Why Morning Prayer

  Posted on February 28, 2023  by admin  No comments

“Guide us in your way oh God; and we shall follow where you lead!”
For many mornings during the pandemic of 2020 when I had no idea what the day would bring, these words were the only comfort. The months of March, April, May and even June were full of terrible anxiety. People I knew and loved had died, friends and family were infected and affected both far and near. I constantly feared that my mother, or my daughter, or my immune compromised brother would get ill and not have access to the lifesaving drugs that were not yet available and worse yet, that if the worst happened, I would not be able to travel because of my own health situation. Fear of loved ones dying alone became a morbid obsession. Anxiety morphed into depression, and I knew that this was a deep, dark valley within which I did not want to dwell permanently. Then came our mornings by the river with Father Daniel and that warm invitation to prayer and silence in the early morning, which saved my sanity and deepened my spiritual connection with a God that I prayed would deliver us from the scourge
of the pandemic. As usual God answered my prayer but, in his time, and a little differently from
what I expected.
One of our well-known and well-loved parishioners, Usil Skinner wanted to participate in the Morning Prayer by the river but did not have a computer or a reliable tablet to do so with. She did, however, have a smart phone and we initially began with my calling her and putting my phone to my laptop speaker so she could hear even if she could not see with was happening each morning and evening. Eventually with the skill and kindness of another of our beloved community, Donna Lewis, Usil was able to be connected by tablet and or by phone and could fully participate with others praying on the river. For Usil it was a lifeline and daily I would call her and connect her through her phone to the events on the river, or when she got really tech savvy to check in that all was well. We were also developing a close companionship and so even after she did not need me to connect her to the live Facebook stream, we continued to pray together. There was something about praying with another person that was comforting and made you feel connected in a very special way.
After several months of daily prayer offering both morning and evening, Father Daniel handed the reins over to some of the praying faithful to continue the efforts both on Facebook and with the advent of Zoom becoming a popular medium of communication, on Zoom. Ginny Balser, Joe Shafranek and I became the core team of prayer leaders with others coming in for short periods in time.
Usil and I continued to pray together for over a year. We prayed morning and evening. We deepened our relationship and developed a spiritual bond that made me miss her anytime I had to travel, as she became an integral part of my morning prayer and my daily life. Usil is a prayer warrior, steeped in Anglicanism. She knows the book of common prayer; it psalms and hymns with a familiarity that comes from years of practice. It was always a joy to pray with her and to feel at the end of our prayers renewed, connected and ready for whatever our day had in store.
We prayed not only for ourselves and our families but for our church family, our country, our birth places, the wider world around us and the situations that kept us awake at night. We prayed during the awful George Floyd murder, through school shootings and other massacres, through earthquakes and political unrest. Soon our prayer circle would widen as we began Morning prayer on Zoom.
We started with 8 to 10 people and for the past two years we have remained faithful to our Tuesday and Thursday morning Zoom morning prayer. We are a small group with the core group of us coming from St. Paul’s and two members who join us from New York and Germany respectively. We let God guide our daily prayer and Bible meditation for the day, always taking away something, a word or phrase that will keep us grounded. We meet no matter what else is going on in our lives because for us the power in praying together has seen us through the past two years. And so this Lent we invite you to join us and walk with us as we add another day of prayer to our Lenten practice. It is very easy. Just click on the link which is on our calendar on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday at 8.30 am in the morning and know the prayer warriors will be there to welcome you to our special morning time.