A Season of Prayer
A Season of Prayer
Usually, Lent is the season we set aside with 40 days of reflection and prayer, mirroring the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Recognizing how this pattern of attention and intention is meaningful to many of us, we invite you to add another 40-day season of prayer this year, beginning Sunday, September 29, and concluding the first week of November.
No doubt you’ll notice that this season of prayer coincides with our country’s approaching election. In this time of heightened anxiety, of deep divisions, and vastly different visions for our future, prayer seems a particularly appropriate response – a plea for protection and participation for every voice and voter, and a way to keep our thoughts, words, and deeds centered in love and aligned with God’s hope for us all.
Each week in the Friday and Sunday emails and in print we are offering you a Prayer Book to accompany you through the weekScripture, prayers, poetry, and art to prompt your reflection.
If you happen to have a reading or a photograph to contribute to this weekly offering of edifying words and beauty, please send them to Chris Braudaway-Bauman at chris@firstcong.net.
On Thursday evenings 6:00 to 6:45 pm, starting on October 3, we will gather in the Chapel for a weekly service of silence, quiet singing, candlelight and a time for you to speak the prayers and concerns of your hearts. We imagine it as our version of Quaker meeting, a time of silent listening with an open-ended invitation for worshipers to speak as the Spirit moves them followed by a prayer response.
As we join our hearts in prayer, may we place our every concernin God’s care. May we listen attentively to the Spirit’s leading to discern with clarity our calling as people of faith in this tumultuous time. May we breathe in the peace that surpasses human understanding, and breathe out God’s own compassion into the world.
You Are Here
On a day not long ago, Ada Limon set out on a hike near her home in Kentucky. Limon, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States said her head was “full of bad news,” and she could feel her panic rising. But as she studied the trail map, she encountered three simple words that offered a helpful orientation in the landscape, as well as a powerful reminder: YOU ARE HERE. “It’s a recognition of the present moment,” Limon says, “but also the incredible gift of being alive in in a body on a spinning planet.”
from a book review in the Fall 2024 “Audubon” magazine submitted by Deborah Raessler
Abide in Me
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:4-5
As Coloradans, we may be far more familiar with aspens than with grape vines. When you look at a grove of aspens, do you think about the grove as being a single organism? It’s true—a grove of aspen has a huge, interconnected system of roots underground. The trees are related and highly connected. Most new aspen trees grow from sprouts that arise from the root system when there’s enough sunlight on a patch of ground. Have you ever thought about an aspen grove as a metaphor for community and for the interrelationship of community and God? We are connected to each other through our roots, just as in the gospel of John, where Jesus tells us that we are interconnected through Him—the vine. In the aspen grove, we are the trees. There is space between us, but we are interconnected and interdependent, intertwined with each other and with God. Let us abide with God and with each other in this challenging time.
Cathy Woods
“In the Grove.” Watercolor by Catharine Woods, 2012.
A Prayer for the Journey
Thomas Merton
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
For When People Ask
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
I want a word that means okay and not okay, more than that: a word that means devastated and stunned with joy. I want the word that says I feel it all all at once. The heart is not like a songbird singing only one note at a time, more like a Tuvan throat singer able to sing both a drone and simultaneously two or three harmonics high above it— a sound, the Tuvans say, that gives the impression of wind swirling among rocks. The heart understands swirl, how the churning of opposite feelings weaves through us like an insistent breeze leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves, blesses us with paradox so we might walk more openly into this world so rife with devastation, this world so ripe with joy.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommmer https://ahundredfallingveils.com Blog post, March 13, 2022.
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
“The mourning and the screams make us want to rush from this place, but there is a sense in which right now we must refuse to be comforted too quickly. Because only if we allow the screams and tears to shake the very conscience of this nation and call us to repentance, only then, can we hope for a better society on the other side of this. If we slow down and take the time to listen to this nation’s wounds, they will tell us where to look for hope.”
Bishop William Barber, The Guardian, May 30, 2020.
Musical Meditations
Music provides a powerful antidote to the uncertainties of our time, a time when Yeats’s despairing phrase “. . . the centre cannot hold” seems so distressingly relevant. The following works are offered with the hope that you may find in them comfort, serenity, perhaps even hope.
Karl Jenkins: “Benedictus” from The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. Text: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in excelsis.” The tranquil opening and closing of this movement flank the exuberant “Hosanna” in its central section.
https://tinyurl.com/yeyvwdmm
Spiritual, arr. Hall Johnson: “Give me Jesus.” Whether, as the text of this Spiritual asserts, in the morning, at dark midnight, or tossed about the break of day, the message that we need Jesus is compelling.
https://tinyurl.com/2ccekswh
Arvo Pärt: The Beatitudes. Pärt’s setting of the familiar words from the “Sermon on the Mount” concludes with the organ gradually fading away, giving us time to reflect on the comfort Jesus’s message provides.
https://tinyurl.com/2p4uzume
Beethoven, “Adagio un poco mosso,” Piano Concerto No. 5. Though not a sacred work, this movement’s calm is a welcome antidote to the anxiety of this moment and lends itself to contemplation.
https://tinyurl.com/yc83vj32
Submitted by Dan Raessler.
