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A Gift for Expressing
Written By: Mary Jane McCall | Issue: August 2024
For Pastor Randy Lucas, Divine Encounters are embedded within the most ordinary circumstances.
Randy Lucas
A familiar face around town, Randy Lucas, senior minister at Highlands United Methodist Church, is always on the go, whether through his Church ministry and outreach, appearing in local theatre productions, or lending a willing heart and healing hand to many causes throughout town.
This led to his publishing two books of poetry, Poems from a Park Bench, and Are You Jesus? and other poems, prayers and ponderings. His third book coming in late fall is a book of short stories for Advent and Christmas entitled Naomi’s Snow.
His poems reflect his growing appreciation that “God is present in the simplest of things, in life’s ordinary moments, people and places.”
Park benches have become a spiritual metaphor for him as he has “envisioned sitting beside God on a park bench. In my imagination, there is no need for words in that moment. I’ve often reflected that being in the presence of God would be sufficient. No revelation needed.”
Those holy encounters involve slowing down, sitting on a park bench, or on a mountain, or beside a babbling creek, and being present in the moment.
From his most recent work, Are you Jesus?, the poem Stopping reminds us to do just that:
Stopping by a mountain range
I’ve often hurried by,
I seemed to have some extra time
to soak in earth and sky.
And armed with books to ponder,
by Merton, Nowen, Rohr,
I wondered if I took the time,
what stopping had in store.
And so between my reading
and pausing just to breathe,
it seemed my weary soul exhaled,
least that’s what I believe.
So reading, resting, praying,
I spent some morning time
and found the sabbath mystery
of quiet peace, sublime.
It set my mind to thinking
of the wisdom of it all.
God’s gentle gift of respite,
a divine and sacred call.
And with a grateful heart,
I packed up and drove away.
But the memory of the moment
remains with me this day.
Recalling simple blessings
of a lovely mountain top,
I hear God’s invitation
to pause, to pray, to stop.
