Hello again, everyone.

As I promised last week, the focus of these prayers will be mental health. I’ve wrestled with them, I can tell you! 

Every Minister, every preacher, with a grain of sense (and even I rise over that very low bar occasionally!) knows that a lot of what he says to a congregation – real or virtual – will be things they already know.

There are, however, bits of what follow that you won’t know – quite a lot of them, actually. 

They’re to do with the thoughts I’ve had, and the places I’ve been, over the last three months, mostly without leaving the Manse! They’re to do with the many conversations I’ve had, and the conversations you’ve had won’t have been the same. 

They’re my thoughts on my experience of others, and what they’ve shared of their experiences, joy and anxiety and pain, consolation and faith and hope. Darkness and light. Light, and, we must also admit, darkness. 

I offer them as my thoughts, so that in agreement, hesitation or disagreement, you can join me in bringing our thoughts, all together, to God. 

I hope that all is well with you; I rejoice and am grateful for, everything I hear of people’s wellness and resilience. But I don’t presume; these things aren’t virtues, as much unfortunate talk (“He’s a battler! He’ll come through!” implying that perhaps those who didn’t, weren’t – which is profoundly untrue and hurtful.) 

I don’t presume. So if you’d like to talk, then, like so many others in your lives I hope, I’m here. 

And I know you’re there, and that I’m in your prayers, as you are in mine. 

PS Once again, I have to conduct a funeral tomorrow, so I shall have record this.

You’ll see the preview of it at 11.45  on the United Church of Bute YouTube Channel. 12 o’clock is still the hour of Presbytery Prayers, of course, and I shall be thinking of you at that point. I will actually be watching, but I can’t guarantee being able to conduct. 

So – another of our COVID-19 virtual ironies – I’ll be in exactly the same position as anyone else using YouTube to frame their prayers!

Leading myself in prayer will be a new experience for me. It’s yet more food for thought…

…and when he came near, he asked him,
“What do you want me to do for you?” (Luke 18:40-41)

When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, 

he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6)

When Jesus heard this, he marvelled at him… (Luke 7:9)

Judge not… (Matthew 7:1)

Even Jesus did not presume.

Even Jesus asked, and attended to what was said,

And what was not… 

Even Jesus listened.

Especially – Jesus listened. 

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On the cusp of change,

Possible, actual and prospective,

We take stock of what we have seen,

What we have learned, 

What we may have missed…

In this eerie strangeness, 

you have given your Church so much in which to rejoice. 

There have been good things, wonderful things – 

but things have not “been wonderful.”

We have been surprised by joy – 

but all has not been joy. 

You are the God of Truth, ALL truth

and we are chronic simplifiers.

Shrinking complexity to comfortable size. 

Have we denied parts of our own experience,

so that we cannot now see the complexity of others’ experience? 

We think on this.

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We pray for our own congregations, our communities, and the people we know, or imagine we do:

• for those who are faring well, and finding new things to do, and rediscovering old projects and pleasures, and doing well in this; 
• for those whose isolation is unprepared-for, new and unsettling;
• for those whose old isolation has been deepened;
• for those cut off from the sources of strength embedded in routines now disrupted;
• for those who mourn.

We pray for those who wrestle with things we cannot imagine,

situations expertly hidden through long practice,

whose lives are complicated by these times in ways we cannot imagine,

And who will live with these intensifications now.

We pray for those who have been thrown into strange, difficult places

by these strange, difficult times, 

and for those who sit with them and live with them. 

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We pray for our communities,

Always, but especially now. 

and especially those who attend to their mental health: 

psychiatrists, psychologists and Community Psychiatric Nurses, 

and especially, within our bounds,

Argyll and Bute Council Social Work Department,

the Mental Health team, 

counsellors, GPs, volunteers, friends and neighbours –

us, if you open our minds and souls… 

Loving God, we come with a list!

• Not a list of demands; 
• Not a tick-list to simplify prayer;
• Not, certainly, an exhaustive list;
• Not a list to run through, once.

A tally of care, and also of need. 

We pray for those who work for, and whose lives are touched by: 

• The Scottish Association for Mental Health
• Support in Mind Scotland
• Penumbra – Supporting Scotland’s Mental Health
• CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably)
• National Schizophrenic Fellowship (Scotland)
• Bipolar Fellowship Scotland
• Action on Depression
• The Samaritans
• The Listening Service
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• SFAD – Scottish Families affected by Alcohol and Drugs
• Mind Infoline
• Rape Crisis Scotland
• Scottish Women’s Aid
• SANE
• No Panic
• Anxiety UK
• OCD Action
• Hearing Voices

Where these have been just names for us –

Lead us into deeper understanding;

Let Google inform us

Compassion drive us,

And our prayers support them. 

————————————————-

And we pray: 

Keep us from feeling sympathy for others. 

Guard us from “imagining how they feel”

And above all, imagining that we know – 

so that we can listen 

           to the voice beneath the voice,

                   attend to the subtle, contradicting signals –

be truly present to them,

         as Jesus was truly present to the needs

                 of those among whom he walked:

as Christ is truly present to our needs, 

           among whom, and with whom, he stands. 

Take away our sympathy. Give us empathy, 

the attuned, enfleshed, 

incarnate knowing – 

not “what it’s like for them”

but what it’s like, to be like them.

Remind us that this is what Jesus knew.

Even Jesus did not presume.

Even Jesus asked, and attended to what was said,

And what was not… 

Even Jesus listened.

Especially – Jesus listened. 

Teach us to ask, to listen and to learn,

As Jesus did.

And as Jesus taught us, we pray…  Our Father…