I-YOUniverse

Sometimes prayer is slugging it out, slogging through; having all the principalities and powers, all the demons of the air we don’t believe in any more—we believe in bankers and politicians—arrayed against us, waiting for the opening bell, waiting to pounce and devour at the first sign of weakness.

I’ve been thinking, as I sit in my chair, that prayer is my vocation. I’m an explorer in the vast wasteland of the soul.

I am armed with little but the leather New Testament and psalms I bought a couple decades ago for its readable print and slimline profile; it now needs to be re-covered. With it is the Voice of Praise, a  slender brown hymnal published by Baptists in 1947, the year before I was born, edited by B. B. McKinney.

If you’re high church, likely you haven’t heard of him. But the low crowd—all of us know his tunes by heart.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

2 Cor 1:3-4 (NRSV)

Affliction is the fuel of the spirit. We shovel our sorrows into the furnace of God’s love, and God converts them into power to drive the mighty engines of redemption.

If you’ve endured real sorrow, you don’t glamourize it. This isn’t toe nail removal, elective tragedy for the fashionable martyr; or the fish tale disaster, a story of pain that grows with every telling.

No, these are gut wrenching blows that knock the breath from your lungs and the light from your eyes, relentless throbbing griefs no Valium can assuage, regrets that growl over you like a pride of lions devouring their bloody carcase. Never full.

Have you heard the Darkness laugh? At last, It has you in Its grasp. Or is your soul’s inbox jammed with spam, the scientist demon-bot of Perelandra for no reason calling you by name again and again?

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again.

2 Cor 1:8-10 (NRSV)

My favorite TV show is M*A*S*H, beginning season 4, when the show underwent a sea change, not unlike Margaret Hoolihan’s transformation from Frank Burns’ Boadicean Barbie doll to real woman. It’s a metaphor of

• surviving
• seeing clearly (Hawkeye), and,
• responding with compassion and expertise to the never-ending flow of wounded.

Fr. Mulcahey is my pastoral model. He has no equal in contemporary secular media, except maybe Andrew, the angel of Death on Touched by an Angel.

Yes, the show has flaws: the skirt chasing, the excessive drinking, the anti-authority streak. You can’t do as Hawkeye does and live up to the ideal he represents. Yet M*A*S*H remains in my head the main metaphor of being the people of God in today’s world.

Actually, prayer may be battalion aid instead. In this kind of world, if the bombs aren’t exploding in your face, I wonder if you’re where you’re supposed to be.

Contemplative prayer, the sacred mountain where silence sings and glory shines, arms us with spiritual courage, to come down into the valley (like the ox master after enlightenment) empowered to cast out demons, take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus.

Prayer is the in-your-face God of Gethsemane, the Oil Press. It’s standing, abandoned, silent and true before the man who will wash his hands of you, and hand you over to the lynch mob.

It’s being nailed to the cross—stripped of all but prayer.

If you have breath and guts enough, maybe you cry out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And you remember the psalm you’ve recited from childhood, that also says,

 To [the God of being], indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
     before [God] shall bow all who go down to the dust,
     and I shall live for [God].

Psalms 22:29 (NRSV)

If you are one of the women who stood by him, you get through the sabbath. Then, all the cold night you listen for the tramp of soldiers outside your door. Keeping sabbath is pointless, maybe, but sometimes tradition is all you have left. The wind gusts. An earthquake shakes the land.

The sleepless silent night gives way to the gray pre-dawn of fear. You gather your costly bundles, cover your face with the veil all women must wear in public, and you make your way to the cave where they laid the body Friday evening.

“Who will roll away the stone?” you worry, an objection that would stop any sensible person. But your feet keep moving, one in front of the other, till you reach the place.

The stone hasn’t just been moved; it’s as if, like a child’s ball, it’s been tossed across the garden. A man dressed in white is sitting there; he makes the white stretch of the horizon seem dark as midnight. If you look straight at him, it leaves a shadow in your eyes. “He is not here,” the man in light says.

You peek inside the dark room. What a contrast to the man outside!

The room is empty. The shelf they laid the corpse on, not three full days ago, is empty, except for the rumpled pile of grave clothes, and the napkin that covered the head, neatly folded.

You realize, “He is not here.”

He’s not where I always feel him, not in the ideas I believe, not with the people I call my own family. He is not here.

