yet, she tells me “I am in a country where I truly am completely alone and isolated”. Yes, really bad things happen; she has had some really difficult things happen, far beyond thieves snagging cameras in church. Yet, I can’t but wonder who is having the last word on her behalf. Is some kind of thief stealing her hope and dreams? Has she been sold a bill of goods? Something that defies analysis in the greatest cyclotrons on earth? She tells me “I've run out of the good stuff. I believe the rest of my life to be rather troublesome and full of worries.” I wonder what little wizard is behind the curtain pulling levers to make this message even believable.
Daniel and his companions experienced the anxiety of long-term foreign exile and captivity, to begin with. Drecki was certainly isolated and lonely in the hell of Auschwitz, to begin with. I have had plenty of abject loneliness in big cities where I could not even read street signs. Yet, as did these others, I have recently come to a place where I can experience serene contented solitude rather than desperate loneliness and isolation. I am in a city of more than twelve million and don’t know a soul here to call on the phone, yet I am now content. Curiously, ‘my’ physicist wonders if I am involved in the world I write about, if I feel it. She eloquently observes the ‘narrator’s voice’ is a bit detached from the world I describe; perhaps I am merely a voyeur. This is the misunderstood luxury of solitude. I can very much enjoy being an observer, as a dear minister friend describes me, a flaneur; one who wanders and collects experiences to share with others.
Henri Nouwen so well described the essential primary spiritual journey from loneliness to solitude and its sequel, a journey from hostility to hospitality, and finally an ultimate journey from illusion to prayer. With these journeys completed we become whole contented people able to enjoy sublime communion with the One who has the last word. This communion is the ultimate voyage we can make. Even British Airways can’t help me with this one.
In 1840 Thomas Cole completed an epic series of four paintings called “The Voyages of Life”. In each painting, accompanied by a guardian angel, the voyager rides in a boat on the River of Life. The landscape, corresponding to seasons of the year, plays a major role in telling the story. In each image, the boat's direction of travel is reversed from the prior painting. In childhood, the infant flows from a dark cave into a rich, green landscape. As a youth, he takes control of the boat and aims for a gleaming castle in the sky. In manhood, he relies on prayer and religious faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity.
The reality depicted in these paintings is inevitable. I can expect troubles in life, stolen cameras and much worse, but I have it on good authority from declarations written down nearly thirty centuries ago, that He who guides my boat along the River of Life “knows the thoughts I have for you, thoughts for good, not for evil, and plans that will give you hope and a future.”
Prayer works. Just ask a repentant thief.
Craig C. Johnson
2009 Winner, British Airways Face to Face
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