Community - Taking One’s Assigned Seat 1-8-10

Anderson, South Carolina

Not so long ago I had the grand fortune of going to Kelowna, British Columbia. While there, riding my bike up and down the surrounding mountains, I had the happy experience of encountering a three-day dragon boat festival that is put on each year. Dozens of long boats from all over the world show up each year to compete. Entrancing to me was the care given to the placement of the twenty two rowers in each boat. Great attention is given to maximizing the strengths of each rower and in placing them optimally so that their weaknesses are complimented by the strengths of a rower sitting just opposite. Everyone knows their places and contributes maximally to the success of the team; not unlike those who participate in an orchestra, knowing their places and giving sway to the guidance of the conductor.

Every Thursday for decades, a group of ‘chronologically gifted’ men has gathered for lunch and prayer in the somewhat spartan parish hall of a local church. These men are far more gifted than merely in the eight plus decades they have strapped onto their life resumes. When these men with average age of about eighty-two years pray, God listens. At least those who are suffering catastrophic life challenges think so.

Every week these quiet gentle intercessors bring the requests of countless people to the group, those who have specifically asked this group to pray for them as they traverse the ravages of cancer, neurologic terrors, failing hearts, and failing economies. As in the E.F. Hutton ads of the 1980s, it seems that everyone stops to listen when they speak. These ‘victims’ of life seem to believe God stops what he is doing in running the universe to act on behalf of those who have encountered staggering misfortune, simply because two dozen men turn up rain or shine with their little brown bags to petition for acts of mercy.

Every year countless books have been written about the power of prayer, testifying to its efficacy. Even well outside of the domain of theology and spiritual practice, one finds books written about the power of this speaking out, of interceding on behalf of those who are no longer able to speak for themselves. The well-known physician Larry Dossey has spent a life time studying the efficacy of prayer. His many books strongly suggest that prayer can be a most powerful therapy for those who have run out of medical options. The compelling question comes to be why prayer is so often used as a last adjunct to treatment instead of as front line therapy. In his works such as Prayer is Good Medicine, and Beyond Illness, Dossey presents a lot of evidence that merely believing in the power of words can be profoundly healing. In his work Space, Time, and Medicine, one is presented with strong evidence suggesting organic disease does not have the last word. The men who gather for lunch on Thursday certainly believe that.

Other secular studies have clearly demonstrated that spoken words of prayer, of blessing or cursing, have profound effects on life forms of many kinds. The power of the spoken word is well documented and the octogenarians who gather on Thursdays have long since move on in their faith and let little get in the way of their convening each week.

A number of times our faithful 91 year old leader of the group, Earle, has mentioned that he prays for all of us every single night by name. As a visual learner, he makes it a point to go around the six tables in his mind, visualizing each of us in our usual place and then making petitions that are often heard. Some of us have been through the most unimagined nightmares in life and the prayers of Earle and those of our fellow intercessors have brought many of us back from the abyss.

Yesterday Earle commented on his regular practice of praying for us around the tables each night. He noted that when we are late arriving and don’t take our usual seats, he has some difficulty praying for all of us during his night prayers because we are not where he expects us to be. It seems that we are creatures of habit and we really do tend to sit in the very same places week after week. Earle is a creature of habit and prays for us in a particular sequence each night.

Suddenly, it occurred to me that I actually have a special place of my own, not one on a folding chair in the southwest corner of a cinder block parish hall, rather one in the heart of a man that has been seeking the heart of God for nine decades. Suddenly, I knew I was in a really safe place. Suddenly, I knew that by taking my ‘assigned’ place, I was going to have a man of faith acting on my behalf to negotiate the sometimes rather turbulent waters of life. By taking my place I knew my weaknesses were going to be complemented by the strength of his faith grown over ninety-one years.

One of the most revered examples of faith is the account in the gospel of Mark of the paralytic who is let down through the roof of a house on his pallet so he could be near Jesus. The account states the man was healed because of the faith of those who carried him to the roof.

One might question why I, with wavering faith, have been admitted into this august group of septuagenarians and octogenarians with their steadfast faith. Perhaps, they humor me, or have hope that I might finally get with the program. In the meantime I try to experience a coattail effect, much like the paralytic did. During the past years I have been pulled back from more than one vortex. I believe my present good fortune and bucolic life derives in great part from taking a place with this group and making sure I sit in the same place each week.

I plan on making a greater effort at showing up on time so I don’t get bumped from First Class.

“For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears unto their supplication.”

“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”