Your first reaction is terror and you want to run for your life.

That’s what prayer is: running as hard and as fast as your legs will go, until you can’t grab another breath.

Then, it hits you.

He is not here! He is Risen!

Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed.

Our Lady of Guadalupe appearing to Juan Diego

2:09 a.m.

A prayer journal

No trumpets on street corners here. Just notes for a sort of science project.

My father was converted from Catholicism, maybe as a young adult, I think. His oldest sister Margaret led her siblings into the Baptist faith, then reverted. She told me that was because, when a young woman serving as a missionary in a Baptist school in Mexico, she had been accosted by the missionary principal of the school. My mother whispered to my wife in the kitchen that Dad had never been baptized by a Baptist minister. So the font gets pretty murky. (Bottom line: God doesn’t care about who, when, how you’re baptized—only the state of your heart.)

The news tonight was all about the government bailout of Wall Street. A trillion dollars.

Typically, I wake up at night. Tonight I pray mostly for my African friends, although there’s an ominously empty place in my gut;  if I stayed there, I’d wonder, “What are we facing?”

But I do my best gently to focus on my prayer word mercy, short for the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

I’ve got the words of the Rosary down now. I can say it all without reference to the book, except the final prayers “Hail, Holy Queen”; and “Memorare,” which apparently is optional. One of many how to’s is here.

The story of Guadalupe

Ten years after Cortez conquered the Aztecs, a baptized Indian passing the site of a temple to an Aztec earth goddess saw a vision of the dark-skinned Blessed Virgin, who asked him to build a church on the site. The skeptical bishop asked for proof. The Virgin told Diego to fill his tilmo, or blanket, with roses. It was December, not the month for roses. When he emptied them out for the bishop, they found a beautiful image of the Virgin on the tilmo, which now hangs in the basilica on the site. Scientists who examined it report the image is extraordinary and unexplainable. The Virgin of Guadalupe was a primary factor in the evangelization of the Indian peoples of the Americas. A sociologist says Mexico really is a conglomerate of disparate groups united by their love of her.

What really happened?

No one knows. What we have is the story, the original in a native Indian language, and the Spanish bishop’s testimony.

It’s impossible for the scientific mindset to grasp such a tale as any way real. The same science dismisses the incarnation and the resurrection.

So we bracket that discussion, which is like finding the square root of pi.

Back to praying

For two days I’ve been praying the Sorrowful Mysteries: the agony in the garden, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion.

I discovered a web-based radio service Pandora here. So I figure how to get from head to heart is music, right? Ave Maria! Pavarotti, Charlotte Church, Bobby McFerrin.

As I progress, I read the scripture account of the event remembered in the Mystery (for example, of Gethsemane) to begin. Maybe I sing a hymn, like “Into the Woods my Master Went.” Then I say the Our Father, the Hail Marys, and the Glory be.

One set takes about 20 minutes.

During that I put the image above on screen. I grew up in El Paso with those people.

That process gets to my heart.

Today as I prayed for my friend, I said something like, “For the sake of my friend I’m praying the first decade of the Sorrowful Mysteries, the agony in the garden, the spiritual fruit being ‘thy will not mine be done.’ About halfway through or more often, I give myself an oral reminder “For my friends, the agony” etc.

Is it all “vain repetition”—the fatal blow of my childhood faith to this sort of thing. The other was “idolatry.” You heard again and again how the old ladies in Juarez, Mexico, kissed the feet of the statue in the Cathedral. Repetition?

Outcome

I read somewhere that Larry Dossey M.D. began his investigations of prayer by going into his office, shutting the door, and shaking some prayer gourds or something. Well, going into his office and shutting the door sounds like Matthew. I’ve always wanted to approach a surgeon and ask: “I’ve decided to test the validity of surgery. Mind if I cut up on you a bit, see if it works?”

Dossey didn’t know much about the thousands of years of prayer tradition. Neither do most of the rest of us.

I believe myth is to faith what math is to science. So the story of the Aztec earth goddess isn’t surprising or disturbing to me. There are valid questions, though.

You ask your questions when you buy your ticket. Then, you gotta stow them in the overhead bin and buckle up.

I wrote the following for Trinity United Methodist’s capital campaign. A big part of their effort will provide critically needed parking. Why do we care about 93 new asphalt rectangles? Because they represent about 200 more people who can attend  on Sunday. Americans don’t go places where they can’t conveniently park.

