Praying

It was on a quiet hill called Tao Fung Shan (the mountain of the wind of the way). Behind me Hong Kong swarmed with tens of thousands of desperately poor street-dwelling refugees. In front of me lay Mao’s China where as many as 3 million were starving because of his misguided Great Leap Forward. Around me were the young restless teenagers facing a most uncertain future. We sat under a naked white cross inscribed with only two black Chinese characters pronounced, “sing leo” meaning “It is finished.” I prayed for the terrible past to be finished, the unsettling present to be handled, and that the future to be open. The voiced ‘Ah-moon” of us all, the end of the prayer, came from deep within and floated heavenward in doubt, faith and hope.

The auditorium in Disney Land was still tense. Among the 2000 there, some were anxious. Some rejoiced. Others feared. Some threatened. Some cursed. It was the end of an exceedingly stormy session of a large churchwide convention. All day in the name of God people had fought like the devil. I had been asked to lead the closing prayer at the end of the day. So I began, “Dear God, those of your children called the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have kept you very busy today...”

The other passengers were already off the plane at the Lincoln Nebraska airport. Only my seatmate whom I had met an hour earlier and I remained. She was not sure she had the courage to get off the plane to face her father. She planned to inform him, a Lutheran pastor, that she had filed for divorce. She feared her father would be angry, disown her, damn her to hell; or maybe ... understand, forgive, support. While the flight attendant waited I held her folded hands in mine and we prayed.

Only two of us stood before the simple altar in the chapel at Maxwell Air Force Base where I was conducting a weeklong workshop for military chaplains. The Jewish chaplain and I were the only ones in the room. He had invited me to come with him as he prayed. Yesterday I had been in the much larger Catholic Chapel where the Catholic chaplains had violated official policy and had invited me (a non-Catholic) to share with them the sacred elements of the holy mass. And just two days previous some 20 of us had held hands surrounding the altar of the Protestant Chapel where together we prayed saying, “Our Father in heaven”.

The eyes of all wait upon you, oh Lord.