Welcome everyone!
A couple of weeks ago on the Church Camp we punctuated our days with prayer (repeatedly setting aside 30 minutes of gathered silence) and committed to be a prayer practicing people going forward. Here are a few words from a poet and a Rabbi to inspire us on this prayer practicing journey…
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. – Mary Oliver
The world is aflame with evil and atrocity; the scandal of perpetual desecration of the world cries to high heaven. And we, coming face-to-face with it, are either involved as callous participants or, at best, remain indifferent onlookers….
We pray because the disproportion of human misery and human compassion is so enormous. We pray because our grasp of the depth of suffering is comparable to the scope of perception of a butterfly flying over the Grand Canyon. We pray because of the experience of the dreadful incompatibility of how we live and what we sense.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel