Music | Art | Prayer

Well I missed a step in the stairs, going from my bedroom to my living room, on Saturday night. Slammed my ankle onto the floor and crashed into the dining room table. So as I sit with my foot up and ice on my ankle, wrist, and chest, I contemplate how to be a protestor that can't stand around. I'm thinking about making space for myself to pray.

Be the Church in Prayer

Prayer is an important part of protest. I am often frustrated by the way prayer is offered as an alternative to protest, and by the presumption that prayer is a magic power that changes everything. At the same time, it is a mistake to leave prayer out of our tools for protest.

Praying, both individually and in community, is a part of self-care. Prayers of all sorts have a meditative quality, and meditation is prayer.

Prayer builds confidence that God is near. For some of us, we imagine God sitting beside us, as real as Jesus in our faith story. For others God is further and prayer is the tool used to cross the barrier between us and Them. For some God is within; prayer then becomes introspection, taking a moment to listen to the God of our heart.

Prayer is an important part of discernment--we use prayer, scripture, analysis, and conversation to find our next steps.

When asked how to pray, Jesus shares with the disciples a prayer that conjures an image of what the world could be. Imagine God's rule on earth! Imagine enough food every day, imagine forgiveness! Notice that the Lord's prayer is not about individual needs but about the community. Ed Rodman, a professor at Episcopal Divinity School when I was there, insisted that us is the most important word in the prayer.

The Lord's prayer is a prayer for the community, for the neighborhood, for everyone. And praying together creates community. It offers a way to be honest about our needs, to be vulnerable to others, and to God. The act of naming where we need help is the act of trusting our neighbors.

Prayer is where we get the reassurance of forgiveness, and where we promise to forgive others. In the Psalms, prayers express the hardest of our emotions: fear, frustration, despair, loss, and mourning. At the same time these prayers name our home, our dependence on God, and our trust of God.

What are your church traditions around prayer? How are you engaged in prayer for the world? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening. ​
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Carrie Newcomer's song "I heard an owl".

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The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston has an article about how to artfully display art that speaks to what you want.

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