An old fashioned being.

Nobody has time anymore for things that do not seem to bring instant pleasure, or so it would seem. I overheard a couple of people speaking thinking that I was well out of earshot. They had just discovered that I had been a minister for a large part of my life.

They thought this was old fashioned and such a waste of time. So many much more important things to take up the valuable moments of youth.

I remember as a youth wondering what it was that took so many people to a church on a Sunday morning. Not being one of them, I only had the little things I learned from speaking with others. 

Those were the days when it was expected that people had time for such. In some places in the world, this is still the case. For this group of people, I was from the dark ages. 

Over the next two or so days I wondered if all was lost and we had become a people with no sense of the other only ourselves and our feelings.

I wondered what is worship? Was it indeed a thing of the past? 

My own understanding is that to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of something that inspires within you such a feeling is, in fact, a sense of worship.  That we all at some time or other have such feelings, we may not give it a name but it is something other than the ordinary. Without such moments life would be so much less so I hope that I am correct in thinking we all at some time have such experience.

Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, then lord chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his office. 

Hailsham recognized Marten among the group and cried, "Neil!" 

Not daring to question or disobey the "command," the entire band of visitors promptly fell to their knees! 

I am not talking about such forms of worship.

I may indeed be a relic of the past but I rejoice in those moments when without thinking something overtakes my inner being and hold me in astonishment. The flight of a bird soaring above in full song does not bring me to my knees but it still fills me with that sense of awe that there is more to life than me

I no longer try to explain or name this feeling because we all express this in different ways but I do so hope that we all are conscious of such moments.  Cherishing such moments fills the inner being with a sense of calm and joy which is there to be tapped into in times of trouble or grief.

I start my day in the quiet thought of just such moments and then find the day brings even more. I really hope we have not reached that time when all that matters in life is oneself.

Have a day full of moments of wonder.