The Frequent Reminders
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by Rose Mary Dougherty
Some months ago I was feeling stymied in my efforts to begin a writing project that should have been completed weeks before, according to my calculations. Each time I blocked out time for it, something else appeared to usurp my attention. When I did have the time I didn't have the energy or creativity I wanted to bring to it. I didn't see how I would begin the work, let alone complete it.Then I remembered a woman, an AME pastor, who had been in a class I had taught. I had come to the last gathering of that class with laryngitis that had been lingering for weeks. I could hardly speak. After we had ended our closing silence and shared prayer, she said she would like to pray. She began praying for me in a way no one had ever prayed for me. I could feel it down to my toes. She prayed, in essence, that God would restore my voice so that I could proclaim God's glory. The next morning I woke up in full voice.
This was the woman who came to mind as I dealt with my frustration. I called her, thanked her for her previous prayer and described a little of what I was going through now. Then I timidly mumbled something like, "If I come to your mind would you pray for me in whatever way is right for you to do that?" She responded, "I will pray but we will pray now." The gist of her prayer was, "God, this is your daughter and she needs frequent reminders that this is about You; it is not about her. It is about Your glory, not her glory. It is Your work, not her work. Give her frequent reminders of this. Let her see clearly what You are giving her to do and give her the common sense to let go of everything else."
Her prayer touched into something in my soul, probably my own prayer. It called me back home to myself, to a gentleness of being. I entered the writing in that spirit, with a deep trust undergirding my efforts. I could watch what showed up to claim my attention and see a little more clearly what was mine to do in the moment. I had the sense that I was joining something in progress rather than making it happen.
Somewhere in the middle of this project I received an invitation to be part of the Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama. I'm embarrassed to say that it took me some time to respond affirmatively. I wasn't sure that participating in the pilgrimage would be a responsible use of my time, especially with the project and other work hanging over my head. I also wasn't sure I could re-arrange my schedule. Quite unexpectedly, in the midst of my rational decisioning, I sensed an interior rightness about going. It was as though I was hearing, "Rose Mary, this is about Me, about you and Me. Go." My "all-important" schedule was easily rearranged. I went.
Early in the pilgrimage, John Lewis invited us to listen throughout the pilgrimage to what our souls were saying to us and to honor that. Consistently my soul was speaking gratitude and humility. I found it easy to sing the glory freedom songs even in the midst of the suffering and injustice being recalled. Perhaps it was the people telling the stories that made this so: civil rights leaders like Lewis, Bernard LaFayette, Betty Mae Fikes, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Bob Zellner. They told their stories with passion but not drama, in self-effacing ways that took us beyond themselves, ultimately to God. They shared their faith with us, their fears and doubts and their underlying assurance that this was God's work and that God would be with them in it as each did his/her part. They confessed their failures. They sang their gratitude. They cited examples that reminded us that the struggle was not yet over. They challenged us to find our place in the story, to listen to our souls in daily life so we might know our place.
I realize now that what remains with me from the civil rights pilgrimage, what convicts me, is the sense that I was walking among the living communion of saints, people who had learned early on to give themselves to God's glory through the work they were drawn to do. In a sense, the pilgrimage and these people have become one of living reminders my friend had asked of God for me. The memory of our time together invites me to live wide-eyed and attentively in each moment so I might see what life is presenting and hear what my being calls me to do.
I continue to look for my place in the struggle. I do get glimpses of it sometimes. Nothing grandiose shows itself, just little things. In my watching and my listening, I've begun to realize that anytime I acknowledge my own freedom and act from it, I am participating in the struggle for freedom for all; any time I am willing to be available to Love for another, I am mediating love for our world. I don't need to see the big picture; I don't need to do it all. I only need to claim my part with integrity. What is important is not the "what" of my doing but the faithfulness of my being from which the doing flows.
I am grateful for the pilgrimage, and I know that I need many ongoing reminders that my life is about God. I need frequent reminders that the unique ways through which I am called to participate in the struggle for freedom or any other endeavor are a participation in God's love for me and for our world. When some Herculean image of myself tends to lay heavy burdens on me, I need to go back in spirit to Alabama or stop and listen to my soul's prayer, "God, this is your daughter...She needs frequent reminders..."
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.