My prayer partner and I have been praying together for over 20 years. We've prayed in Sunday school classrooms, churches, on our couches, while walking on trails, seated on park benches, over the phone. Almost always our prayers have been in the daylight (or early evening), our prayer time a pause in the steady stream of our days, our to-dos, a welcome interruption from routine, the opportunity to recenter and reframe the rest of our waking hours.
Saturday night I had the rare opportunity to spend the night at my prayer partner's home and the equally rare gift to close the end of a long day in prayer together, seated on her couch, holding hands, the only sound in her house the ticking of the clock. There is something about praying in community (where two or more are gathered), about joining in intention with another that for me deepens and strengthens the connection to spirit, to the realm that seems to exist just beyond our grasp and comprehension, but is sensed. And in that sensing, there comes a surrender of ego, an ease in letting go of thinking, and floating into simply being. What a gift it was to end the day in blessed rest. So often, when I end the day and lay my head on my pillow, rest and sleep elude me. I'm flooded with thoughts: reviewing the day, forming a list of what I must do the next day. Rarely do I take the time to surrender all that thinking before I attempt to sleep. But last night with my prayer partner, I was emptied of worry, and filled with gratitude, as well as this poem: Night Prayer, June 3, 2017 for Becky At this late hour you and I clasp hands and breathe God in our cares dissipating from our bodies with each exhale until all that remains is peace pulsing stillness cloaked around tired shoulders-- we are weighted down heavy with gratitude
1 Comment
tarah trueblood
6/4/2017 08:57:53 pm
cloaked around
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I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.
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