| Dryden Methodist Issues Oriented Adult Class, | Apr. 23, 2010 |
Last week we used the PBS essay entitled, The Power Of Presence, as a take off for our discussion. The essay for today seems like an appropriate extension of last week’s discussion. Although Helen Hays had not spoken to any of the other worshipers in the little church and at first had not even realized the strength that she had drawn from their presence and attitude, she later recognized the strength that she had drawn from the faith of the others in an atmosphere of supplication and worship. This Sunday, let’s think together about what we gain in the presence of corporate worship.
I will also bring copies of the article that Tom Wheat brought to the class last Sunday but did not have time to present. It provides an interesting twist on a topic that we have previously discussed—The Proofs of God.
In the last several Sundays of this year's classes we will discuss the several This I Believe essays written by members of the class. I have personally found that coherent documentation of personal belief is not as easy as might be expected!
A Morning Prayer in a Little Church HELEN HAYES,
Life seems to be a series of crises that have to be faced. In summoning strength to face them, though, I once fooled myself into an exaggerated regard of my own importance. I felt very independent. I was only distantly aware of other people. I worked hard and was "successful." In the theater, I was brought up in the tradition of service. The audience pays its money and you are expected to give your best performance—both on and off the stage. So I served on committees, and made speeches, and backed causes. But somehow the meaning of things escaped me.
When my daughter died of polio, everybody stretched out a hand to help me, but at first I couldn't seem to bear the touch of anything, even the love of friends; no support seemed strong enough. While Mary was still sick, I used to go early in the morning to a little church near the hospital to pray. There the working people came quietly to worship. I had been careless with my religion. I had rather cut God out of my life, and I didn't have the nerve at the time to ask Him to make my daughter well—I only asked Him to help me understand, to let me come in and reach Him, and I kept looking for a revelation, but nothing happened.
And then, much later, I discovered that it had happened, right there in the church. I could recall, vividly, one by one, the people I had seen there—the solemn laborers with tired looks, the old women with gnarled hands. Life had knocked them around, but for a brief moment they were being refreshed by an ennobling experience. It seemed as they prayed their worn faces lighted up and they became the very vessels of God. Here was my revelation. Suddenly I realized I was one of them. In my need I gained strength from the knowledge that they too had needs, and I felt an interdependence with them. I was learning the meaning of "Love thy neighbor ... "
Truths as old and simple as this began to light up for me like the faces of the men and women in the little church. When I read the Bible now, I take the teachings of men like Jesus and David and St. Paul as the helpful advice of trusted friends about how to live. They understand that life is full of complications, and often heavy blows, and they are showing me the wisest way through it. I must help myself. yes, but I am not such a self-contained unit that I can live aloof. unto myself That was the meaning that had been missing before: the realization that I was a living part of God's world of people.
Known as the First Lady of American Theater, HELEN HAYES was a star of Broadway, movies, and television. She received three Tony Awards in her sixty years onstage.
W. F. Stephenson