One of the prayers appointed for Saturday evenings in the Book of Common Prayer asks God to “shed forth his unending day upon us.” Through this metaphorical language, we are asking God to awaken us to his truth and grant us a foretaste of resurrection joy.
With this petition in mind, I wonder where you sensed God “shedding forth his unending day” upon you this week? Did a particular truth from God’s Word taste particularly sweet to you? Did joy well up in you one day this afternoon?
For me, the three things I liked this week were all connected. Let me share them with you.
First, R. S. Thomas’s poem, “Acting” drew me in. As with all his poems, this one is cryptic, so stay with me:
Being unwise enough to have married her
I never knew when she was not acting.
“I love you” she would say; I heard the audiences
Sigh. “I hate you”; I could never be sure
They were still there. She was lovely. I
Was only the looking-glass she made up in.
I husbanded the rippling meadow
Of her body. Their eyes grazed nightly upon it.
Alone now on the brittle platform
Of herself she is playing her last role.
It is perfect. Never in all her career
Was she so good. And yet the curtain has fallen.
My charmer, come out from behind
It to take the applause. Look, I am clapping too.
Interpreters of Thomas’s work say the poem is about the inauthenticity of social life—that is, the outward personas we adopt around our friends or when we’re in groups of people (especially those we want to impress), propel us into the role of a performer. If Thomas saw this during his lifetime (1913–2000), how much more in our own day? There’s an ever-present temptation to turn life into performance art. I want to resist this.
The second piece of writing I want to share is connected to Thomas’s poem. It comes from Lewis Allen’s book The Preacher’s Catechism. What Thomas conveys via poetry, Allen communicates through straightforward prose: In the age of social media, even pastoral ministry has become a performance. And there’s no getting around it, the pastors who have turned ministry into a performance have garnered popularity, leading to book deals and sold-out conference venues. They’ve become social media influencers, podcasters and, in a few cases, millionaires.
Allen asks: How should the average pastor or ministry worker respond to this? I appreciated his answer:
“The church down the road might love to exalt the big-name preacher; leave them to it. Pray that you would be content to be unknown, and apparently without any influence, as long as God is calling men and women to his Son and building his kingdom. His kingdom alone will last” (200).
(Since some people still ask me why I’m not on social media, and why I haven’t started a podcast, I’ve addressed these questions in two other posts: “Sayonara Social Media,” and “Why No Podcast?”)
The third and final excerpt I want to pass on to you comes from Chad Bird’s Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms. After observing how Psalm 67 is an expansion on the Aaronic blessing found in Numbers 6:24–27, he writes:
God has been gracious to us and blessed us in Jesus, the Savior of Israel and the nations. The Father makes his face shine on us when we look upon the face of his Son, who is lifted up upon the cross, to face our punishment, to have his face covered with the spit of his enemies, and to face death itself as he defeats it in his resurrection (135).
To which we all say Amen.
Because we live under the smile of the Father in the Son through the Spirit, we don’t have to playact in front of people. We can set aside the heavily curated personas we adopt before others—especially on social media. In fact, we can embrace a hidden life in Christ.
In Christ, we’re free to be our unguarded selves. We can choose honesty and vulnerability. We can pursue a life of slowness, calmness, attentiveness, and presence with others.
And so we pray: O God, the source of eternal light, shed forth your unending day upon us as we wait for you, that our lips may praise you, our lives may bless you, and our worship may bring you glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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