Trinity has an interesting model. Ten per cent of the $3M raised is going to missions, including $100,000 to build a permanent home for the African Counseling Center in Cameroon, an equal amount for a local free clinic and one other project. A cool way to teach people to tithe, huh!

So in case you need a seed to grow a stewardship sermon (yuck!) here are some. BTW Chuck Swindoll’s series Hilarious Giving at insight.org is absolutely the best stewardship/giving material I know of. If you’re like me, you hate stewardship Sunday and the inexorable sermon on the budget shortfall. This is an alternative.

PRAYERS FOR CHURCH FINANCES

SEPT

Deuteronomy  8.18 says, “It is [God] who gives you power to get wealth.” Pray that, deep within, you will know that, despite these troubled times, God is our security, providing us more than enough to give generously.

King David gave sacrificially so that his son Solomon could build the Jerusalem Temple. He asked the people, “Who then will offer willingly, consecrating themselves today to the Lord?” (1 Chronicles 29.5). Pray that God will move you and many others to consecrate themselves and their means to the Lord.

OCT

When God provided manna in the wilderness, no one had too much; no one had too little (Exodus 16.18). God does not ask for equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. Pray that God will lead you to give joyfully all you can.

In a time of skepticism like ours, God’s prophet challenged the people: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…and put me to the test, says the Lord.” Read Malachi 3.10, and pray that God will lead you to take a step further than you have before in financial giving.

Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” (Acts 20.35). God doesn’t want sour saints, but grateful and joyful followers who give all we possibly can. Pray that God will bless you with the spirit of grateful giving.

Jesus pointed to the mighty example of the widow who gave the smallest gift allowed-it was all she had (Mark 12.41-44). Pray that God will use your example in giving to teach your children gratitude to God and generosity toward all.

NOV

King David said, “All things come from you, and of your own have we given you,” (1 Chronicles 29.14). Pray that God will help us see ourselves as managers of God’s world, who in giving are just returning what belongs to God.

Paul promised his dearest friends, “My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4.19). Pray that God will inspire us to give according to God’s riches in Christ.

God promises that “the one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9.6). Pray that God will lead us to sow through giving generously to Trinity’s future, so that our children may reap a bountiful harvest in years to come.

Jesus taught us to store our treasures in heaven, where they are safe “for where your treasure is, there you heart will be also” (Matthew 6.20-21). Pray that God will inspire you to entrust your treasure and your heart to God alone through sacrificial giving.

John 3.16 says, “God so loved the world that he gave…” In Advent and always, giving ourselves and our money stands at the heart of our faith. Pray that God will give us a spirit of sacrificial giving to the Building Project at Trinity.

DEC

Paul wrote, “[God] who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else” (Romans 8.32). During this season we remember that God gave the dearest and best; pray that God will lead us to give our best and our most in return.

Overjoyed when they saw the Christ Child, the Wise men opened their treasures and presented him gifts (Matthew 2.11). Pray that God will persuade men, women and children of Trinity to open their treasure and give generously to the Lord today, as wise and joyful as the Magi were.

Here are some pics. My beloved bought the camera to say TY for my help with a church staff retreat she recently conducted.

On the left is the first real rosary we built together. I like the large Hail Mary beads. They suit my fingers very well. The wire circles we used for the Our Father beads also remind me of the empty center which is the goal, emptiness that God may choose to fill or not. We’ve got a problem with the filament we’re using, however; it doesn’t hold the knot well.

In the center is my first practice strand for the knotted Rosary. Counting the joiner knot, it has 36 knots; three times around yields 108, the usual number of knots or beads for Buddhist prayer. But my friend Jon had the best idea: why not let each knot remind me of a specific sacred or happy moment of life.

On the right are two sets of beads. The small light wood outside is a rosary made for me by Benessa of latinworks. The inside, made by a friend and given to Sandy, is an Anglican rosary (four “weeks” of seven beads, four Our Fathers in the form of a cross, and an Invitatory bead, totaling 33).

Today I’ll pray for the people of the Gulf; those hit hardest by the financial turmoil (not the fat cats); for my friend Jean-Emile Ngue, who recently lost his mentor; and for Sandy, who is completing her second cataract surgery this afternoon. Believe me, those are the most beautiful eyes on the planet. Thanks be to God for God’s loving care and steady hand through the storms.

