Alex Swain

“I want you to be free from anxieties.” (1 Corinthians 7:32a)

Siblings in Christ,

St. Paul begins today’s Epistle reading with this simple, yet deeply heartrending, statement. 

I, too, Brother Paul, want to be free from anxieties! You, dear reader, want to be free from anxiety! Those 2,000 years ago to whom St. Paul wrote desired this as well. It is a human hope which we longingly sigh, as our bones ache and our hearts break, numbingly observing the latest human tragedy, the newest hardship, the most up-to-date prediction of a world whose resources are wasting away faster than we can make sense of.

So it is that we are filled with anxieties, and desire to be free from anxieties… so what are we to do?

Why not pray? Better yet, pray in community!

When we speak aloud and cry to God connected to one another in spoken word and chanted song, we enter God’s loving presence as dappled reflections of God, fluttering Images hymning to the Heavens; for the world blossomed forth by God speaking, creation the response to God’s Holy Voice. In prayer we enter as buds blossoming forth, an ever-echoing response to God’s act of creation. 

And in this way we begin to move from our anxieties, as we shed time and enter timelessness.

Prayer enters us into the still moments, the eternity between breaths, where God invites us to be freed from anxieties by the focus of the soul onto God. It is where we respond to Christ who calls us saying, “Come to me all who are heavy laden and I will give you rest… for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).

I therefore encourage folks to enter into this stillness daily, perhaps each moment even, if we are able (what a dream that would be!).

And I would also invite folks to venture forth this Sunday evening to a community Nightsong Compline Experience beginning at 7:00 PM at the Annex, at the Mercado District. Chris Campbell is the lead of this new community outreach project as a member of Beloved in the Desert. He has helped partner St. Philip’s with Flam Chen, the group who performs Tucson’s All Souls Parade, along with Why I Love Where I Live, and Many Mouths One Stomach. 

It will undoubtedly be an amazing experience of a diverse folks gathered to focus on God Almighty, entering that stillness in community, and gently grasping in practice St. Paul’s exhortation to be free from anxieties.

Lord may it be so.

Amen!

Alex Swain

Alex Swain was a member of Beloved in the Desert in its inaugural year (‘19-’20) and continues to work closely with Mtr. Taylor and the current Corps Members with the program.