Midweek prayers

First on my list today is a thank you, God, for my awesome assistants Grayson, Felicia, Madilyn, and Abbie! (Can you tell that it’s wacky hair day?)
Today we talked about intercessory prayer–the one prayer style which comes easiest to all of us.  Of course, at the top of the children’s lists were their assorted pets–but next were grandparents and great-grandparents, both living and dead.  
We kept a chart with the names of those for whom the children requested prayers–it’s an abbreviated list because we only took a couple of minutes for requests.  What I loved was when the children began to feel free to go and add names to our station list–and of course they were invited to write their own names in their prayer journals.
Here’s photos of our prayer list–at the beginning of the day, and when the last group left.

We also had another intercessory prayer today;  Deacon Russ had a procedure this morning during our VBS session.  At our morning opening worship, Rev. Katie led the children in a prayer which we videoed and texted to Russ.  That’s intercessory prayer!

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Contemplating Contemplation



All is silent.
In the still and soundless air,
I fervently bow
To my Almighty God.

We’ve become awful listeners.  Notice I say we–which puts me at the top of the list.  When we talk to one another about how we’ve become so very poor at listening to one another, there’s always a laundry list of whys, much of which gets focused on electronic media and the busy-ness of our lives.

I don’t think it matters why.  That’s a rabbit trail of noisiness all on its own.  I think it’s always been easy not to listen to one another, and I think it’s created within us to do better.

As a priest, specifically in leadership with our younger Christians this week, I am passionate about helping us learn to listen to God.  I suspect that if we become better God-listeners, we’ll also become better listeners everywhere.

Each day at our prayer station in Vacation Bible School, we sit on the floor, get ourselves comfortable, and pray a centering prayer–All is silent. In the still and soundless air, I fervently bow to my Almighty God.  I ring a bell, and for a short period of time we are all invited to contemplate God–that is listen, and not speak.  Then the bell rings, and we are done.

This kind of prayer the visioneers learned is called contemplative prayer.  Yesterday we talked about distractions, and we learned to use a prayer word to help us stay centered, and to return us to our place of contemplation when we stray–as we all do.

I’m full of wonder of how easy these wiggly little people get still and mostly listen.  It’s easier than I thought it would be to pray contemplatively with them.  

Yesterday as I was getting ready to leave for VBS, I peered out my window and noticed that my night-blooming cereus, which had struggled through our exceptionally cold winter, had put out it’s first bloom in at least a couple of years.  If I’m not paying attention, I’ll miss this rare bloom; the flower opens up during the night, and is wilted soon after sunrise.  It was a good reminder of how essential showing up silently and expectantly to God is.  I may go a long, long time without “hearing” anything–but when I do, oh the wonder and beauty!







Praying with the Visioneers

It’s the first day of Vacation Bible School and I’m in charge of the prayer station–five rounds of children and youth exploring that there’s no right or wrong way to pray; starting each session with contemplative prayer, then journaling, and today a little prayer walk.

My own morning quiet inspired by a word from The Rev. Barbara Taylor to get my day going:

To say I love God but I do not pray much is like saying I love life but I do not breathe much. The only way I have found to survive my shame is to come at the problem from both sides, exploring two distinct possibilities: 1) that prayer is more than my idea of prayer and 2) that some of what I actually do in my life may constitute genuine prayer.

Women Touched by Grace April 2012–May 2014

Walking to Station One:  At the Cemetery:  Mourning our Losses

Ruth, Mary Sue, Jennifer, Sandy, Sarah, Dorisanne, April, Nancy, Ginnie, Katie, Christine, Ramonia, Beth, Joy, Laurie, Kendra, Adrienne, Debra, Ruth.

Nineteen women pastors, more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside—and that’s very beautiful indeed.

What a gift to be with them for their last session of Women Touched by Grace….until they meet again, which they will!  Walking with them as they celebrated these ten precious days together; journeying with them as they created a trellis, a rhythm, to assist them in using the gifts they have received in this precious time apart when they return to their families, friends, and ministries.

Mugs covered in our prayers, zenangle style


The women are divided into Covenant Groups who meet for lectio, sharing, and processing throughout the sessions.  Each Covenant Group is responsible for the Sunday evening Eucharistic worship, and last night Listen created our liturgy.  It was particularly meaningful.

Using the Gospel text of The Road to Emmaus, the worship began and ended in the chapel, but was a walking liturgy, with different parts of worship observed as stations.  Singing Taize music accompanied by a recorder as we walked from station to station, spring abounding, the song of birds especially geese joining our song.

Worship cover created by Nancy


The first station was at the Cemetery, where we listened to Luke 24. 1–24.  Next we walked the labyrinth together as we heard verses 25–27, pondering the presence of Christ within us.  We then moved to the third station, the cross outside the Benedict Inn, listening to verses 28–29, and greeting one another in the name of the Lord.

We returned to the chapel for station four, sharing the Bread and Cup.  The sky began to turn from day to night, just as it did for those disciples walking with Jesus on the road as they, too, recognized him finally in the breaking of the bread.  Station five was the short walk to the baptism font, full of Easter blessed water.  We took turns making the sign of the cross with holy water on one another’s foreheads, saying, You are a beloved daughter of God.

Returning to Station Four, the Chapel, for Bread and Wine


Today Teri did another fine teaching about creating a trellis, a way for them to continue to practice what had been received in the past two and one-half years.  The worship last night could not have been a finer preamble to the teaching today.  As it is that I am invited to renew my own baptismal vows when we baptize a new person into the family of God, as it was yesterday when I was reminded of my Benedictine covenant during the oblation liturgy, this day I am reminded of the essentialness of my own daily rhythm of relationship with God, others, creation, and my own self.  This is yet another gift these nineteen women have given me for my own return to that portion of the world God has entrusted to me.



Creator God, as women touched by your grace, we stand before you, open vessels.  Fill us with joy and compassion, with fidelity and faith, with love and all good things to the point of overflowing.

May others who thirst come to us for refreshment and in us, find you.  Make us worthy bearers of your word and stewards of your gifts so that, in all things, you alone may be glorified.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, our brother and savior.  
+Amen+