A bead is a bead, a knot is a knot—what counts is the heart.

 You can find out more about these for real gorgeous knotted rosaries at Rosaryworkshop here. Any resemblance to mine is imaginary.

I finished my first string of practice knots that end in a circle like a rosary. It’s brown #36 twine, with 35 knots, mostly Hail Mary knots, two or three Our Father knots, and the joiner knot completing the circle.

If you’ve ever been fishing with me, you know disciplined knots are anathema to me. Undisciplined knots collect about me like chiggers. So this string of 35 untangled knots is nothing to snigger at.

When you’re done…

At first, I wondered, why didn’t I stop at 33 knots, like a small chotki (Orthodox prayer rope)? But now I’m seeing things differently:

35 X 2 = 70.

Seventy’s nothing to sneeze at. It’s three score and ten, a lifetime, unless by reason of strength you live fourscore.

And three and a half has a nice apocalyptic meaning to it: brief and unfinished.

If I count the joiner knot, for a total of 36, then 36 X 3 is 108, the traditional number of Buddhist mala beads. My—uh—free style, shall we say, string beats 89 bucks or more on eBay.

As for the aesthetics, I suppose #36 brown twine is a step up from a string of paper clips, my first device for counting prayers, which I still have in a little metal Whitman’s Sampler box.

I’d be willing to show anyone only six or eight of my 30+ Hail Marys, knots formed with three loops. Since I can’t identify the Our Fathers, with five loops, I guess I’m not going to show you any Our Fathers.

As for the joiner knot, forget it. Let’s just say, it does what it’s supposed to. But not even a blind, numb Isaac could bless that sucker.

There’s a short tail and a long tail, as required at the near completion stage. But the long tail isn’t long enough for even one knot, and it’s supposed to accommodate five plus the cross. My ends are still Scotch taped to prevent fraying.

It’ll be my baseline. Future rosaries will, I hope, show significant improvements over this Quasimodo thing.

Guess I’ll sum up with a Bible sort of quote. Considering my sort of kind of prayer rope, what could be more fitting?

Counting the 36 total knots on her hand-tied string of #36 brown twine, Mary Magdalene stood weeping outside the tomb.

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” a man asked.

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, you interrupted me praying. Now I’ve lost count. So easy to do on this homemade thing.

“I’m saving my shekels to get maybe an antique set from a nun’s estate or something, with Swarovski beads and a sterling silver crucifix, maybe a Blessed Virgin medal. Swarovski are the best kind of beads, you know, made near Zurich, Switzerland.

“But, forgive me, I get carried away. I’m looking for Jesus. Tell me where you put him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She dropped the string of #36 twine with 36 total knots on the ground, forgotten; turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means, my dear Teacher).

Jesus said to her, “Do not try to grab hold of me, not with the Jesus prayer or the Rosary or ten verses of ‘Just As I Am’ or speaking in tongues or the infallible pope or the infallible Bible. Ask Jacob; there’s no hold that’ll hold me.

“I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’

“Once I’ve come in the person of the Holy Spirit, I’ll abide with you, in your heart forever. Then beads and Bibles will help you be still and hear my voice, my still small voice.”

With apologies to John 20.

I am the ground of your beseeching.

Beseeching is a true and gracious, enduring will of the soul, united and joined to our Lord’s will by the sweet, secret operation of the Holy Spirit.

In what manner and how should we perform our prayers—our will should be turned, rejoicing, into the will of our Lord.

The fruit and the end of our prayer—to be united and like to our Lord in all things.

Julian of Norwich, Showings, Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978) pp. 248, 249, 251. from the Fourteenth Revelation, 41st and 42nd chapters.

 3:44 a.m.

Across the living room from my chair at the base of the silent TV screen, a red light stares, the only indication it’s on. The yellow digital readout of the time on the cable box above tells me the cable is off.

Awhile ago Nasha, the younger calico cat, jumped into my lap, purred, massaged the air with her paws; there being no morsel of food forthcoming, departed for a softer, warmer perch.

That did it.

I’d lain there awake for an hour, the small Mexican rosary slung over the fingers of my left hand, saying a fragment of the Jesus prayer “Mercy!” My fingers can’t distinguish the pearl-shaped beads and thick yarn very well on the small rosary. It fits in the palm of my hand.

