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[Back to index of December 2007 articles] The Power of Prayer: A Book of Prayer By
Lucy Chumbley
What are prayer books made of? For some members of St. George's, Glenn Dale, they include fabric from a favorite dress, fragments of stained glass from a church destroyed by a hurricane, bumper stickers, song lyrics, prayer cards and postcards, crosses, newspaper clippings, photos of friends and other treasures that evoke joy, gratitude, comfort and closeness to God. Bearing boxes and binders, plastic bags and notebooks, seven parishioners gathered on a recent rainy Saturday to weave the threads of their spiritual lives together. The gathering followed an earlier session in September, where group members discussed how they accessed God and identified "things that resonate for us," said Terry Doyle. "I was struck by how, as we went around, people said, ‘Oh, I have this bulletin board,' or ‘I have all these pieces of paper that I stuck in my Bible,'" said the Rev. Connie Reinhardt, rector of St. George's. Group members went home after this session to identify meaningful items and gather them together to create prayer books that chart their personal spiritual journeys. Today they have come back to share what they have found and what they have learned. Opening a red box, Doyle gently unwraps nine crosses nested in white tissue paper and passes them around for all to touch, along with an accompanying text. There is a cross made of a shattered mirror – "the idea is to look into the cross and see Christ but to also see yourself" – a cross of nails, a joyful, colorful cross from El Salvador, Celtic crosses portraying journeys and meetings and oppression, a Native American cross that Doyle calls "journey into forgiveness" and other crosses that illustrate journeys into grief, emptiness and finally, glory. Doyle's project, a long term effort to make "tactile, hands-on stations of the cross," began as a Holy Week activity, he said, and has evolved into a series of meditations. "This will be a component of my prayer book," he says. "A kind of novena." With his prayer book, John Rebstock hopes to "integrate the spiritual journey of my life all in one place." He has chosen to include journaling notes, quotations he likes and notes from retreats, along with programs from concerts and collected prayers and hymns. He needs to use a binder, he says, so he can easily move things around. Lee Rowe, whose 6-year-old daughter, Rebekah, is peacefully drawing pictures beside him on the sofa, shows the group a prayer card of the Holy Family titled "A Quiet Moment" that he is including in his book. It helps him to remember that they were a real family, too, he says, just the three of them, and were not always surrounded by angels, shepherds and the hurly burly of life. A self-described "word person," Rowe's prayer book also includes sonnets by John Donne and other poems, and is taking shape in a beautifully bound notebook. Deborah Boda says much of her inspiration came during her drive to work, when she turned her thoughts away from the traffic to her own spiritual journey. "That thought process is still going on, of where do I find myself feeling safe and comfortable?" she says. "I've got a 45 minute commute each way, so I've got plenty of time to think about it." At home, Boda found several swatches of fabric she had saved. In addition to a section of cloth cut from a former favorite dress, now threadbare, she is including a piece of a poncho her grandma made in her prayer book, which will be housed in a large binder she is planning to decorate with bold stripes of color. Reinhardt also is planning to include coaster size crocheted squares made by her grandmother in her book: "She was such an important part of my spiritual history." She'll include passages from her favorite prophets, a colorful card that reads, "Jesus and his troublemakers merrily go on," and some alternate images of God. She's starting her volume in a notebook with a magnetic flap, but allows that binders might provide greater flexibility for a work which by its nature can never really be finished. The contents of Emma Hadley's prayer book tumble from a blue grocery bag: postcards – "I have all these postcards that mean something to me," – greeting cards from significant people, bumper stickers – "Hate is not a family value" – and a yellowing newspaper clipping in which she stands in a tree with other cast members from a musical. "I'm organizing it around people and things that are important to me," she says. "People who have helped shape me; who have been significant shapers in my life." Hadley hopes to cover her finished book with cross-stitch. "This project made me feel that prayer is largely an act of treasuring and gratitude," Rebstock says. "I think a lot of times we think of prayer as intercession, and this helps me get beyond that." Reflecting on the group's work, Doyle says he has been amazed at "the breadth – the wide range of the types of things that touch on the personal and the spiritual." "Another theme that I heard was remembering," he says. "Making sense of the past and bringing it into the future." "But delving into the past and looking at where you've come from – sometimes that can be a challenge," Hadley says. Other challenges included "finding or making the time" (Boda); ensuring the book is "more than just a greatest hits" (Reinhardt); learning to pray individually as well as communally (Rowe); and fighting perfectionism (Doyle). "Part of my ongoing challenge is to think of the everydayness of prayer," Doyle said. "It's really easy to be holy during Holy Week." But the main challenge, Reinhardt said, is "to keep working on this." On paper, and in life.
[Back to index of December 2007 articles]
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