Nielsen’s Nook

Yesterday I had the privilege of preaching to a congregation in Northwest Dallas. They are relatively young, composed of mostly hispanic and some anglo people. In preaching on Psalm 70, I made the mention that it was a prayer that should be prayed on our mountain tops and in our darkest valleys and everywhere in between.¹

A mother of three, with whom I spoke after the service, made mention of the strain that she often felt in having a moment where she might pray at all. Her goal, as I understood it, was to prayerfully mother her children. As I have learned, this seems to be an idea that has monastic virtue. Many, including myself previously, had thought the monks were those who wanted nothing to do with the world. Some, of course, were more hermit like. However, generally, monks would withdraw for the purpose of engagement with the world. They would retreat to advance. They would worship God with hoe in hand. What a beautiful connection this mother of three had made. As she tends the fertile soils of her children, she retreats to advance, tending their little lives, worshiping Christ with hoe in hand.

This seems to be something the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote, μάρτυς γάρ μού ἐστιν ὁ θεός, ᾧ λατρεύω ἐν τῷ πνεύματί μου ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ (God is my witness, whom I worship in my spirit in the gospel of His Son). Apparently, Paul is making great contrast with the Greek idea of worship that emphasized “geographical focus and physical activity”³ and in this sense seems to coalesce nicely with the mother of three, who, like Paul, has more on her plate than often seems manageable; and yet, both worship God with hoe in hand, as they would go along in their respective vocations.

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¹ paraphrasing a thought from Abba Isaac (c.a. 180 AD) found in the devotional, Christ in the Psalms by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon.

² author’s translation, Romans 1:9.

³ N. T. Wright, “The Letter to the Romans,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 422.