While this is a
reflection on Holy Week, I also devote this reflection to Rev. Jamie Brame, who
not only is an influential minister in my life, but has acted as my spiritual
mentor, Supervisor, and a close personal friend for many years. Jamie has
served as Program Director (previously Church Relations Director) of
Christmount for over 25 years. He has been a spiritual guide for several
generations of campers that have come to Christmount for camp and I honored to
say that I was one of those campers. His wisdom has helped me during difficult
times and may they do the same for you as well.
In the gospels of the New Testament, there are several
scriptures in which describe Jesus, before his arrest and betrayal, went to the
Garden of Gethsemane and prayed. Jesus prayed all the time. He prayed with his
Disciples, he prayed in the community, and I’m sure he even prayed with his
enemies.
But this prayer was different. In this prayer, we find
Jesus, disturbed in Spirit and heavy with the burden that is about to happen. In
the garden, Jesus flat out tells God, “Remove this cup, this burden from me,
yet not my will but your will be done”.
This is such a powerful prayer!
It is a prayer that is intimate. It is a prayer that is
honest. It is a prayer that is comforting.
The scene in the garden reminds me that even the Son of God
experienced a Dark Night of the soul.
Now don’t let the name fool you. A dark night is not always
something that occurs within a few hours or a day. A dark night of the soul can
last for weeks, months, and even years. We experience a dark night of the soul
when our spirits, the very core of our beings feels lost, disconnected,
confused, or even separated from the God that loves us.
To experience a dark night of the soul is not a pleasant
process. Many people often suffer from these dark nights and struggle to
recover.
Even Jesus had his dark night of the soul. And we see that
in his moment of despair, in his night of eventual betrayal and death, Jesus
decides the appropriate response is to pray.
Jesus was no stranger to prayers. Jesus knew the ancient
psalms of his ancestors. He knew how to meditate and speak to God like a
parent, like his Abba. Jesus was a spiritual master. So this prayer in the
garden was not something he did all of a sudden. Jesus already had a long
history of praying and being open and honest with God. This history is
important because it helps us to know that our dark night of the soul cannot be
solved just by a single prayer, but by praying unceasingly throughout our life.
One of my spiritual homes on this earth is Christmount
Christian Assembly at Black Mountain, NC. Not only do I feel at home within the
mountains, but Christmount has always had a long history of embracing and
teaching spirituality. The main reason is because of the Rev. Jamie Brame.
Jamie Brame not only serves as Program Director at
Christmount, but for over 20 years, he has directed and keynoted the CYF
Conference for high school campers. While each camp is different to be sure, we
were always taught how important our spiritual lives matter.
One of the many lessons Jamie taught me while at Christmount
was how spirituality is like physical exercise. When you exercise, you start
out small and short. You begin with a 10 minute walk, or 5lbs weights. Then you
move up to a 30 minute walk or 10lbs weights. You gradually increase your
exercise practice, which takes both time and energy.
The same is true for spiritual disciplines and prayer. Jamie
always tells a story about taking his youth group back when he was in college
to a monk monastery. Jamie visited the monastery and had been very good friends
with many of the monks there. One of the monks was speaking to his youth and
one had asked, “How long do I need to pray every day?” The monk answered, “three
minutes”. The wisdom from this answer is not only that you devote yourself to a
task of daily praying, but when you start your prayers small, you can later
increase your prayers much like you would if you were exercising.
As you begin your prayers as simple and small, you allow
them to gradually grow. You can begin with the simple Jesus prayer in which you
say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner, yet one whom you love”. Or pray for someone
else by simply saying a person’s name and having faith that God is already at
work within that person’s life and doesn’t need to know all the details of
their situation.
How you pray is between you and God. The way we pray is
remembering that love is at the core of our relationship with the Creator.
When we are in our dark night of the soul, love seems
distant or even gone. We may not even be aware that God is still present during
these dark nights. That’s where spiritual discipline and prayer comes in. If we
start praying now and pray every day, even if its three minutes a day, then
when the dark night of the soul enters our lives, we are able to endure the
night.
The dark nights don’t get easier. Jesus still suffered and
died. But Jesus was able to realize that he was not alone in his suffering. God
was still there, accompanying him to his last breath. When Jesus says, “not my
will, but your will”, Jesus is not resigning himself to suffer, because Jesus knows
God is not a divine being that enjoys our suffering. Instead, Jesus is putting
all of his trust in God to not leave him during his darkest moments.
Prayer takes trust. Trust in the God that loves and cares
for us. It may make prayer more difficult.
However, as a person who has experienced my own share of the
dark night of the soul, I have both experienced moments where I had no
spiritual disciplines and a few spiritual disciplines. The nights I had the
comfort of prayer after days of feeling lost and confused were more comforting
than when I had no prayer at all.
So as we enter this Holy Week, may we look upon Jesus in the
garden of Gethsemane, praying to his Abba openly and honestly. May we learn
what it means to pray everyday so that when we are in our own dark night of the
soul, we may have the comfort of a God who is present during our darkest
moments. And may we have the courage to put our trust in God: “Not my will, but
your will be done”.
Peace,
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