One of the highlights of my trip to Israel and Jordan some years ago was a visit to the Western Wall, or “Wailing Wall†as it is also called, the only visible remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Not only faithful Jews, but religious pilgrims from many different religions from all over the world gather at the Wailing Wall to meditate and pray. A long-standing practice is for the faithful to write short prayers on tiny scraps of paper, roll them up, and then stuff them in one of the cracks between the massive stones.
During my visit, I wrote two special prayers the day we visited the Wailing Wall and carefully and prayerfully stuffed them in the cracks. The first prayer was for a little boy whose family attended our church at that time. The mother had asked that I say a special prayer at some holy site for their son, James, who had cerebral palsy and pretty much lived in a wheelchair. What better place to offer a prayer for James, I thought, than the Wailing Wall.
The second prayer I wrote down and stuffed in the wall that day was for our daughter, Kristin, who in just a few weeks after I returned would be going on a mission trip to Guatemala. Kristin was 20 years old at the time, but we were still very concerned for her safety. So I wrote a short prayer that Kristin would be kept safe during her trip to, her time in, and her return from Guatemala.
Well, a few weeks later, when Kristin returned home from her mission trip, we asked her if there was ever a time when she felt threatened or unsafe. And she replied, almost as an after-thought, “Well, there was one time when I came close to being killed.†Quite alarmed, we asked, “What do you mean you came close to being killed?†And then she explained: “Well, every morning we had to walk from the house where we were staying to the daycare center mission site where we worked. “ (They worked with some of the poorest of the poor children.)
Kristin continued: “I stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street, and my friend yelled, ‘Kristin! Stop!’ A speeding car whizzed down the street right in front in me. Had I been a second sooner, I probably would have been run over and killed.â€
As you might imagine, cold chills ran up our spines. They still do today when I think about the tragic possibilities. But then I return to the Wailing Wall a few weeks earlier and the prayer I stuffed in the Wall for Kristin’s safety. Was there any connection between my prayer and the fact that Kristin’s life was spared? Well, there is no way to prove that there was, and no way to prove that there wasn’t, for that matter. But I have always wondered, and probably always will.
Is there, indeed, an unseen Hand on our shoulder that sometimes helps guide us through life? Writer Anne Lamott seems to think so. Her book, Grace (Eventually), has a chapter titled “Wailing Wall.†In this chapter Lamott talks about teaching children’s Sunday school and how she showed the children pictures of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and people standing around it praying. She told of how people write prayers on little slips of paper and hide them in the cracks of the Wall. They made their own Wailing Wall with poster board and wrote their prayers directly on the wall.
But then Anne relates: “This is something I do all the time, shove bits of paper with prayers and names on them into desk drawers, little boxes, my glove compartment. I’ve found that when you give up on using your mind to solve a problem—which your mind is holding onto like a dog with a chew toy—writing it down helps . . . . When you’re not siphoned into the black hole of worried control and playing fretful Savior, turning the problem over to God, or the elves in the glove compartment harnesses something in the universe that is bigger than you, and that just might work†(pp. 26-27). It is that phrase, “something in the universe that is bigger than you†that I find interesting and equate with what many would call God or the Spirit.
In one place, poet Robert Browning makes reference to “a Hand always above my shoulder†and how that Hand nudged him to do something that he should do (The Ring and the Book). Many of us might testify that we have felt such “a Hand†above our shoulder at various times in our lives. Religious folk often have referred to this guiding Hand as “the Spirit of God.†Personally what I mean when I use the term “the Spirit of God†is Divinity or that sense of the Sacred that is active in the universe and manifests itself in the world. We really can’t define or explain it. We certainly can’t understand it. It might also aptly be referred to as the “Great Mystery.†But sometimes we experience it.
My late friend, Dr. Howard Conn, commented on Robert Browning’s reference to “a Hand always above my shoulder†in his book, A Faith to Match the Universe. Dr. Conn was pastor of a large Congregational Church in Minnesota. In reference to this Hand, the Spirit if you will, Dr. Conn speaks of “an ever-present companion and continuous source of inspiration. . . sending insight, wisdom and guidance even now†(34). He continues, “As a religious person, I believe that within this universe is a guiding Spirit†(51).
It is this Mysterious Hand above our shoulder, this ever-present companion and continuous source of inspiration that Jesus spoke of. Perhaps poet Robert Browning was not too far from the truth when he spoke of this Great Mystery as “a Hand always above my shoulder,†the Hand that just may have led me to stuff that prayer for my daughter into the cracks of the Jerusalem Western Wall, and the Hand that just may have spared by daughter’s life.
Rev. Dr. Randy Hammer is the pastor of United Church, Chapel on the Hill, 85 Kentucky Ave. in Oak Ridge. He has more than 30 years of pastoral experience and is a published author.
Because of the historic significance of the church to Oak Ridge’s religious community, the Chapel-on-the-Hill was placed on the National Register of Historic places in 1993.
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