The day I lost my words

I have lost my words.  I don’t know when it happened or how it happened, but it has.  I have no more words to say.  The realization came to me while I was writing prayers for this Sunday’s bulletin.  As I tried to skillfully craft an articulate prayer that would move my parishioners to tears as they prayed together in unison, it dawned on me that this utterly unique creation sounded vaguely familiar.   I stopped and reread it out loud.  My two small dogs, who sit with me as I write, will sometimes lift their heads and look at me quizzically if I write something really profound and moving.  No response from the canine contingency .Hmm…. What was that again?  One more time into the universe I spoke the prayer.   No, I sadly shook my head, this prayer was not original.  Well, years ago it was when I wrote it the first time, now it just sounds old and tired, sort of like me.  Old and tired will not do for public worship. Nothing short of brilliant is acceptable.  Deep breath and try again.

  It reminded me of when I was a child and my sisters and I would try and retrieve pennies from the bottom of the pool.  Mom or Dad would toss one into the deep end of the pool as we sat poised on the edge ready to leap into the water as soon as the coin hit the bottom.  Deep breath, splash, dive, reach.  We would run out of air, pop to the surface take another gulp and dive again.  We continued diving and breathing until someone finally made it down far enough to grab the shining copper in their small hand and return triumphant to the surface.

                  The prayer was calling me to take a deep breath and dive again.  Summoning up my most descriptive adjectives, stunning images and majestic names for God I plunged again.  As I surfaced once more and looked at the words on the screen, I wondered if I had grabbed the penny and written the prayer to end all prayers.  With a trembling voice, I spoke the prayer aloud again.  While during this reading the dogs did twitch their ears, it was I decided, not any better than the first attempt.  Breathe, dive, write and surface.  This sequence continued for three more tries until I realized what was happening; I had lost my words.

                  After almost a quarter of century of leading people in worship through my own times of celebration and joy, despair and hopelessness, the words were gone and there were no more.  Up until now they had always come, sometimes slowly and with great effort, but they had always shown up.  Now I couldn’t find them.  No amount of hair pulling, meditating, crying or staring at the screen helped.  They were gone.   I didn’t know what to say because I had said it all.  Twenty-three years of preaching and praying is a long time. You can say pretty much everything you know in that amount of time.  One of my homiletics professors used to say “You don’t have to tell them everything you know in one sermon.”  Well, obviously I hadn’t.  It had taken twenty three years.  Granted over those years I had continued to learn, grow, stretch and imagine.  Maybe I have stopped learning, growing, stretching and imagining, though I really don’t think that is the root of the issue.  No, I think I have said all I need to say.  I have used every fiber of my being to tell the stories of hope, to give life to forgiveness, to provide ways for the avenues of grace to be seen, to offer tales of transformation and promises of peace.  I have used every word I know and then some.  I have gathered extraordinary images and woven them into tapestries of eloquence (impressed yet?) and now evidently I am done. 

 For a moment I thought it was like the pool I used to swim in drying up, but that isn’t it.  It is more like Elvis has left the building.    They are gone but the possibility remains that they will return some dark and dreary Saturday night and show up on my doorstep when they are least expected.  Their appearance will startle me as the Magi did Mary and Joseph when they showed up unannounced at that smelly stable on Christmas.  (Yes, I know that isn’t where they actually showed up and yes I do know that we don’t know how many there were.  I have not lost my basic Biblical knowledge, just my words.)  The words are gone, maybe on a sabbatical.  Maybe they have decided to visit a more worthy recipient, perhaps a new grad well versed in the current theology and nuances of faith.  Maybe, they know I would like to retire, so they have led the way.  I don’t where they have gone, but I live in hope that they will show up again, preferably before worship this week.

If they decide to stay gone my guess is there will be a lot of silence on Sunday morning.  Perhaps the silence will let them know how much they are missed.  Maybe, their departure simply means we have gone to the depths of our living with the Holy One where words are no longer necessary.  Lovely thought, but I am pretty sure the congregation is not going to want to go Quaker this soon in our relationship.  Silence it is and we will wait together for the words to return.   

In the midst of this crisis which occurred around ten p.m.  on a Tuesday evening, I texted a close friend and colleague to let her know that I had lost my words and they were nowhere to be found.  “What do you expect if you are trying to write prayers at this time of night?” came the reply from she who was at the same time trying to select texts for the next ten weeks.  “We are after all old and tired.” Is it possible that all I need is a good night’s sleep?