The Spiritual Journée

Join Cameron Dezen Hammon, award-winning spiritual memoirist and writing instructor for a Spiritual Writing Workshop, Sunday, October 24, 6 -8 p.m.

When I say, “Spiritual writing,” what do you imagine? Does the image of a darkly clad Victorian lady transcribing messages from the great beyond pop into your head? Or do you think of St. Augustine, pouring out his Confessions? A medieval monk prayerfully copying the Gospel by candlelight in a high tower?

Or do you picture yourself in more modern settings with contemporary tools: a Moleskine prayer journal, where you transcribe prayers and respond to them, or where your original prayers flow freely onto the page? A blog where you click and share your devotional thoughts with others in real time? 

Spiritual writing has taken many forms over the ages, but its purpose has always been to answer the same question: How do we connect with the divine? How do we capture the concept of infinite Love with a few nouns and verbs? How do we convey our feelings and questions about God to other mortals? Words fail.

But words are often all we have. And they are a powerful starting place. Henri Nouwen said, “Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories.” By writing, he said, we claim what we have lived, and we can integrate it more fully into our journeys. In this way, writing can become lifesaving, for us, and for others. It can connect us, to ourselves, to each other, and to God.

We’re all on a spiritual journey, and we can benefit from writing our stories. Whether you want to write your experiences to process them for yourself or to share them with other travelers, the first step is to take pen to paper to capture the details.

It’s interesting that the Old French root for both journey and journal is journée: a day’s length, a day’s work or travel. We experience our spiritual journey one day at a time. If we are going to write a spiritual memoir, we need to begin capturing our experiences one day at a time, journaling until we can begin to see pattern or direction emerge. At that point, we can begin telling the stories of our journey in ways that provide even deeper meaning for us and for our fellow travelers. 

Join us this Sunday evening, October 24, 6 p.m. til 8 p.m. when Cameron Dezen Hammon, who teaches Creative Nonfiction and Spiritual Writing in the English Department at Rice University, leads us in a Spiritual Writing Workshop. She will delve into the ways we take part in a spiritual story that connects us to one another, to the Divine as we understand it, and to the natural world in which we live. We will investigate our own spiritual experiences through writing prompts, conversation, and a short reading from her award-winning spiritual memoir, This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession.

Take the first step on the writing journey, or find companionship along the path you are already following. Whatever your experience with writing, this evening promises to be centering, enlightening, and encouraging.

Join us before the workshop at The Well, a contemplative Celtic Eucharist, and for Tea & Toast by the bookstore in Latham Hall.

The cost of the workshop is $20, and it includes a copy of This Is My Body, as well as a journal. Register to attend by clicking here. For more information, click here. And, if cost is a hardship, please contact the Rev. Becky Zartman by clicking here.

I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.
~Flannery O’Connor

Spiritual Writing with Cameron Dezen Hammon is presented in partnership with Brazos Bookstore.

A Pocketful of God

God is always with us, but a set of Anglican prayer beads in our pocket can provide tactile reassurance.

In the dueling storms of pandemic and pervasive political unrest, you may be seeking to hold, or find, your center by expanding your prayer practice. Like so many of us, you may feel that these trying times prevent you from focusing the way you once could. While our Episcopalian tradition offers a variety of prayer practices, praying with Anglican prayer beads provides a tactile way to keep focused and may prove particularly helpful. Cool in your hands and pleasing to the eye, the beads can also slip into your pocket and provide comfort even when you are not actively praying. We know that God is always with us but touching this reminder of our prayer life can provide reassurance, wherever we find ourselves.

Praying with beads is a time-honored practice in many faith traditions. In Christianity, The Desert Fathers and Mothers counted out their unceasing prayers with a pocket full of pebbles, which evolved into knotted prayer ropes they used for reciting the Jesus Prayer. By the middle ages, the ropes morphed into the traditional beads on which Catholics pray the Rosary. Then, in the Episcopal Church the 1980s, the practice of using beads as a focus for contemplative prayer and meditation experienced a revival, and Anglican prayer beads emerged. Unlike the prescribed ways the rosary is used, the Anglican prayer-bead practice provides a framework for both traditional and personal prayers.

The form of Anglican prayer beads is laden with symbolism, beginning with the 33 beads which represent the years of Jesus’ earthly life. The four larger beads, called cruciform beads, represent the four points of the compass. Between each of the cruciform beads lie the seven beads of the weeks, representing the seven days of creation, the seventh day on which God rested, and the symbolic number for perfection. The single bead that leads from the cross into the circle of weeks is called the invitatory bead. Like a collect at the beginning of a service, it invites us to worship.

Whether you use the beads to pray alone or in a group, the suggested practice is to pray the full circle three times. That number, representing the Trinity, also provides time for distractions to fall away, allowing you to go deeper into prayer. Many traditional prayers have been adapted to the form of the Anglican prayer beads: The Jesus Prayer, the Agnus Dei, the St. Patrick Prayer, and others may be found online. One that seems particularly apt in these times when we need to ask God to give us strength in our isolation and save us from fear is the Julian of Norwich Prayer, which was created by Sister Brigit-Carol, S.D. an Episcopalian hermit in Abilene.  Here’s how to use the beads to guide you as you pray it:

The Cross
In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Invitatory
O God make speed to save me (us),
O Lord make haste to help me (us),
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

The Cruciforms
God of your goodness, give me yourself,
For you are enough to me.
And I can ask for nothing less that is to your glory.
And if I ask for anything less, I shall still be in want, for only in you have I all.

The Weeks
All shall be well, and all shall be well,
And all manner of things shall be well.

As you move around the beads three times praying these words, the storms of the world will not cease. But perhaps you will know that you are not alone, and your heart will be lighter. You may find some comfort knowing that you are praying as so many generations before you have. Most importantly, you will be focused on praying rather than worrying. An ancient monk said to the Desert Father St. Anthony “Pray for me.” The old man replied, “I will have no mercy upon you, nor will God have any, if you yourself do not make an effort and if you do not pray to God.” These strange times seem like very good times for us to pray without ceasing. If a string of Anglican prayer beads can provide the focus you need to deepen your prayer practice, then it is a good thing, indeed.

You can order a set of Anglican prayer beads which have been blessed by a Cathedral priest here.