Of Bunions and Pesky Widows.

Of Bunions and Pesky Widows.

Dear David,

Thank you for the gift of your morning prayer yesterday. I found it particularly moving and poignant, to the point where I wanted to offer a response and engage with you more directly.

I have to say that I am impressed with the way you keep on praying for the removal of the bunion on your left little toe. It is a pesky blight, and it seems that nothing will budge it. Not even your conversations with me.

I well understand that this must be a source of pain physically, emotionally and psychologically. Yes, I know that it has dramatically blown out your personal best times at Parkrun, but I am hoping that this quirky little exchange might put some things into perspective for you.

I guess the most worrying part of your ailment is not the bunion itself, but rather the way the acid of disappointment has begun to eat away at your otherwise sunny disposition and the relationships that you enjoy so much and revel in.

You’re right in referring to today’s gospel with the widow who continued to go to the ambitious judge. The one who was more interested in meeting budget deadlines and key selection criteria than he was about delivering justice for the underprivileged, the manky stranger and the different who came to live in his community.

The moral of the story is not only about persisting. The subtext, which I fear you may have missed, is that you should not lose heart. That our prayer should not just be about getting justice, but it should also be that discouragement and disappointment must not beat us down and bruise us beyond repair. This is the real danger of your bunion, not the ‘ouchiness’  when you put on your sand shoes. It is what is going on inside that has a direct and palpable effect on what happens on our outside, even our bunions and piercings. And it works the other way as well. From outside to in.

My outer, physical, viewable piercings and lashings were a showing forth of the love that was on the inside for you,  your family, your patient GP, your parish, and indeed the whole world. Not everyone got it, but I know that you do, and you certainly did at Morning prayer yesterday. And boy, you really get it when you stand at the altar and break the bread. You show forth to anyone who is looking that the bread cannot be shared and enjoyed unless it is first broken. Then and only then, can grace be made visible, touchable, tastable and ingestible.

I came and I come, not to rid the world of bunions, demonstrations, angry words, cold-hearted judges and irritating widows, but to be in the midst of all this. To be physically flesh and to make holy that which seems irritating and unflinching, especially the bunions and the pesky widows.

So tomorrow morning, when I tune into morning prayer, when you settle yourself down and begin to breathe as you do so steadily, rhythmically and beautifully, before you open your lips and look at the screen for the prompts, ask yourself … what am I really here to pray for? Is it the bunion, the widow, or would my prayer be more helpfully labelled and nested under that which is within? The sense of my closeness, because I am close to you, nearer than hands and feet, closer even than your breath.

By all means, pray for the war to cease and the blood to stop flowing, but first have a serious look at the static and distortion that rages in your own soul, and perhaps together we might begin by properly tuning into each other first. What is it you really need? Then we might get around to what you want.

Allow my grace and activity to saturate you. You are restricted by the invisible wibbly wobbly cords of time and space. You won’t always be, but just for today, please understand that even with these encumbrances, your humanity can show forth the reality that you are impregnated, saturated with the grace that you need.

One more thing about the parable of the widow. People usually assume that it's a story about the widow approaching a judge. About us approaching God and how we should always persist. That is only 50% of the parable.

Try flipping it the other way round. Consider the possibility that it is I who is the nagging, the persisting, relentless God who continuously approaches you and will not give up on you, even though you frequently appear to be preoccupied, self-centred and busy doing other seemingly more important things.

Cousin John had it right. I am the still small voice that calls in the wilderness. I am that voice that nags you to do the right thing because it is the right thing. I am the one who consciously reminds you that all I really need is to come to the altar and simply enjoy me. But watch out!

I am more tenacious, more relentless, more nagging, more persistent than the widow, and I am more stubborn than your bunion. Long ago, I was transformed into you, and ultimately you will be transformed into me… forever and ever, Amen.