name
aloud, glancing up to the sky after each one. It took her several
days.
At a church I visited this past summer there was concern for an
expectant mother; it appeared that the baby she was carrying was
developing abnormally. The parents shared their fears with the pastor and asked for intercession, and at the next service, prayers were
said for the baby and mother. At an appointment the following
week, to everyone’s utter amazement, the baby was found to be
perfect in every way. The doctors were astonished. Later the
mother wrote:
It was a real answer to our prayers. But what meant the most to
me was that when we spoke about it at church, I noticed how
Lisa – a young woman with Down Syndrome – was blowing her
nose and wiping her eyes, and I realized how much she was carrying our need. Honestly, I don’t know if God always hears my
prayers – there is so much in me each day that stands in his way –
but I know for sure that he hears Lisa’s. I’ve had to think that I
may never know how much we owe to the prayers of someone
like her.
Reverence
Conditions were primitive
and rough in the backwoods of Paraguay, where I grew up in the 1940s, and the harshness of daily life
had an effect not only on many adults, but also on us children, who
reacted to their callousness with disrespect and mockery. Nothing
was sacred, despite the efforts some parents made to instill respect
in their children, and we were often cruelly insensitive to the peculiarities and afflictions of other people.
Anybody can be mean, but in the culture of today, meanspiritedness has become a way of life. Violence, promiscuity, arrogance, snideness, and indifference mark modern culture. At the
bottom of it all is a cynicism that not only corrodes individual relationships; it destroys our relationship with God. If one were to describe our time with one word, that word would have to be irreverence.
What, then, is reverence?
It is the spiritual side of respect. It is nothing pious, soft, or
sweet. Reverence is wonder at what God has created; it is man’s
standing in awe of what God has made. He is the creator of life in
all its rich and varied forms – exquisite flowers and magnificent
trees, tiny insects and colorful birds, creatures on the land and in
the sea.
There is no doubt that life has an immensely high value, both
human life and the life of animals and plants; yes, even the life
of stars and stones. I am convinced that not only animals have an
emotional life-feeling; I am convinced that plants, too, have a
life-feeling. It is unthinkable that the beauty of plants and their
swaying in the wind, the moving upward and downward of the
sap in their stems could exist without any life-feeling. And I believe more: I believe that astronomical organisms, like the stars
and the earth, have a life-feeling. In a fiery star like our sun with
its flaming protuberances and its deepening solar spots there is
no doubt a living soul; one could even speak of a breathing process.
Eberhard Arnold
Reverence is our natural, unspoiled response to the marvels of
God’s creation. We experience it when we witness the birth of a
baby, the power of a storm and the glory of a rainbow, and often
when we are sitting at the bedside of a person who is dying. Reverence is the movement of our hearts that comes to us through a
piece of music or writing, through a work of art in painting or
sculpture, when these are born from the creative spirit God gives
to his children. It can be spoken, or it can simply be felt.
Without reverence, God is pushed aside, and our lower nature
comes to the fore, our bitter, cynical self-will. Then we forget that
all life is sacred. Then we are not far from accepting abortion and
capital punishment, euthanasia and assisted suicide as acceptable
ways to deal with seemingly unbearable or insoluble problems.
I believe every person
begins life with an
aloud, glancing up to the sky after each one. It took her several
days.
At a church I visited this past summer there was concern for an
expectant mother; it appeared that the baby she was carrying was
developing abnormally. The parents shared their fears with the pastor and asked for intercession, and at the next service, prayers were
said for the baby and mother. At an appointment the following
week, to everyone’s utter amazement, the baby was found to be
perfect in every way. The doctors were astonished. Later the
mother wrote:
It was a real answer to our prayers. But what meant the most to
me was that when we spoke about it at church, I noticed how
Lisa – a young woman with Down Syndrome – was blowing her
nose and wiping her eyes, and I realized how much she was carrying our need. Honestly, I don’t know if God always hears my
prayers – there is so much in me each day that stands in his way –
but I know for sure that he hears Lisa’s. I’ve had to think that I
may never know how much we owe to the prayers of someone
like her.
Reverence
Conditions were primitive
and rough in the backwoods of Paraguay, where I grew up in the 1940s, and the harshness of daily life
had an effect not only on many adults, but also on us children, who
reacted to their callousness with disrespect and mockery. Nothing
was sacred, despite the efforts some parents made to instill respect
in their children, and we were often cruelly insensitive to the peculiarities and afflictions of other people.
Anybody can be mean, but in the culture of today, meanspiritedness has become a way of life. Violence, promiscuity, arrogance, snideness, and indifference mark modern culture. At the
bottom of it all is a cynicism that not only corrodes individual relationships; it destroys our relationship with God. If one were to describe our time with one word, that word would have to be irreverence.
What, then, is reverence?
It is the spiritual side of respect. It is nothing pious, soft, or
sweet. Reverence is wonder at what God has created; it is man’s
standing in awe of what God has made. He is the creator of life in
all its rich and varied forms – exquisite flowers and magnificent
trees, tiny insects and colorful birds, creatures on the land and in
the sea.
There is no doubt that life has an immensely high value, both
human life and the life of animals and plants; yes, even the life
of stars and stones. I am convinced that not only animals have an
emotional life-feeling; I am convinced that plants, too, have a
life-feeling. It is unthinkable that the beauty of plants and their
swaying in the wind, the moving upward and downward of the
sap in their stems could exist without any life-feeling. And I believe more: I believe that astronomical organisms, like the stars
and the earth, have a life-feeling. In a fiery star like our sun with
its flaming protuberances and its deepening solar spots there is
no doubt a living soul; one could even speak of a breathing process.
Eberhard Arnold
Reverence is our natural, unspoiled response to the marvels of
God’s creation. We experience it when we witness the birth of a
baby, the power of a storm and the glory of a rainbow, and often
when we are sitting at the bedside of a person who is dying. Reverence is the movement of our hearts that comes to us through a
piece of music or writing, through a work of art in painting or
sculpture, when these are born from the creative spirit God gives
to his children. It can be spoken, or it can simply be felt.
Without reverence, God is pushed aside, and our lower nature
comes to the fore, our bitter, cynical self-will. Then we forget that
all life is sacred. Then we are not far from accepting abortion and
capital punishment, euthanasia and assisted suicide as acceptable
ways to deal with seemingly unbearable or insoluble problems.
I believe every person
begins life with an
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