I strung a larger one with big wood beads that I can feel. It’s the one I use.

The last week or so I’ve been saying the rosary daily, dunning away “Hail, Mary, full of grace….” The best audio on the web I’ve found is here. I prefer the scriptural rosary, which interlaces verses and Hail Marys, in English (although Dutch is available). The scripture version’s a bit longer time-wise, but until this is as automatic as breathing, I want the added biblical basis whenever I can get it. 

 After a beading session last week, when the tail of the beautiful black and gray rosary we’d made came undone, I asked my wife Sandy if she could imagine herself saying contemplative prayer.

“You mean, repeating ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner’ or saying ‘Hail, Mary…’ 100 times? No. Maybe Philippians 4.13 or something.” Though she meant it kindly (and I did ask), I felt alone.

Later I noticed how she disappears for hours into the making of a rosary, as she does other projects. How she sings. Sandy’s a Martha. Her prayers are actions. Pretty consistently. She puts me to shame.

There’s a correspondent with a microphone for dTV on the edge of my consciousness.

—So, John, the Russians and the U.S. are playing the Sharks and the Jets around the world, and you’re what? What’s this about? This praying the rosary, a Catholic prayer to the Virgin Mary. You really believe all that stuff, do you?

—At this point, it’s respect for the people who say it and love it. Also, all religion has a large element of metaphor and poetry. But, in fact, I don’t know what it’s about exactly. All I know is counting prayers goes back into the forgotten past. I understand, when they give an Orthodox monk his prayer rope (which dates from the 3rd century), it’s like his sword to fight Satan. So maybe the beads are the real light saber of the real Jedi knight.

—Maybe it’s bull.

—No, a whole lotta stuff I used to believe is bull. That’s true. This? No, this is the way…

When I stumble, I’ll get right back up. I’ve got several Gold medals in that particular sport.  This longing in my heart for God? It’s for real, for keeps, for good.

For the sake of variety I use the Glenstal Book of Prayer some. It’s produced by a Benedictine community of that name in County Limerick, Ireland. The publisher is suckering us a little, knowing the current popularity of all things Celtic and Irish.

But there’s a slightly different prayer for each morning and evening of the week, and prayers for the small hours of the Daily Office. By the time I read the scriptures from the daily lectionary here I’ve had a pretty healthy workout. Again, I’m lucky to have more time than many others do for this stuff.

Patron saint of cripples

My question for the day is: the Glenstal brothers include the petition that the saint of the day pray for us at the end of the prayers. In curiosity I looked up the saint for September 1: St. Giles, a hermit in France, whose pet deer was wounded by the king, and Giles himself was wounded. He’s now the patron saint of cripples.

What do I think about the veneration of saints?

The Blessed Virgin Moon

Southern Baptists collect money in the name of their saints such as Lottie (Charlotte) Moon. In the 19th century their Blessed Virgin calmly made her way through denominational squabbles over missionary ownership of land and assets on the foreign field. This strong Virginia woman “spoke” to the Chinese. (Had she been male, it would be preaching; but, as we all know, women do not preach.)

Like the Virgin Queen of England, she didn’t “yield her virgin patent up” to any male, partly because she didn’t wish to be subject to any male.

I grew up venerating Bill Wallace of China, a Tennessee physician martyred by the Communists. Jim Elliott and the four other Wycliffe missionaries murdered by Auca Indians also are protestant saints.

So do I get to claim the intercession of St. Giles on my behalf?

Who’s in between God and us?

Scripture clearly says: “There is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human,” 1 Tim 2:5 (NRSV). It also teaches that both Christ and the Holy Spirit intercede for us (Romans 8.26, 34). Christ was immobilized on the cross. He has experienced all I’ve experienced, and more.

The picture of St. Giles stroking the wounded deer is lovely, and the thought of a patron saint for cripples is commendable. Leviticus excludes cripples and others from Temple service; I’m glad God makes holy places more accessible than that to the disabled, women, and gays/lesbians.

I look to the communion of saints for thousands of years of tradition (not as authoritative for me as for Catholics), but still it’s my roots. I look to them for their example and witness, and spiritual companionship (granted I don’t know exactly what that is.)

But I don’t need them to stand in line to get me an audience with the Creator, Christ, Comforter. The 1+1+1=1 is closer to me my breath.

