Now Moses would take the Tent and pitch it outside the camp, at some distance from the camp. It was called the Tent of Meeting, and whoever sought the Lord would go out to the Tent of Meeting that was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the Tent, all the people would rise and stand, each at the entrance of his tent, and gaze after Moses until he had entered the Tent. And when Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the Tent, while He spoke with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud poised at the entrance of the Tent, all the people would rise and bow low, each at the entrance of his tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another.

So we start! We had our first reckless prayer gathering today at our home church, the Belchertown UCC. About a dozen of us gathered in the parish house, in a wonderful little chapel room with stained-glass windows.

We started with a closer look at the story of Moses and his reckless prayer conversation with God as recorded in Exodus 33. The dramatic culmination of this section is when God passes majestically in front of Moses, hiding him in a little crack in the rock so that he would not see God’s face but rather God’s backside. He does this, by the way, in response to the bold demand Moses makes of him: “I pray you, show me your Glory!”

[Side note : Tom, one of the group members and a seminarian in the process of being ordained, remarked that one of his professors in seminary refers to this story as "the Holy Mooning". For some reason, that REALLY resonated with me There's some funny stuff in this Bible!!]

We marveled at the recklessness of Moses in slapping God around verbally - as Tom pointed out in our discussion, Moses gets God to change His mind! One of the things that becomes obvious in reading the story is just how well Moses knew God, and how he challenges God to be faithful to His character.

The part of the story we focused on, though, was the part just before the drama, the part that describes the kind of conversations Moses had with God. The part that says, simply enough, that the Lord God spoke with Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another.

So, to start our reckless journey into prayer, we started thinking about what it means to be in conversation with another person.

I feel that sometimes we have lost the significance of a face-to-face conversation with another human being. When we think of talking with a friend, we are so used to shooting off an email, leaving a voicemail, or maybe at the most making a quick phone call. When we DO talk face to face with a friend, it’s usually for something important, something we have to plan into our schedules. Sometimes it feels like I can’t JUST talk to a friend, I need to have SOME content matter to talk ABOUT… otherwise I feel like I’ll be wasting my friend’s time.

I don’t know, maybe other people have conversations with friends all the time, but regardless of how often you have a face-to-face conversation with a friend, I think the point is there is something about such a conversation that is different than other times spent with that friend. I think such conversations stand out in our memories of our friendship, don’t you?

And I think we often take that “something” for granted, so much so that we miss out on the special awareness of being in the conversation, in the relationship, in the presence.

When Moses says to God, “show me your Glory!”, my JPS Hebrew-English translation renders that phrase as: “let me behold Your Presence!”

There’s something powerful and mysterious and divine about being face-to-face with another human. There’s something reckless about seeking God’s presence that same way.

So, our exercise in reckless prayer this week : rediscovering conversation, face-to-face, in-your-presence conversation, with another human being. It doesn’t matter what kind of conversation it is, it doesn’t have to be deep or meaningful or anything like that. It can be mundane and casual and informal, and your friend doesn’t even have to know what you’re practicing - just practice being aware of the other person’s PRESENCE, practice noticing subtle things about the other person’s personality. Instead of spending time thinking about what to say next, or what you’re going to say in response to your friend’s speech, simply flow with it, simply BE in the conversation and simply be WITH your friend.

Perhaps you’re not comfortable spontaneously making conversation like that. Perhaps you’re shy and can’t really talk much. Perhaps you’re not sure what your friend will think of your strange “awareness” exercise. In that case, I’d recommend trying this out with someone safe, someone you know well, someone whom you meet often anyway, even if the actual content of your meetings is something as light as “hey Bill, how are ya?”

And what about you? What do you think of conversation? About being in the presence of another person? Do you wonder if perhaps this is what the disciples of Jesus were treated to on a daily basis? Do share your thoughts, ideas, insights!