Roger Bond showed me what prayerfulness looked like in person

18.

As I began to follow Jesus with a more deliberate earnestness in my late teens, God brought into my life a person who had the spiritual characteristic of prayerfulness.

 

His name was Roger Bond. Father Roger Bond, as a matter of fact. There are a myriad of reasons why we should have never met one another, and, beyond that, why we might never have become friends; and he, such a warm and glowing example for me as to what prayerfulness in a person actually looked like. Sometimes the people we meet are just people we meet. Other times there is a divine spark in what initially appears to be a happenstance.

 

It was March, 1976. Roger was an Episcopalian priest in a whisper of a town on the eastern edge of Wyoming, from where you could throw a cinderblock into neighboring Nebraska. I was a frenetic college boy, 19, in my second year at Laramie, home of the state’s lone university. Roger was 48 when we met, although he looked a tad older to me, due to his full head of white hair and some mild trembling, especially in his left hand, brought on by Parkinson’s disease.

 

We met in the parish hall of his church in Lusk, St. George’s. I was singing tenor with a group of university students who were touring – this particular year – the southeast quarter of the state. We were from the school’s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter.

 

Of all the churches that provided us meals, St. George’s was hosting a spaghetti dinner for us on the evening after we had sung at the Lusk Senior Citizens Center. Of all the people I might have stood next to in line for dinner, I was behind Roger. He was already engaged in lively conversation with the guys in front of him; laughing and telling stories.

 

Eventually, he turned to me. I knew him only as the priest of this church and, at the time, I was suspicious of liturgical churches and their “weird” ways. (Sometimes I would like to go back in time and punch myself in the face.)

 

“God bless you, son,” he said to me, taking my hand and pulling me slightly closer. “What a blessing to have you kids here.”

 

“Thank you for making dinner for us,” I said, a little stiffly.

 

“Oh,” he said, “this is just selfishness on my part. If I bless you, then I get blessed. So I did it for me!” He laughed.

 

We kept talking. I should say, Roger kept talking while I listened. All evening I stayed within earshot to hear him talking and watch him being a person like none other I had ever met. Midway through the meal I talked to Dale, our tour organizer, and begged him to put me on the list of people who were to stay at Roger’s house that night. I think there were seven or eight of us strewn in his small house – on couches, on the floor, in an extra room. He had no space, but he welcomed everyone who could squeeze in as though we were a band of visiting princes.

 

Roger spoke with great love and joy in his voice about his “reflections,” when he would sit in the quiet of his house and considered he and Christ as guests in one another’s lives. He mentioned his “meditations,” in terms of the reading of Scripture or of some great Christian author – a time to comb out thoughts and weave them into his own experience.

 

The next morning he was up early making eggs and sausage and toast.

 

“What are you doing?” I asked, just to make conversation.

 

“I am praying,” he smiled. “Lord, deliver me from cooking.” Then he laughed.

 

Parting company with Roger that morning was very frustrating for me. After returning from the tour, I organized a second “tour,” which was just a group to take to St. George’s to sing on a Saturday night and attend church on Sunday morning on one of the later weekends in April.

 

Meanwhile, Roger and I wrote often, and I spent at least three weekends back in Lusk, usually leaving on Friday and returning Sunday evening. The 170-mile trips (each way) took me through a rarely-traveled stretch of highway – State Highway 34 – which follows a ravine etched into the landscape by North Sybille Creek. It is a gentle indentation leaving a beautiful shock of life along its banks. Roger’s mark on my inner landscape is similar to that of North Sybille Creek’s on this little-seen Wyoming territory.

 

Roger and I spent many hours talking quietly at his favorite truck-stop restaurant, or grocery shopping. For me, the important thing was to be in his company. I didn’t care what we did.

 

The 1976 Book of Common Prayer had just come out, and Roger was having a terrible time understanding the new design of the book he was supposed to use for masses. The 1928 version had stood everyone in good stead for almost 60 years. The alterations, to Roger, were maddening … especially on Saturday night.

 

“Where in the hell is tomorrow’s collect?” he shouted to himself while pouring over the new book. In his anger his lips got wet and his Parkinson’s shakes were unmistakably more pronounced.

 

“C’mon Father,” I said. “It has to be in there somewhere. What’s a ‘collect’ anyway?”

 

He didn’t want to, but he smiled.

 

“This isn’t funny,” he said.

 

“Yes it is,” I replied.

 

I once showed him a notebook I kept with Bible study notes and my own inexperienced comments on the pages.

 

“I’m not a Biblicist like you,” he said. “I wish I knew the Bible better.”

 

“We all do,” I said. “If you are not a Biblicist, what are you?”

 

“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said.

 

“So am I, Father Bond,” I said. “You are a mystery.”

 

I knew Roger for 10 years. He died in that house in 1986. His ministry was a lonely one, but he was faithful and prayerful. His inner life had a thrum to it with such warmth that, if one listened, one could hear it and be changed by it.

 

God brought me peace in the form of a person twice: Once in Jesus, and once in Roger.

 

He used to sign his letters, “Pax, Father Bond,” in a hand that looked like an electrocardiogram … then a small cross next to his name.

 

Pax indeed.

It is hard -- and a little unwise -- to chart progress in the spiritual life

17. With all this talk about progressing or advancing along your spiritual journey, you will sometimes want to measure how you are doing so far. When I was a runner in my younger days I kept track of every mile I ran, my average pace per mile, my diet and what pair of shoes I wore.

When centering on your spiritual life, it is much more difficult to measure progress. For example, are we going to measure time prayed, or depth of thinking, or amounts of reading, or number of meetings and Masses we attend? I suggest you avoid keeping track.

At the end of the day, all we know is that we want to grow spiritually. It is really a matter of faith on our part to believe that, on any given day, this growth has taken place as a gracious unseen, unfelt act of God upon us.

You may have done a great deal on this day to cooperate with God’s work on you. On the other hand, maybe you did nothing.

If you dare to try to keep score somehow, you will no doubt find yourself being very proud of your accomplishments on some days. You will likely grade yourself better than you should. This is the first sign that you are thinking of yourself as being more spiritually adept than others around you.

We come to God always spiritually impoverished (Blessed are the poor in spirit). The wealth that we enjoy is his not ours – it is graciously Him not selfishly us.

Too busy with myself to notice goodness in another

16. When I was about 10 years old, my mother took me along to visit a friend of hers who lived in a tiny town called Ten Sleep about 60 miles from our home in Greybull. It was summer. Schools were let out; dads were working, and warm Wyoming days stretched endlessly on.

 

At this visit I learned that my mother’s friend had a little boy named Dana, who was two years younger than I.

 

Nowadays, some 45 years later, I can tell you that I was a self-absorbed little kid stemming from a disturbance in my own incomplete sense of self. As yet, this is the best description of me I have ever heard, and it comes from the “narcissism” section in the field of psychology.

 

Back then, at age 10, I was busy being myself and sorting out my world as best I could. I was my own narrator, so, my interpretation of things was often well off the mark. At root, I didn’t think anyone except my grandfather liked me very much.

 

I didn’t so much meet Dana as I found myself in the midst of his openness, his friendliness, his welcoming heart. He instantly made room for me and wanted to play. His undiluted joy was contagious and I felt, of all things, comfortable with another human being.

 

I can remember that we met up two more times – once in my town, and once at the swimming pool in Basin. In Greybull, we walked and talked from the City Park in the south end to the grade school to the north. In Basin, of course, we swam at the outdoor pool next to the gym and jumped off the high dive – our boney little bodies hardly registering a splash – and surreptitiously peed through our swimming trunks in the shallow end.

 

I had never been so pleased to know someone … to be in the company of someone who seemed to possess such personal strength, but who would only use it for good.

 

As it turned out, Dana and I never crossed paths again. Other than those three very impressive days, our circumstances would never pair us again. There were three Wyoming high schools between Greybull and Ten Sleep, and, of course, little kids don’t plan trips to visit friends.

 

At this writing, it has only been a few days since I learned that Dana died in Texas at the age of 19 in March of 1979. Me, I was busy with myself that month, in another country, studying to be a pastor. I didn’t get the news of his death until 33 years later.

 

Unfortunately, I realized, I have been busy with myself a lot since the day at the Basin pool. So busy that I did not realize the gift that those three days of acceptance had been to me. I understand that I was just a little kid back then, but I can’t help feeling stupid – and feeling a loss.

 

I mention this to students of the inner life because a twisted side-effect of concentration on one’s inner life is narcissism: Being so busy being yourself that you fail to notice the gift that others are in your life. I wish you had met Dana. He was a great example in this regard. Me, not so much. T.

Our inner life is mostly unseen good for others

15. Your inner life is not for you.

One of the key characteristics of the human soul is that it is made to give away. Primarily, we are expected to give ourselves away to God. This is our duty – to respond to God in love for him with all that we are. The Greatest Commandment, according to Jesus, contains this responsibility for us in the “you shall.” We are expected to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In response to the second greatest commandment, we are charged by Christ to love our neighbor as ourselves.

When we address ourselves to God through this inner life, we find ourselves praying more actively for others out of love. As this inner fire is fanned to flame within us by the movement of the indwelling God, others around us will themselves behold the light of God and be drawn to his warmth.

The others – your neighbors – might not credit you with this odd attraction they have for God. Your very existence may not be of much importance to them. Your hidden life often remains hidden … both from you and particularly from others. You will not be fully aware of how God uses your inner life as a ministry to others. This is another way that the inner life is a life of faith.

Have you made a difference? Absolutely. Can you point to it? Mostly, you cannot. This should not be disconcerting to you. In the Kingdom of God, it is normal.

Note: This post stemmed from a concern that one of my life-long friends mentioned last August, while living under the threat of death from cancer. “You know,” he said to me, “where Jesus says ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant’? I am afraid of that moment, because I don’t think my life has been all that well done.” I assured him that he would be surprised for all the unseen good results his life has caused. He died in April. I am confident he got his “well done” from the Lord.

There must be a way to be truly relevant

14. When I first thought of myself as a contemplative, rather mystical-oriented person of prayer, I sought to attach myself to a group or order of people who distinguished themselves as contemplatives.

 

When we Catholics go through the confirmation process nowadays, we are allowed to choose the name of a saint with whom we associate ourselves. Having been influenced greatly by the writings of John of the Cross, it was a no-brainer for me to choose him as my confirmation name, and to designate him especially as a saint who would pray for me while I journeyed out my faith on this side of our divide.

 

I eventually severed ties with the contemplative order because, it seemed to me, it was merely a way to draw attention to myself; to set myself apart and a little above the others who were not so much contemplative.

 

Now, having journeyed still further with John of the Cross, as well as Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen and a few other solid teachers on this rather ethereal subject, I am leaning toward the idea that contemplation is, first of all, no longer the best word to use, and, secondly, that it is for every believer.

 

To describe Thomas Merton as a contemplative, for example, does nothing to help us understand his actual bearing as a Christian. I prefer to think of Merton as “integrated.” His life of solitude and silence, as Henri Nouwen points out, led Merton to a life of compassionate involvement in the lives of others, and a poignant critic of the world around him, and an expression of the love of Christ to the world in a singularly relevant way. This is a life for all Christians, despite our circumstances and despite our absolutely inescapable need to be personally comfortable about everything our faith demands of us. (Those looking on from centuries past must surely refer to us as “those unbearable lightweights.”)

 

Merton lived as a Trappist monk in Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky. It would be easy to misunderstand and accuse him of hiding. Few outside the monastery realize what a social and cultural, as well as spiritual center an abbey becomes by virtue of the prayer that takes place within.

 

It is this immersion in prayer that will shake us loose from our superficiality and drown us in an integrated faith that will make us radical and relevant, as was Christ.

 

Until then, we are doomed to be cartoons or sketches of believers who add a smidgeon of the Christian faith to a comfortable life and call it good.

Regaining a sense of center

13.

Whenever we read or write or, indeed, take a break from a careful consideration of spiritual life, we always, always have to circle back and regain our sense of center.

 

My life is not what my life is all about. My prayer life is not for me, but for others, or just for God to enjoy.

 

Now that I belong to Him, I continue to cry out to Him. Not to belong more, but, in belonging to seek Him out in praise of Him, blessing of Him, adoration of Him, and glorification of Him.

 

Laudamus te,

Benedictimus te,

Adoramus te,

Glorificamus te.

 

We do this because that is what sons do.