Remembering and honoring forebears

As I understand it, the intercession of the saints and Mary grew more important as awareness of the nearness of the Father receded. But the immanence of God has never waned in my awareness, so I’m not hankering for closeness. I’ve got it, even when I don’t feel it.

Give Baptists a couple thousand years, they’ll have a roster of saints equal to that of the Roman Catholics today. It’s proper to remember and honor our forebears. I’ve even got a list of my own saints.

Mary is something else. The Holy Spirit came upon her as upon no other human being; she shared a heartbeat with Jesus for nine months. Yet, Jesus said,  ”Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Mark 3:35 (NRSV)

So for now, I’ll continue to pray the liturgy of the Glenstal Abbey, with its prayers to Mary and the saints, but out of courtesy and because I’m tired of arguing with my brothers and sisters in Christ about this. God bless them! We disagree. Big fat hairy deal.

3:38 a.m.

The house is still. A nightlight glows in the hall. Outside thunder grumbles, lightning peeks in the windows. Gustav ravages the Gulf. Lord, have mercy.

On the coffee table in plastic bags lies the booty of yesterday’s raids on craft stores.

9 a.m. yesterday.

I load up on pain meds before we leave the house. We drive through Burger King for a sausage biscuit, a bacon cheese wrapper, cini minis, milk and coffee; park in some shade and eat, listening to a Selah CD. In college we used to drive through and eat our 19 cent lunch in the car together.

At Michael’s, the craft store, Sandy lugs my wheelchair out of the trunk. I wish she’d ask for help. (The spiritual drama for today is my control issue. Silently I pray about letting go.)

We find half off beads and things.

• Plain brown wood for the Hail Mary beads
• Wire wagon wheels for the Our Father beads
• A beautiful cream pendant for the main cross
• Rustic brown/black beads for the Hail Mary
• Wire shells for the Our Father
• Gray ceramic beads for the Hail Mary
• Medium black ceramic flat rectangles for the Our Father
• Small crosses, three per package
• Turquoise colored stones for a Christmas necklace
• Twine to practice knots
• Needles to thread beads
• A plastic case to hold everything

I ask the clerk to get some help for Sandy loading the wheelchair into the trunk. No sweat.

By now it’s noon. We come home to take a break, more meds; have leftovers for lunch. But what leftovers! Yesterday Sandy made a filo pie with chicken, dates, olives, ginger, almonds for our friend Mary Fran’s birthday. There are two slices remaining. It’s one of those dishes whose flavor deepens if you leave it a day or two. We had a side of broccoli and rice, and fresh tomatoes from the ceramic pot on the ramp.

After rest and prayers, we make another run. We start with soft serve ice cream cones and coffee at McD’s. Coffee counteracts the sedative drag of meds.

This time to Ben Franklin’s at Short Pump. It’s a brand new store in the upscale part of town. We expect the store to be more accessible than the old one on Patterson Avenue. But the aisles are cramped. I negotiate the wheelchair like a camel in a needle’s eye.

Sandy’s looking at something, and I set off on my own to find some yarn. Suddenly, I find my way blocked by narrow aisles. I can only go one way. Turning corners I get hung up on wire baskets full of yarn and craft supplies. A display of artificial sun flowers blocks the end of the aisle.

 I can’t move.

I call for Sandy. No answer. She’s several aisles away, looking for me.

We mention the problems I’m having to an employee. She says they tell management, who claim they can’t change anything. Sandy says she’ll complain; “Don’t make a scene,” I say.

At checkout I bitch about how cruddy accessibility is in the store and ask for help loading the wheelchair. The clerk calls for Mr. Somebody. Management, I guess. When he sees what she wants, he tells her to get a kid named Henry to help. Henry’s friendly and eager to assist.

Afterthought: I should have insisted that Mr. Somebody help load the chair. Maybe it would open his eyes. That, or maybe I shoulda pulled down the wire display my wheelchair was hung up on.

One fruit of prayer is…patience. Damn.

We play Selah on the car CD.

Home. We talk about making a rosary after dinner. What a great day it’s been! Feels like a holiday weekend. It’s been a year or more since I’ve ventured out this much.

Sandy organizes all the beads. But after dinner, we both agree to put off making anything until tomorrow.

Thanks, Lord! What a great day You’ve given us together!

