morning prayer

Q&A with ANNA MCLAMB & MIMI KERAVUOURI photography by Katherine Poole

Every Tuesday at 7:30 a.m., Mimi Keravuori and Anna McLamb gather in the library for Morning Prayer. In the 14 years since the Tuesday Morning Prayer group formed, it has gained and lost dear members; met in the Chapel, the labyrinth, parked cars; weathered illness, mourned deaths, rejoiced births. The one thing that has not changed is their faithful offering of thanks to God. I sat down with Mimi and Anna to shine a light on this special practice. (Our conversation has been edited for clarity.)

KP: Tell me how you got involved in the Tuesday Morning Prayer group.

MK: You may remember (Rev.) Roxane Gwyn. She was here doing her discernment year in 2008. She started the group. There were about 12 of us, mostly women, and we met in Smede’s Chapel.

Yes, Roxanne led us and we did the whole kneeling, standing, sitting thing. But then Roxanne was called away and we were all like, “What? No!” But she assured us we could do it ourselves. This is a lay service, lay people can lead it.

MK: We met in the Chapel until the renovation for the Transept, then we had to move to the library.

AM: I started coming in 2009 when my daughter Nora was almost a year old. I had just returned to work as a lawyer full-time, which was a lot. My dad was in the hospital at Duke

Raleigh and all of my family came and stayed at my house. So we had a household of people, a first birthday, dad in the hospital. I felt like I was about to lose it.

I just looked at the bulletin one Sunday morning and saw prayer group on the schedule. I'd not really done anything with the church — just kind of showed up, attended services — and I just thought, I need something. I need a little extra church. And that was it. I could drop Nora off at daycare, then come here on my way in to work. So that's what I did. And I just made space for it.

KP: From a group sitting, standing and kneeling in the Chapel to two in the library … How your practice has evolved over the years?

MK: Well for starters, Anna gave me this wonderful large print Prayer Book.

AM: I’d have thought you'd have it all memorized by now, Mimi.

MK: There's a lot we do have memorized. We got tired of reading the Psalms on Tuesdays, so at one point, we went through all of the Psalms from first to last. That was one way to mix it up. And then we went from the Tuesday morning liturgy to the Wednesday morning liturgy, and now we're on Thursday. We figure we're on our own and nobody can tell us that we're doing it wrong.

AM: That’s the cool thing about morning prayer. You learn about the different parts of the prayer book that you don't visit on Sundays. Mimi is like our theologian. She keeps track of the calendar and the readings. I have also developed an awareness of Episcopal Saints and all this kind of stuff because I was here. Insert here bit about being serious and studying it hard…

Martha (Mimi) Keravuori has attended St.Michael’s for 50 years. She has served with nearly every aspect of the church, including the vestry, ECW Chair and Gifts of Grace. Her three sons and six grandchildren are or were members here.

Anna McLamb has been a member of St. Michael's since 2008. She sings in the choir and has previously served on vestry, as junior warden, and as co-chair of the Annual Fund with her husband Jeff.