Where’s the Faith?

I haven’t written any “faith” posts lately, and faith hasn’t been a central focus of my life over the past few weeks, which I know isn’t “right.” 

Two Sundays ago I stayed home from church to be with Sally, and I’m glad I did. It was the right thing to do. Maybe God even guided me to make that decision–I was up and dressed and ready to go when I decided that I wanted and needed to stay home with her. If I had gone to church and done any of my usual errands on the way home, she would have been gone by the time I got back.

Last weekend I missed church because we were out of town. I don’t usually go to church when I am out of town–I hate being a “visitor” at church–but did enjoy the service that we attended on our last trip to New Orleans. I used Google to look for an Episcopalian church in the town we were visiting and didn’t find one, although I did see one when we were up there (but not until Sunday afternoon), so if we go back maybe I will venture in on a Sunday morning.

I do plan to go to church this Sunday, but I am tempted to take Saturday as another “rest” day to let my knee recover (d@mn fall!) and then run on Sunday instead of going to church. Then there’s next weekend, when I will be out of town on Saturday but home on Sunday, so I again will face the “run or church” dilemma. For me, “church” is the “right” answer, but that doesn’t mean I won’t consider a run instead.

Of course, going to church isn’t the be all and end all of practicing my faith. Reading the Bible and praying probably could be even more important, but I haven’t been doing that either.

I thought that my Parish Discernment Committee work would force me to dedicate some serious time to prayer and reflection, but the woman who thought that she was being called to be a priest has decided that is not the case.  We will have a wrap-up meeting, but that’s all.

Maybe my role on our Stewardship Committee will bring more faith into my life, but that work is pretty practical–I will write a letter as part of our stewarship campaign and help with meeting logistics.  The theme of our Stewardship Campaign is “embracing spiritual hunger, rejecting material greed,” which does resonante with me but I need to figure out how to put that into practice. As part of the campaign our church is having a book study group on Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, by Richard Rohr, but I will be out of town for the first meeting. Maybe I should get the book anyway.

Times of crisis always get me praying, but luckily I haven’t had that reason to practice my faith. I am stressing over the pressure that is now on my son’s upcoming SATs and have prayed over that, but that is more of a “Thy will be done” situation at this point. He took an SAT prep class, he has his study guides to review, and I have confirmed the arrangements for the test date. 

Now that I’ve spent all this time thinking about the lack of active faith in my life lately, I think I should hit “publish” and take some time to reflect and prayer.