rainbows.

My friend Megan goes to the same church as me. Every Thursday night, from September to June, I have dinner with Megan and her mom. It’s a high-point of my week and when I’m with them, I feel blessed and loved and understood. Megan is five years old and she has autism.

We met when Megan was two and her mom would bring her to a store where I worked. In those first days, Megan was in a stroller and couldn’t walk on her own. She had no verbal skills and would almost never make eye contact. She was in her own world and had very few bridges to let others in.

Megan and I have come a long way from those days. We now see each other at church instead of the mall and Megan walks and talks and makes connections with lots of people. She still has trouble making eye contact and needs a reminder to use her words but from those first days of our friendship—she is a different child.

Along this path we’ve walked together I have been so blessed by this little girl who is truly a friend. Megan has taught me the truth of unexpected, undeserved, and truly unconditional, love. Not because of how I have come to love her, but because of how she has loved me.

In the beginning and still in many ways to this day, Megan thinks highly of only three people—her mom, her first teacher, and me. For no reason what-so-ever, Megan took it upon herself to love me. And no one loves as an autistic child loves. With Megan I am invited into a new world. A world that exists inside and around and throughout this mundane world that everyone else sees.

In this world there are mysteries around every corner. In this world, green is a magic and wonderful and most beautiful color and it should be on every surface we can possibly touch. In this world there should always be frosting and no cake. In this world, chocolate is made out of moon sand and a broken lightbulb is as dire and distressing as a broken heart.

With Megan I eat tacos from the inside out and bananas from the bottom down. And I watercolor just to color water.

Megan has given me tools I never knew I needed. I’ve learned to embrace my life in a way that I didn’t do before her and couldn’t do without her. Through my friendship with Megan and her mom, I have met other children with autism. And I have begun to open my eyes to the beauty of God’s creation. A beauty that makes itself known in tubs full of lima beans and rice and in purple shaving cream.

Today I sat in a circle with seven of these children—my new friends—and watched them making music with colored bells. After the last resounding chorus a tiny voice reached up from next to me and whispered, that sound was a rainbow. It was the best secret I’ve ever been told.

cel•e•brate

cel·e·brate – to make known publicly; to proclaim; to praise widely or to present to widespread and favorable public notice; to have or participate in a party

What if every moment of worship was a celebration? Imagine if each praised-filled moment we spent with him was filled with games and balloons and cotton candy. And spinning round and round with our arms stretched straight out until we fell and looked up at the twirling world around us.

Sometimes all that we see is that swirling, twirling, out of control world. We can be distracted from the calm and beauty and grace of the flowers on the trees and the colors on each bird and the music within us and around us. Yet still we are invited into this daily celebration! Every moment—alone or together, in the front or falling back, happy or hurried—every moment is an invitation to join the party.

Bring your friends and your family and your gifts and feel the rush of worship around you! Sing or dance or clap your hands! Laugh and love and learn—and don’t forget the joy of spinning round and round with your arms stretched out. And of falling into arms that will catch you and cradle you with love.

prayer.

One of my favorite things during the contemporary worship at my church is the prayer time. It’s the communal aspect of sharing prayer requests—the painful and the praise-filled, the simple and the profound. I find my perspective is widened when I hear what others are going through in their lives. It reminds me of the grace of God in our lives as individuals but in that special time of worship, I glimpse what God is doing in our one united life as a church.

Prayer in a personal sense and in my everyday life has always been a difficult thing for me. I find the most meaning in personal prayer when I speak out loud. I am not an on-my-knees kind of pray–er, nor do my prayers ever have much structure. Those rare nights when I do take the time to pray, as I 'lay me down to sleep' I struggle with feeling foolish. Foolish in the things I say which at times seem without depth or honest substance. In my head and in my heart, I know that all things should be taken to God in prayer, but in my gut I often feel petty, selfish, self-righteous, hypocritical and superficial.

Those times I ‘pray the Lord my soul to keep’—I’m not thinking about peace or the environment or wasted resources or consumerism or Tibet or women’s rights or gay & lesbian rights or tolerance or discernment for the church. I care deeply about all these things and more, but I don’t find myself bringing any of these things to my conversation with God. Instead I am plagued by prayer requests, pleas really, of a much lower variety. Help me stop eating fast food at midnight. Help me make music again—my music. Help me start exercising. Help me not feel guilty so often. Lead me not into temptation. Deliver me from evil. Help me love myself.

Prayer is a funny thing. We have unison prayers, prayers of confession, pastoral prayers, prayers for peace, the Lord’s Prayer, prayers of the people, prayer responses, a National Day of Prayer. In January, my church congregation and several others shared in an ecumenical prayer celebration to recognize a week of prayer for Christian unity. We sat on cold pew benches in Saint Brigid of Kildare Catholic Church and sang hymns and songs meant to unite us in spirit and purpose. Different denominations were represented throughout the service in the welcome, the confession, unison readings, scripture; all the elements of the service were shared. And, of course, we prayed. The celebration was titled: Pray Without Ceasing.

In her message, the pastor spoke of the Holy Spirit as a river running underground. Although pools may form on the surface, the river is constant. It is in motion below us and we do not need to see it or touch it or hear it for the water to flow. Like that river, the Holy Spirit is below us and above us and around us. And we do not need to see it or touch it or hear it for it to carry our prayers in its current.

In truth, God doesn’t require a structured, formulated prayer in order to hear my needs and know what is in my heart. God knows my pain and distress about peace and the environment and all human rights and about the church. I am loved and heard and cared about. I am riding the river and sometimes I see its presence in pools of assurance and springs of grace. But even when I feel dried up or barren or hopeless, the river rages on under me and above me and all around me.

“ Always be joyful. Never stop praying.
Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will
for you to belong to Christ Jesus.
Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.
Do not scoff at prophecies,
but do test everything that is said.
Hold on to what is good.
Stay away from every kind of evil.
May the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body
be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.
God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. ”
—from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (New Living Translation)