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Amy Sander Montanez is a writer, teacher, therapist, retreat leader, and spiritual director who attends Trinity Cathedral, Columbia. You can access an archive with her award-winning reflections on the diocesan Web site at www.edusc.org/News and learn more about Amy at her Web site, www.amysandermontanez.com.

In the Moment—One Pilgrim's Attempt to Be Present

By Amy Sander Montanez, D. Min.

When others pray for us

Photo: Peter Tarpley, Trinity Cathedral

I knew it would be close. 5:26 p.m. I raced out of my office, put my lipstick on at a traffic light, did a U-turn into the Goodyear parking lot, ran across the street, took the stairs two at a time, and slipped into a seat in the back of Averyt Hall, Trinity Cathedral. Choral evensong for Epiphany had already started, the psalm, I think, was being sung as I took a few deep breaths and unzipped my winter coat. A friend slipped in next to me, a few other stragglers hurrying in behind us as well. I made it, I’m here. Please, dear God, let me really be present, I thought to myself.

I had been up to my ears that week in client crises. Nine straight hours of client contact the day before and seven that day plus a two-hour meeting. It’s not unusual for this time of year. People tend to put their emotional stuff on the shelf in order to “get through the holidays” and then when it no longer has to be shelved, down it comes and out it pours. Although it was only mid-week, I was already feeling weary, working hard to stay grounded, centered, and open, a channel for the work God needs to do in others' lives. I had trouble praying earlier that day. Evensong was calling.

It is hard to describe the pure joy and grace it was for me that Epiphany evening to have a choir praying and singing for me. As an Episcopalian, and in most liturgical churches, worship, and especially the Eucharistic Mass, is active. One reads, sings, responds, intercedes, stands up, sits down, kneels, and greets others. No wonder Robin Williams refers to it as church aerobics! I probably wouldn’t have gone that night if that was on the bill. I wanted to sit down and breathe. I wanted to hear someone else sing “My soul doth magnify the Lord” and “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” I wanted to sit in silence and hear the earthly angels intercede for me.

I have had friends and family tell me that even in an unconscious state, they have felt and “known” somehow that they were being prayed for. Recently a client called me from his hospital room, just days after coming out of unconsciousness, to say that although he could not communicate, he felt the presence of prayers and of the Holy Spirit. He “knew” that a group he belonged to had been holding him in prayer and he held on to that through the trauma, although without consciousness or language. He also knew who had been praying at his bedside and could name them accurately.

In conscious states, I have felt the power of the prayer of others. When my daughter had serious surgery, I truly felt bathed in prayer for days on end. It was almost like being under water, held in the safety of a cocoon. When our family experienced multiple deaths in just days, again I felt carried, this time I experienced the support as more underneath me and I could just float along on it. All of these sensations were palpable. I was very aware of being supported by prayer and I paid close attention to it.

As I write this, I am acutely aware of the earthquake crisis in Haiti. I believe that the prayers of all nations are needed and matter during times like this. We may feel removed from all of it, but out of my own experiences, I believe in the power of prayer. I believe that the country of Haiti is being held in our prayers. I believe that is making a difference and will continue to do so. It is not the least we can do; it may be the most we can do. We can and must send money and supplies and people. But even that is not enough. We must hold the country and its suffering people in our prayers. We can stay aware of the suffering and poverty and pray that God will be made known to all those who are there. We must pray, because just like those times when we are too weary to pray for ourselves, the prayers of others hold us and carry us and strengthen us. We don’t have to understand why this works; we must just do it.

At evensong last week, I was able to let the choir and the beautiful music they made carry me, pray for me, lift me up, and hold me. I could let God pray in me, my only job being to open myself to that grace and love. I did not have to do anything but be present and open. Many thanks, once again, to our musicians who not only make beautiful music, but who pray for us, open the way for our own prayers to surface, and who are channels for God to pray in us.

I awoke the next morning with the old Paul Simon hit “Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water” going through my mind. It certainly says some of what I was feeling that night as the choir sang.

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