Last night I was looking through one of Phyllis Tickle's prayer books, and the reading for vespers was the text of the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," which is probably my second-favorite hymn (second only to "St. Patrick's Breastplate") and makes me cry every time I sing it, especially "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love." I actually forgot the tune to this for a moment, which was a good reminder that I need to get back to church very soon. I had this whole thing about not wanting to go to the Episcopal church in my parents' suburb because I don't want to see anyone I knew in high school, which was a pretty hideous time for me, but I think I need to get over that because I miss the liturgy so desperately, not to mention communion.
Anyway, when I first heard this hymn, I was intrigued by the word "Ebenezer" in the second verse. I wouldn't have known what this meant if it weren't for Kathleen Norris' fabulous book Amazing Grace, in which she explains that it's a reference to a verse in I Samuel: "Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."
Reading this verse reminded me of something Ruby, one of my best friends, said to me last year. We were talking about Connie Willis, one of our mutual favorite authors, and her book Passage, which Ruby had read and I had not. She said (warning: this may be spoilery for this novel) that it had seemed very nihilistic and sort of aggressively depressing all throughout, to the point where it was grating on her nerves. Then all of a sudden, on the last page, this really overtly Christian symbol was introduced, which changed your perspective on the rest of the story - I won't tell you what it was, so as not to spoil anything more than I have to, but I laughed when I heard it. Then my friend said in this aggrieved tone, "I didn't expect Jesus to make an appearance."
This cracked me up at the time, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I think what my friend said and what this verse from I Samuel is saying may have a lot in common. In both of them, there's this idea of marking the moments when you realize that some force greater than you has in fact put in an appearance in your life and in the world, has maybe even been there all along without your noticing it; that this thing my friend identified as Jesus has helped you, and will help you. Sometimes I think of it as Jesus too, sometimes as God, or the Holy Spirit, or just the power of grace, whatever that is. In any case, after clarifying "Ebenezer," Kathleen Norris says this:
There is a powerful moment in any religious conversion, perhaps to any faith, in which a person realizes that all of the mentors, and all that they have said, all of the time spent in reading scripture, or engaged in what felt like stupid, boring, or plain hopeless prayer, has been of help after all. It is nothing you have done, but all of it is one event, God's being there, and being of help. The enemies you were facing, whatever obstacles seemed amassed against you, even your own confusion, have simply vanished. And you are certain that it is God who has brought you to this moment, which may even feel like victory.
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