Reading Thomas Merton first roused thoughts of becoming more contemplative. We were in London on sabbatical and attended St. James of Piccadilly, a wonderful Christopher Wren designed church, which at the time had a fiery and charismatic rector, Donald Reeves.
After telling me that I was among the least contemplative people he had ever met, Reeves’ response was, “pray your diary.” In British English, “diary” equates to calendar or daily schedule. As intercessory prayer, “pray your diary” can mean asking God’s help with the tasks of the day: a meeting with a difficult person or a consequential presentation.
Or, as I’ve come to understand, it can be a call to open my daily life to the Holy Spirit, saying essentially, “I would like to feel the spirit of God in the people I meet today.”
“You will never be a monk,” Reeves said, as he sent me out to meditate in what we call the real world.
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“Every day, look at your calendar and ask the Holy Spirit to be with you in each interaction.”
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Donald Reeves and St. James of Piccadilly
Reeves was also an extremely effective pastor. When he was appointed rector in 1980, St. James had become a hollowed-out church. The building is but a block away from Piccadilly Circus, and almost no one lives nearby; no natural parish.
St. James of Piccadilly
Reeves revitalized the church and the congregation opening a six-days-a-week market in the churchyard, a restaurant, speeches by notables, concerts, and his own charismatic preaching. On any given Sunday, the congregation would be made up of Londoners from all over, tourists from all over who heard of the church’s reputation, and street people—yes, real street people. In passing the peace, you often hugged someone who hadn’t bathed recently.
Aware of his reputation as somewhat of a cult figure, he admonished the Londoners not to come to St. James every week: “Go to your local church; help it thrive.” Still, there was a growing core of a congregation that kept it going, and to my knowledge still does.
Photo Credit: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)