Night Prayer

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