There’s that moment in fairy tales when the hero approaches the enemy’s lair. The mission is righteous (rescuing a prisoner or finding a precious item that destroys evil) but the journey has been long (haunted forests, astronomical beanstalks, packs of hungry wolves, or whatever grizzly monster rattles your imagination.) Eventually, the hero ascends a hill, and there it is in all its breathtaking awe.

Well, that’s the kind of feeling you get when you journey by water to the Hubbard Glacier in Southeast Alaska, which Gelind and I did a few days ago.

The Hubbard Glacier. You know it’s there; you’ve heard stories about it; you try to imagine its magnitude and its splendor. But nothing can quite prepare you for the moment you round the bend and behold it in all its untouched glory. As you stare at it, mesmerized by its blueness, you almost sense it creeping inch by inch down the channel it is carving in the rock. It’s coming for you, you think.

But, of course, it isn’t. It’s just that fear is a natural response to something so untrainable and powerful. Humans need this experience from time to time just to remind us who we are. When we get too big for our boots and think of ourselves as masters of our destiny, we need a glacier larger than Rhode Island to put us back in our place.

Fear is something we are used to by now. We live with it every day. But this summer, the anxiety feels more intense than normal, and it’s not hard to spot the cause of our heightened communal stress. There are a couple of ways churches can respond to the fear. One is to ignore the reality of how we are all feeling, as if avoiding the topic will make it go away. The other is to obsess about it, panic, and risk making everything even worse.

I’m talking, of course, about the election season. I think there’s a third option in between pretending we’re not anxious and obsessively worrying. If you are anxious, fearful, and

afraid your head is going to explode before November, then let me explain my third option.

We need God’s resources, and we need to pray. So, on select Sunday afternoons beginning August 11, St. John’s will hold a short service of prayer for our nation. Yes, where else can we go when our heads are about to explode, but to our source of peace?

These prayer services, which we’re calling ‘Peace in our Time’ will NOT be:

• An opportunity to air your thoughts about anything,
• A chance for the rector to tell everyone what he thinks,
• A discussion of policies or personalities,
• Praying that your personal political opinions will be vindicated.

There will be no sermon, no time of sharing, and no political messages disguised as liturgy.

We’ll just pray – both in silence and with written liturgy and receive God’s resources to see us through this season. It’ll be a time to decompress, receive God’s Spirit of calm, and call on God for ‘Peace in our Time’ (as the 1662 Book of Common Prayer puts it.)

 The dates have been chosen so as not to conflict with Sundays with special events. The services will start at 4 p.m. and will also be available via livestream. We’re still thinking through some of the practicalities, but for now make a note of these dates and determine you will pray for ‘Peace in our Time’.

Here are the dates:

August 11

August 25

September 1

September 15

September 29

October 13

October 27

November 3