Community

Yesterday I recieved a call from Chris. It was one I've been expecting for a while but it still came as a bit of a shock. All our love go to you Chris and to the rest of your family as you mourn your loss.

In a way this is why I keep coming back. The community that says, "We are here for you no matter what. It doesn't matter how hurt or lost you may be we still love you and want to care for you through it all."

We can all come and be ourselves at prayer. Hey, there's no hiding who we really are from God anyway. We invite Him in when we call on Him, "Oh God come to our aid, oh Lord make haste to help us." And the thing is He does come, and he will help us, whether we feel anything or not is irrelevant.

In 10 more days I temporarily leave our little community and head overseas for 3 and a half weeks. I'll be missing all the time I normally share with all of you and I'll miss each of you terribly. But don't despare, you should be able to keep track of me via my blog (outofmybrain.blogspot.com). I'll try to put some bits and pieces up there from time to time. With all this technology out there we are not really out of community anyway. Although this isn't anything new, God's had us in community for years (even before we'd met we prayed together, "Our Father...").

But hey, I'll try to say Vespers on Wednesday nights anyway. It's something I want to share with you even if I'm not there in body.

Community Talk

Vespers
When we gather together on a Wednesday night,
we celebrate Vespers, the evening prayer of the church.

We sing Hymns and Psalms,
Participate in Prayers and Readings
and sit in Silence.
We do all of this to praise God,
trying to hear the still, small voice.
We bring the moods and madness of our busy day,
and try to see God’s presence in our relationships and tasks,
We allow healing and integration to begin.

As we chant the psalms and hear the reading proclaimed
We see God’s action is history,
through the lives of his people in Old and New Testaments.
It is their story, but it is our story as well.
Struggling, rejoicing, stressed and relaxed
The moods of scripture speak to us
of the God who is present in every moment and mood of our lives,
and whose love longs to bring healing and peacefulness
into the mystery of our daily life.

The high point of our Vespers Prayer
Is the long period of silence,
followed by our proclamation of the Magnificat,
the Song of Mary.
In the silence we bring our very selves to God
The deepest parts of who we are.
With or without words
we place our true selves into God’s mystery
We can truly proclaim
“My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour”

Our prayer tonight is also, perhaps most importantly
Celebrated as a community.
A community of friends
A community of Christians
A community of seekers

We bring our history as people,
We bring the history of our group, with its own celebrations and struggles
And we bring our hopes for our groups future
We place all of these in the presence of God
And they bring a reality, a groundedness to our prayer.

When we join hands at the Our Father
When we smile at each other over coffee
Or lovingly embrace each other on parting
We are reminded that God is with us

Vespers prayer is the prayer that brings us together as a community.
Not just into each other’s physical presence
But into each others depth.
It is a gift we can carry with us
For Vespers is also the act of “Lighting the lamps”
Bringing light to the homes at evening
Not only light to our homes,
but also to our lives.

May we let the light of vespers,
The God we have met in word, song and silence
Shine outwards into the rest of our lives.

Lectio

The best prayer is the one in which there is the most love.
Adoration, wordless admiration, that is the most eloquent form of prayer:
that wordless admiration which contains the most passionate declaration of love."
- Charles de Foucauld


"Receive very simply from God
the gift of being"
- Abhishiktananda

Little Distractions

Last night's pray time was special, it reminded us about how important it is to go with the flow and allow little distractions (namely 9 month old Lauren) to enhance the prayer time. It brought to mind how important family is and that our group is like our family. Speaking of families it was a shame that Chris could not join us last night, as he was at home with the two youngest members of their family Noah and Eliza (who turns 5 today- happy birthday :) ).
I shared a reading from a book written by singer/songwritter Michael W Smith, it focused on how important it is to take the time to cultivate our relationship with God and with others and how precious those relationships can be.
May everyone's week be full of positive interactions with the ones you love and may you find little distractions to make you giggle and enhance your day.
God Bless
Michelle

Resources Page

Checkout our new resources page:
http://www.transfigurationcommunity2.blogspot.com/
Chris

Have you ever noticed how we start the week with a rush and then run out of steam by Wednesday? It struck me this morning that that's why we meet to pray on Wednesday nights. It's a chance to refresh and recharge the batteries. Considering the recent medical advice I had (ie "Rest up!" thanks Dr Simon) it's somewhat useful to take that time out. As someone who struggles to be disciplined enough to set aside regular daily time to rest in God I think our prayer time is invaluable (sometimes it's the only time during the week I seem to spend really connecting with God). At the same time it lets me know I'm not alone in my struggles.
I think I'm going to really take the time to do that this Wednesday at prayer; relax and just rest in God. It should be good.

Rest in Him
MJ

New Norcia Retreat

Here's some shots of the community gathered together for our first retreat