For God alone my soul in silence waits; *
from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, *
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken.
In God is my safety and my honor; psalm 62:1, 7

As I read this i thought about how we wait on God. Do we only wait in the quiet of our private devotions? Am I waiting on him, when I get miserable about something, or disappointed in how others behave and react. Do we wait on him during the church services.

My mind gets muddled as I now start thinking about how we do church and the quietness of our worship as compared to that of others. I reflect on the concert we had last Sunday. The noisiness but ‘worshipfulness’ of it was ‘awefilling’ (When your vocabulary is limited you make your own words). It was different from Church.

As I reflect on that experience I can’t help but think of what happens on a Sunday morning as I experience the service. I don’t always feel the participation of the congregation. I maybe wrong but it feels like we are doing it by rote. Like the worshipers are far removed from what I am experiencing. It does not feel as if the reciting of the prayers and the familiarity of the hymns are providing comfort, healing and confidence in our way of life. It does not feel as if the congregation believes that God is there rock and strength. Many times it just seems mindless to me. I do my best to emphasize and make interjections to see if the experience I receive from the congregation can be
different.

My God is a different kind.

I broke from preparing this, as somebody called to check on me. Before I came back to writing, I checked my email and in a devotion the writer – Fr. Glen Chun, of the Society of the Jesuits, a priest of the Midwest Province, and community minister of Bellarmine House of Studies in St. Louis. using a different passage reflects on the same thing. God knew I needed an answer to my present disquiet.

Father Chun says “It never ceases to surprise me how automatic and lackadaisical—in a thoughtless, mindless, and mind-wandering sort of way—I repeat the prayers and responses in worship and Mass. I consider how automatically I make the sign of the cross, recite the Our Father prayer, and even receive communion; and I recall how little recall I have of the readings at Mass or the Eucharistic prayers or the homily. “
He considers this familiarity a gift while at the same time acknowledges that we can

fall into the trap of being superficial in our worship. It is my greatest fear, hence I do my best to pray and say the words in a meaningful way, in an effort for us to pay attention. Fr. Chun says offering our whole attention is to share our full selves with the Lord and to be present with God. Therefore when we in silence wait on God we are offering ourselves to God to do as God wills.

So we wait on God at all times even when we don’t realize it. Because God works out everything in due time. He is the rock we hold on to when the mind becomes muddled. God becomes the stay the constant in our overthinking. Be with us, Lord in all our prayers, and direct our way towards the attainment of salvation; that among the changes and chances of this mortal life, we may always be defended by your
gracious help. Amen

Picture: Mallica “Kapo” Reynolds – Rising Table (1972), John Pringle Collection, NGJ