Taught by the Rev. Patricia Rose

Until Franklin County returns to a moderate or low level of Covid spread, these offerings will be online-only. You can join in on Thursday evenings from 7:00 – 8:00 by clicking this link.

Whether we pray regularly or barely at all, it’s common to feel disconnected from the riches of prayer. We may feel that our prayers are dry, ineffectual, that we don’t know how to pray, or “aren’t good at it.” Or, even though we may believe prayer is beneficial for us or the world, or that we “should” pray more often, we may find we just don’t find time for or feel like doing it.
In this series, we’ll delve into the riches of prayer experientially by experimenting with a different form of contemplative prayer each week.

• October 7: Stillness
• October 14: Healing, using a form of Lectio Divina (divine reading) with the gospels
• October 21: Rest and Sabbath

Our sessions will include instruction, practice, discussion, and a brief reading from a mystic or contemplative writer. Participants will be invited to practice the particular prayer form during the week, and to journal briefly about their experiences. Our discoveries will help us to:

• develop skillfulness for receiving the nourishment prayer offers
• notice the effects prayer practice has on us throughout our day
• appreciate the ups and downs of a prayer life – joys, challenges, our humorous humanity, the gifts of divine grace
• gain a sense of how many ways there are to pray, and notice how each of us respond differently to different types of prayer (one size doesn’t fit all)
• increase clarity about our resistance to prayer practices, including dealing with the mind
• develop compassion and non-judgment towards how we do or don’t pray or what experiences we do or don’t have
• learn gentle ways to establish a prayer practice that we feel nourished by
• strengthen our awareness of God’s presence and our inner senses to notice the variety, subtle nuance, and often unexpected ways in which God is responding to us
• learn from one another’s unique experiences and from what we share in common
• deepen our relationship with God, ourselves, and one another

I look forward to meeting with everyone and discovering what God has in store for us!