“I will praise you; O Lord, with all my heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything. On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.” Or as the New International Version puts it, “you made me bold and stouthearted.” Psalm 138:1-3.

When I came across that last sentence in my devotions this week, the words of a troubled woman came to mind. As I recall, she stood in the doorway of her house and told me, “I am a weak woman; I just pray for my children.”

What does it take to call upon the Lord and receive strength of soul, or a stout heart? Can others do this for you? Can I effectively petition the Lord on behalf of her?

I imagine that we have all experienced overwhelming fear. What moves you out of inaction into bold, empowering choices?

I have a new friend whose personality is challenging me now. We are different in so many ways, that even though we are both trying to welcome the other in love, we can feel hurt.

The hurt comes from not feeling valued. And when I don't feel valued I can lash out verbally in a way that is essentially saying, "If I do not feel valued then let me tell you that she has no value either."

I recall talking with another friend years ago about judgment. We were being told that we should not judge, yet, I knew that judgment is required in daily living. I need to judge what time to wake in order to accomplish my morning tasks before a certain 9:00 a.m. appointment. Judgment in this sense is simply thinking through the steps required to achieve a specific goal. I also need to be skilled in judging the contours of my relationships with others, so that I am engaged in appropriate and life-giving ways with other people.

But the judgment that excludes the other, that needs to perceive another as morally flawed, void of intrinsic value, is what I do best to avoid. This week, when I spoke of my challenging friend in such a demeaning way, the air suddenly became crisp, tight, bad. My two friends at the table with me also felt the tension rising and bravely stated that they could no longer agree or even entertain where I was going in this conversation. So, I listened to them, to try to understand what was going on inside of me.

I wanted to learn to make peace within myself. I have learned to trust a larger domain than my ego. In "Theological  Methods," a chapter within Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, David Tracy references Hans-Georg Gadamer's model of the "game of conversation." "For what is authentic conversation other than the ability to become caught up in the to-and-fro movement of the logic of question and response? Just as the subjects in any game release themselves from self-consciousness in order to play, so too in every authentic conversation the subject is released by the to-and-fro movement of the question and response of the subject matter under discussion."

He goes on to say that if we cannot give ourselves to this kind of play/work, we cannot interpret. And that would be true in my case the other day at my kitchen table with my friends. If I had not trusted them and something much larger than my wounded ego, I would not have interpreted anything at all about my situation. Nothing would have become clearer. But I gave myself to the the game and my friends helped me to interpret my relationship well.

This new friend of mine has done nothing morally wrong, nor have I. We are both trying and are both well supported in our community. As we relax in the care of our whole experience, it seems to me that we are finding ourselves more comfortable with one another in each encounter. We are slowing down, knowing that our relationship will do best with both care and distance.

How do you describe your challenging relationships? Who calls you into the game beyond your self-consciousness and ego?

In August, my husband and I spent two nights in Staunton,Virginia. While there we toured Trinity Church which is home to twelve Tiffany stained glass windows. Below you will see the feet of the Praising Angel. The whole window is more than twice this size.

I have a friend who is blind and can see angels. I have not ever seen an angel. But once, when I was alone for the night in a friend's house, I was praying in the living room and sensed the presence of someone very powerful about twelve feet behind me. I did not have the courage to turn and look. I was pretty sure that I would see a being so good and tall as to be frightening.

As I recall this experience I remember the first words angels typically say to the one to whom they are bringing a message. "Do not be afraid."

I wonder, have you seen an angel? Have you sensed the presence of unseen power?

Here is today's opening paragraph at Sacred Space, the Irish Jesuit prayer site:

“Whenever I am able to pause, and allow myself a time of quiet, I can become conscious of God’s presence to me. I enter into the deepest reality of my life, where I am before the living God . . . .  My prayer, then, always will have something of this reality about it. There is a great Presence there, approaching me, calling me by name. Whatever else I may do in my time of quiet, whatever theme I take for reflection and meditation, still the most essential reality is the Lord’s presence before me and within me. In the movement of a gentle breeze, in the colouring of the evening sky, or simply in the stillness of my heart, God is present. God utters my name, and upholds me.”

Reading this season’s introduction to the day’s prayer, I remember the element that consistently pulls me into God's presence: a spring of water.

There is a small town, not far from our home, named Boiling Springs. It is home to an artesian well spring from which 22 million gallons of water bubble every day. When I visit Boiling Springs I nearly always walk behind the Tavern and climb down a small, slippery slope to dip my fingers into the ice cold water. Then I make the sign of the cross upon my forehead. I love to fully submerge my feet, too.

When my brother-in-law came to town a couple of months ago, I sent him into the water to pray. He kindly complied, sitting on a ledge with his feet fully immersed. We left him there alone knowing that he would join us for lunch in the Boiling Springs Tavern when he concluded his prayer, which he did.

Last month, on a tour of The Grange, an historic property in Philadelphia, I came across another spring. My friend had requested prayer for her left arm that she had injured so I invited her to join me in praying at this spring for her arm.

Springs remind me of the gifts of God, for the people of God, as we say in the Episcopal liturgy. Springs surprise me. Who knows when we will see another one? Who has earned such a gift? Who could really say that they own the spring? Can we deplete them? How do people pollute them? How often have people mistreated the gifts a spring brings to us?