Mountains

(Monday, August 25th, 2008)
On the day that I left Hong Kong, Steve Torgerson was meeting with his prayer partner, a German whose name I couldn’t properly pronounce and now cannot remember. Upon my emergence from my bedroom, they called me over and asked to pray for me. I was standing, and so they also stood up on either side of me and each placed a hand on my shoulder.

I am not uncomfortable with prayer, but I am uncomfortable being the focus of prayer. Honestly, I don’t think I really like being the focus of anything. To be … centered on… in such a way is disconcerting to me, to be touched and talked about without the opportunity to respond is a special form of helplessness.

But I will also say that the handful of times that I have been prayed for in this fashion have always been a great blessing. It is uncomfortable, but it is a good uncomfortable. They were “lifting me up in prayer,” and I somehow I felt that this was as close as the metaphor would get to being a literal reality (1), to be present as words about me were spoken to God, with as little control over the situation as if I really were hoisted up in the air. I was just along for the ride.

To be honest, I can’t remember much of what was said, only that I deeply appreciated it. Steve prayed, and then the German started praying, but stopped after a few words and asked for an English Bible. He looked up Joshua 1:9 and read it aloud:

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

He then began praying for strength and perseverance for me to be able to overcome a mountain, finishing with “Go now, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” and as he spoke he slowly traced a cross on my forehead with his thumb.

Allow me to interject here: Like any good Protestant boy, I was raised to be skeptical of anything liturgical, anything that might speak to tradition (older than, say, 400 yearsish, the new stuff is all right), anything that might set our feet on the slippery path down to Roman Catholicism (You know the bad guys. Well, not the bad, bad guys, per se, but the ones that are like us that we don’t agree with, well, yeah, on the big points we do agree with them, but what about the iconography? …) I’ve since attended a few Masses (?) … I have attended Mass a few times, and have learned to appreciate a lot of what I think my tradition is missing out on. But that’s in Mass. This was in the Torgerson’s living room, and I wasn’t expecting it. So I’m in the middle, and I’m experiencing it, but a part of me is also analyzing it, and I realize that by rights, I should swimming in a whole pool of awkward right now, but I wasn’t. He spoke and acted with such solemnity and conviction that I could do nothing – wanted to do nothing – but receive his blessing.

I want to be able to say that the touch of his thumb to my forehead felt like fire, or ice, or that I got chills, or that world blurred. But it was just a thumb to a forehead. There was, however, a weight to the moment, as if things – just briefly – became more real than they were before and after.

Not knowing what to say or how I should respond, I simply said “thank you,” and shook his hand. It seemed ridiculously inadequate. He left, and Steve and Merilee both came up to me later and told me that he (The German (2)) was known for having particular insight into situations, and that I would be wise to remember what he said. I do, and I will.

So we’ll see what mountains may come up this year, I’m sure they will eventually be recorded here. As for now, though, I have read that verse pretty much every day, because it is a good one, mountain or no. “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

(1) Boy do I hope so, because if anyone were to ask to pick me up as they were praying for me, that would bring on the awkward in a big way.
(2) This is beginning to sound like a bad mob movie, but what can I do?