Liminality and Certitude
Felicia Murrell
Liminality and certitude are always at odds with one another.
Anxiety thrums through the body, unmooring— Pause.
Relax your shoulders, unfurl your hands. Try a deep cleansing breath.
Give yourself to the earth. Let Mother gift herself to you. Let your feet hit the soil, remember the patterns of growth, the cycles of life.
Things bury deep. Things grow in the dark. Things rise again. All things transition.
In the radiance of dark, there is process: the unfolding of mystery, things words cannot articulate, a threshold to freedom the mind cannot comprehend. But the body feels, the heart knows: This is liminality.
The threshold of transition, from death to life, from evening to morn, from gestation to giving birth. The unknown is a part of it all.
Submitted by Charley Rastle
Our network of friendships is like a quilt—
many varied pieces can be put together to form a beautiful whole. The pieces don’t lose their distinct characteristics, but together they form a beautiful, cozy, comforting work of art that is far bigger and more effective than each individual piece.
First Congregational Church, Boulder, Women’s Retreat Zentangle Mosaic
8/31/24
Submitted by CathyWoods who led the women on retreat in creating this work of art.
See the original in the Standish Room.
Prayer Walks with Jane Ireland
Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20).
Prayer walking is a spiritual tool to bless the land upon which we walk to provide for and benefit its inhabitants and to honor God. Join Jane Ireland and others as you are interested and able for one or more prayer walking loops encompassing town and city centers and across our landscape. Scripture passages, selected by Jane, will accompany you on your journey.
Prayer Walk Loops: Encompass
• Quantity - 8 prayer walks: new beginning (includes one family walk)
• Frequency - Every 5th day: grace, Tuesday, Oct 1 thru Tuesday, Nov 5
• Time - 3:00 pm: a number signifying divine completion
• Distance - 2 walks around the venue
Encircle the venue once, then encircle once the immediate city blocks.
Prayer walking is a spiritual tool to bless the land upon which we walk to provide for and benefit its inhabitants and to honor God. We are praying peace and righteousness over our cities, towns, county, state, and federal government.
For more information visit - https://tinyurl.com/3y6s8rau
Prayer Walk 1 - Boulder County and City of Boulder
Tuesday, October 1 at3 pm
Location: Meet in front of the Boulder County Historic Courthouse on Pearl Street Mall, between 13th and 14th Street. We’ll then walk over to the City of Boulder Municipal Building (Penfield Tate II), Boulder Canyon Dr & Broadway
Prayer Walk 2 - Nederland, Ward, Jamestown, Lyons, Allenspark
Saturday, October 5 at 2 pm
Location: Meet at 1:45 in the Caribou Ranch trailhead parking lot on CO-72, ~2 miles north of Nederland.
Prayer Walk 3 - City of Longmont
Friday, October 11 at 3 pm
Location: Meet at 350 Kimbark St in front of the City of Longmont City Manager, Longmont City Clerk, and Longmont Mayor offices
Prayer Walk 4 - City of Lafayette
Wednesday, October 16 at 3 pm
Location: Meet in front of Lafayette City Hall at 1290 S Public Rd, Lafayette
Prayer Walk 5 - City of Louisville
Monday, October 21 at 3 pm
Location: Meet in front of Louisville City Hall at 749 Main St, Louisville
Prayer Walk 6 - Town of Superior
Saturday, October 26 at 3 pm
Location: Meet in parking lot of Superior Town Hall, 124 E Coal Creek Dr, Superior
Prayer Walk 7 - State of Colorado
Thursday, October 31 at 3 pm
Location: Meet in the Chautauqua parking lot below Chautauqua Auditorium, 12th St, Boulder
Prayer Walk 8 - Washington DC: United States Supreme Court Building, Capitol, and White House
Tuesday, November 5 at3 pm
Location: Meet at Flagstaff Summit, Flagstaff Dr, Boulder
God’s people have returned from exile in Babylon and begun the long process of rebuilding from the ruins, recreating community. The prophet sees in the destruction an opportunity for a new beginning, a fresh start. He cries out to God’s people, “We can do this differently!” We can construct pathways of understanding and compassion across the gulfs between us. We can pour ourselves out in service to God and each other. We can know our neighbors and their needs, reweaving the tattered strands of our communal fabric. We can repair what is broken. We can repair the breach.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. If you refrain from trampling the Sabbath, from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, serving your own interests or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.