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

AM: Yes, Roxanne led us and we did the whole kneeling, standing, sitting thing. Then Roxanne was called 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 Transept renovation, then we had to move to the library. When it is nice out, we go to the labyrinth. And during COVID, we parked beside each other in the parking lot and rolled down our windows!

AM: I started coming in 2009 when my daughter 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 here and all of my family came and stayed at my house. We had a household of people, a first birthday, dad in the hospital. I felt like I was about to lose it.

I looked at the bulletin one Sunday morning and saw the prayer group. 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 the baby 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 big group in the Chapel to two in the library … How has your practice 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. Then we went from the Tuesday morning liturgy to the Wednesday 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. We just turn to Page 75 of the Prayer Book and start going. We make it our own. And, it gives you a great structure for reading the Bible.

MK: We also don’t hesitate to stop if we need to clarify something. We are serious about learning as we read. I have learned more in the years that we’ve been doing Morning Prayer, than I did all the years before. Tuesday morning. It is absolutely holy.

AM: It’s like having a little support group… Sometimes we’ll say, “What the heck does that mean?” and we’ll go back and figure it out.

KP: Is there room for more at the Morning Prayer table?

MK: Of course! Just because its only the two of us doesn’t mean we are exclusive. We’re happy to have anybody else join us.

AM: One of the best parts of it is right at the end there are two prayers: The General Thanksgiving and the Prayer of St. Chrysostom. We say both of them but the St. Chrysostom prayer is the one that says, “where two or three are gathered together in his name…” And that has always endorsed what we are doing.

MK: We are the two.

AM: And that is enough.