Sometimes, you see so much, just peeking during prayer.
He was big man, tall and long past his prime. His hair looked like he might have used his hand for a comb that morning, and like many of those shuffling before and behind him, he was a little damp from walking in from the parking lot in the rain.
He came slowly from the choir loft, along with two or three dozen others in sweaters and tweeds, many of them crinkly-eyed and with deep creases along their cheeks, and what a pastor of mine used to call “the snows of many winters” in their hair.
But they were still able to lift their well-worn throats in praise to their God. The joy of that and some pride in that shone in their faces, as they finished their anthem and made their way slowly, quietly to the seats they’d saved out in the auditorium, with carefully placed Bibles and purses and hymn books.
It took a while for those old feet to go the distance, and the big man, for his part, was barely out of the loft, pressing his walker before him, when one of the church ministers asked the congregation to bow their heads and join him in prayer. They did, even as the remaining choir members continued to make their way down the aisles and up the rows to their waiting chairs.
The big man, though, paused and bowed his head.
He stood there, looming above those already comfortably set in their seats. His weight shifted, quietly, from foot to foot, like a tall, lean tree in a rising wind.
The prayer stretched on for a minute … then two. The minister had some things to say. The seat the big man had saved for himself was open, on the end of a row, about 20 feet down below him. But he made no effort to continue toward it.
The minister prayed on. The big man’s legs began to tremble. He was standing on a long, sloping stretch of floor, leaning hard on the walker but trying to keep his back tall and straight, even as his head remained bowed. The effort was gaining on him, but he wouldn’t move.
Yet another minute crept by, with the minister offering heartfelt praise and kind intercessions. I wondered if the big man was counting the seconds, at this point. All I could see was his back and bowed head.
Yet somehow, I had the impression he was as focused on the words of the minister as the minister was, himself. For all the growing strain of his awkward stance … for all the nagging tendrils of pain that must have been creeping out from his joints and muscles and ligaments … I sensed he was praying with his pastor, not just waiting him out.
Finally, the “amen” came. The congregants stirred, settling in for the coming solo. The big man resumed his journey down the sloping aisle, and lowered himself slowly, quietly, into his seat.
A lot of things flit through my mind at that point.
A realization that there are many kinds of faithfulness … of courage … of reverence that we don’t see. Because we’re not looking.
That we’ve mostly forgotten how much we have to learn from those who’ve been serving our good God so much longer than we have.
That there are things worth standing for. And when we stand for them, God gives us the patient strength that standing requires.
The beauty of that big man, swaying on his trembling legs, is that he probably wasn’t thinking of any of those things. He was just showing respect to his fellow Christians. Humility, before his Lord.
He was praying – something hard enough to do, down on your knees.
And even tougher, sometimes, on your feet.
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