Praying Out Loud
I went to the Women’s March again this year. I don’t know whether marches make change in the world, but I know they help sustain and encourage me. I come out of my house, where I spend too much time gasping at my television and worrying over my newsfeed, and I enter into a committed community. I am reminded I am part of a larger stream, that there are others who struggle and care as I do. Our raised signs and our raised voices are a song we care deeply about. It is a kind of life line.
I have other community that I show up for in my daily life for the same reasons… to be sustained, to remember who I am, and that I am not alone but part of a bigger story.
This year I was encouraged by a friend to make a sign to carry in the march. Every other year, I have been a reader of the signs only. They are a great source of delight. Some are fabulously creative, and others stunningly simple. And they all have heart. It is hard to carry around a sign for 4-5 hours and not be committed to its message. This year I took the challenge, and the night before the march, got out the markers and poster board at the kitchen table and made a commitment to words I could “march” behind.
Display at Women’s Hall of Fame
Seneca Falls, New York
On the same weekend, I went to another kind of march; a worship service remembering the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Every year I find a way to celebrate this modern prophet’s life. Again, I come out of my home where I weep over the long, long shadow of racism and its evils in our country and our world, and into community. And there we sing our guts out. We sing our prayers out, the gospel tradition rocking us backward and then forward. I am not alone, and I am strengthened by the faith and fortitude of this gathered community.
My primary spiritual practice is centering prayer. This silent prayer strengthens my life and centers me in my deepest, authentic self. But there are times I need to cry aloud and with others, to shout and sing at the top of my lungs. It is also how I breathe freely and pray deeply. My body needs it. My spirit needs it. And maybe the world needs it.
“God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way.
Thou who hast by Thy might,
led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee.
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
may we forever stand,
True to our God,
true to our native land.”
Blessings for your Journey,
Elizabeth+
