by Celia Hales. Revised and previously published.
Many years ago, not too long after my graduation, I scheduled an appointment with one of my former professors at my university. On that particular day as the meeting approached, I was quite nervous and ill-at-ease, and in an attitude of complete surrender, I spent a short while alone in the university chapel. I left the pew much calmer and more self-contained. Little did I realize that the professor would himself emanate a serenity as tangible as the blue coat he wore.
Our hour together went smoothly, despite frequent telephone interruptions. As the time wore on, I became conscious of a sense of almost unreal strength in this man. Looking back upon the hour, it has seemed to me akin to the eye in the center of a hurricane: a brief interlude of shared ideas and feelings, untouched by whatever storms preceded or followed it. He seemed to possess a stillness within, a calm center that allowed him to function with exceptional tranquility in his work and in his life.
It had not always been thus. He had been my teacher, on and off, for the last two years of my university experience. He was quite outstanding then, with many recognized talents and competencies. But because I understood him, from a distance, somewhat intuitively, I saw a measure of hesitancy that in all likelihood eluded most colleagues and students. At the very point of exuding self-confidence, he frequently drew back, his abilities in abeyance, as he regrouped his resources for another assault on life. Quite conscious of his age (early 30′s), he expressed doubts that older and more experienced colleagues would find value in his proposals–seemingly oblivious to the fact that they usually did.
But this was a couple of years after I had made these observations. As the hour drew to a close, I was aware that his old doubts had fallen away.
I broke into the conversation, interrupting him saying in wonder, “You’re solid as a rock!. . .You are solid as a rock. How did you get that way?”
He turned aside, avoiding my eyes, and then said, quietly but carefully, “Prayer.”
Then, looking steadily at me, he turned his chair back. I slowly nodded my head in a moment of nearly mystical comprehension. Yes, he was possessed of a new solidarity, a new steadiness, and even in a gentle man, a deeper measure of gentleness.
In the years since, I have returned in memory to those words. My visit to the university chapel earlier had been instinctive, but now the whole experience of that day has acquired new meaning. Was God present in some way inexplicable to me, directing my life in those moments as we of religious inclination pray that He will do? I believe so. Certainly the difference in my own prayer life since that October morning has been marked. I recognized that this professor whom I respected and admired attributed to prayer; I have reasoned that God would do the same for me.
Certainly one does not learn how to live as one would sign up for graduate courses. Nor, I think, does one learn direction from other people, however meaningful such peak experiences as I have described may be. One learns in patience and in stillness, when the lights are out and we commune with our God as we conceive Him to be. Here prayer may acquire the life-shaping power that it is meant to have. Surely then we may affirm in our own experiences, “. . .in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength. . .” (Isaiah 30:15).
