Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Fall 2012 Issue | Page 35
The Readers’ Page is a new feature in the magazine where Virginia Episcopalians can share their voices.
For this issue, we asked our contributors to respond to one question:
readers’ page
Where do you feel closest to God?
Patsy Anne Bickerstaff, St. Martin’s, Richmond
Kay McCall, St. Andrew’s, Richmond
I volunteer as a tutor at the READ Center here in Richmond, an
organization that helps adult low-level readers. Of all my years
working in libraries and adult education in general, my time with
READ Center students sparkles the most with God-filled moments.
Reading Class
Head bent low over notebook paper,
she scribbles symbols on a word with her pencil.
She sits back, grimaces, erases, and tries again.
The student, a mother of teenagers, uses rules we have taught her
to divide a word into syllables and mark the vowels – short and long.
I teach her phonics and vocabulary.
She teaches me dignity and grace in hard circumstances.
Our focus on the page quiets the hum of voices around us.
We laugh a great deal.
We know only fragments of each other’s lives.
I glimpse the Kingdom in this time.
The students’ trust opens us to our best selves
even as it illuminates our inexperience as reading tutors.
At closing, the men walk us to our cars
to make sure we are safe at night in a rough neighborhood.
New students look bewildered by all the laughter.
New tutors keep elbows locked to their sides.
Those who know lean in to one another;
hands touch over words, stories, and dictionary definitions –
an intimacy that drives out stale prejudice and old anger.
My student sits back and smiles, satisfied.
“En-cour-age,” she says, nodding at each syllable. “Encourage.”
Karin Merrill, St. Thomas’, Orange
My husband and I are farmers. I always feel closest to God seeing
nature’s miracles.
After yet another nerve wracking storm with high winds,
thunder and lightning at the end of the day, the storm cleared and as
the sun was setting the most amazing rainbow appeared behind my
house as seen in the picture. As the colors in the rainbow became
richer, a second rainbow appeared beside the first!
Lay Reader
This day, I give
my God my voice. I am
prophet in the desert,
Joseph, son of Jacob,
John the Baptist,
Woman at the Well; bring
story, tragedy, miracle, thanksgiving
echoing through generations, undefeated
by centurions, unfaded
by centuries, unwearied
by retelling.
This day, I give
voice to these words, instill
God’s spirit, nourish
children, wondering at their newness
or hungry and lost behind old eyes,
finding themselves still warm, still
held safe in God’s word.
Answering, “Amen. Alleluia.”
This day, I give
thanks for the voice I share,
privilege of reading, reaching
from history to eternity,
heaven’s exquisite promise
to these exquisite faces
with this treasure of love.
Wendy Steeves, Buck Mountain, Earlysville
As I reflected on the question of “Where do you feel closest to God?”
my immediate thought was, “Being present in the beauty of nature.”
It led me to review some of my journals from time spent in prayer on
my front porch, excerpted here:
Do you long to know that God is working in your life? That
you ARE on the right path? How do you know? How does God make
Himself known to you and assure you that He IS working in your
life? These are not always easy questions to answer. This morning,
I chose to stop ruminating on my life’s challenges and get out of
bed, make some coffee and sit out on my front porch. Everything is
always better out on the porch where the breeze is blowing and the
Corinthian bell wind chimes are making lovely tones. A butterfly is
on a flowering bush and I enjoy watching the beauty of its wings and
movement; amazed that it can withstand the wind. A sparrow joins
the scene and is preening on a dead tree branch nearby. I lose myself
in this beautiful scene of nature, and then become aware of emotion
welling up deep from within me…it is one of gratitude and of innerknowing: THIS is how God is with me during these trying times.
Betsy Heilman, St. Thomas’, McLean
I feel closest to God in that thin time of dawn, just before the
sun rises. This picture was taken at Lake Anne in Reston, at
that very moment.