A bead is a bead is a bead, a knot is a knot—what counts is the heart!

William Congdon, crucifix 64, 1973.

webpage here. (I didn’t see permissions policy or copyright notice. I’ll be glad to abide by one if copyright holder lets me know.)

I’m learning to pray using the Catholic Rosary as a “method”—the word John Paul II used to describe the Rosary in his encyclical here. The page I refer to as I say the Rosary is here.

This morning I said the Rosary entire, all 20 mysteries, just to see what it’s like. I don’t know if experimentation takes away from the merit of the thing or not. But I don’t much care about merit, to be blunt. All that stuff about the goodies you get for saying the Rosary demeans it, just from my viewpoint.

I figure I’m a sinner and I’m standin’ in the need o’ prayer—any how any where any time. Especially contemplative prayer.

Growing up I heard lots of people pooh pooh Catholics and ritual prayers. But I noticed that often our Baptist prayers were rote. People said the same words over and over again and again. Only we never thought through what we said, never paid any mind to the beauty or cadence of our words. It wasn’t ritual; it was rut.

Well, no sermons.

One, my fingers are sore after sliding paper clips 200 times through thumb and index finger. It’s a cloudy, rainy day. Arthritis likes to come out and play anyway on such days.

Two, it took one hour, 21 minutes. I’m lucky enough to have that much solitude. Most people don’t.

Three, I did announce each Mystery (event in Jesus’ life) and spiritual fruit prayed for three times, not once, so that I’ll learn them. The unfamiliar ones I read through the description of, which is on the website (above).

I like the pictures. But the people are all white. Not a Middle Eastern complexion among them. So they somewhat hindered my reflection. I had to keep reminding myself that Jesus looked like a terrorist is supposed to look like. The same is true for everyone around him.

Do I feel a deep sense of peace, or of God’s presence? Not particularly.

The thing about ritual is, you gotta put it in place, use it until the edges fray a bit. Then, some day when it’s the last thing on your mind, ka zam!

You feel the Holy Spirit. You’re suddenly on Cloud 9.

However—it’s a big however—the Spirit is there as you’re building the house, there during every boring day, just as fully as the day when the air tingles and your feet don’t touch the ground. Those FX are spiritual cotton candy, lots of fun, but not essential. And every carnivore on the midway, including Satan, has a large display of them.

Nobody was praising God for the cotton candy at the cross.

Above is the catalogue picture of the Rosary. I chose the light one from www.latinworksco.com. Jeanene Atkinson at www.RealLivePreacher.com has some beautiful pieces, but I’m not ready to commit when I may burn out in a few days. So I found the least expensive item and one that honors my Mexican grandmother and her ancestors.

This morning I tipped my hat to my Baptist DNA and prayed the alternative Rosary-like prayer using

• the Shema in place of the initial three Hail Marys,
• John 3.16-17 KJV in place of the 10 Hail Marys in each decade,
• verses from Romans 8 in place of Hail Holy Queen,
• the Aaronic blessing, and
• a Pauline doxology to close.

I followed the Sorrowful Mysteries as described on the Dominican website. (See Praying the Rosary 2.)

There’s nothing here to offend Protestants or Radical Reform descendants. And it passed by so fast, I couldn’t believe I was done.

The biggest problem was that my paper clips separate, so I twisted them with plyers.

John 3.16-17 KJV is as close to the Hal Mary as you can get, in terms of its emotional punch. And it’s virtually a prayer for the salvation of the world. I know grammatically, it’s not supplication but it doesn’t take much of a leap of faith to get from “that the world through him might be saved” to a plea for everyone’s salvation.

I also like sticking with scripture, although I list the Prayer of St. Francis as an alternative, and retained the Apostle’s Creed. OK classic Baptists say, “No creed but Christ,” but in these days of anything goes, I doubt if a good simple creed hurts anybody—as long as there’s no inquisitor around stabbing us with each jot or tittle.

Why not change elements from time to time? Micah 6.8 is such a powerful text. And I haven’t read the psalms closely for appropriate supplications, of which there must be many.

I’m going to keep saying the Catholic version as well. I’m finding that it’s getting under my skin. I can’t keep from thinking about it. This is beginner’s infatuation, I guess. But I remain convinced there’s no reason why Catholics have to be the only ones saying the Rosary.

Your thoughts are welcome.