When I first heard this song, I thought it was probably from the 19th century. It isn’t. It’s from the 1990’s and Stuart Townend (the composer) wrote it as a hymn, which is a style different from his normal contemporary works. (Source)
I’m sharing it because I love it and it focuses on Jesus dying on the cross, which is what saves us as Christians.
Yes, I am technically writing this on Saturday and backdating it to Friday. Yes, I stink at doing Lent. Oh well.
As I am trying to figure out what to write about each day, I thought I would talk about some of the prayer resources I use in the event that people need something.
Also… I am an Amazon affiliate, so there will be Amazon affiliate links in this post.
So… here is what I like.
[+] Pray As You Go: This is what I mainly use right now. They give you some beautiful sacred music and a guided reflection based on Scripture. You can listen on the website, download it onto your computer, or get each day’s devotion on iTunes. I’m mostly listening on my laptop at 7 a.m. while I wait for my oatmeal to cool, but I’ve also listened in the car and it was my go-to when I lived in Montana and had an hour-long commute to and from work.
[+] Sacred Space: My best friend Rebecca introduced me to them 21 years ago. It’s guided reflections and they also have a prayerbook you can buy and keep on your e-reader.
[+] Devotional pamphlets: I used to use Our Daily Bread for 20 years, and I stopped using it in 2016 for reasons… which was also when I stopped praying as much. My church distributes Forward Day by Day, which is what we use on the occasions I actually make it to Mary’s Guild on Wednesday mornings. I based the Lenten devotional books around the format of these two. (If you want to download a copy of it, go here.)
[+] The Jesus Prayer: This is how I get through painful medical procedures. It’s simply “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I also do this a lot while I’m doing things like stripping the sheets off of my bed, cooking something that takes a long time, and on the drive home from Trader Joe’s in Bellingham. (That last one started when Daniel was being difficult on one trip up there, and I found that it calmed me so much that I made it a habit.) I find that things come into my mind to pray about when I do it.
[+] Extemporaneous prayer: Anyone who has ever spent time with me in a work environment has seen me randomly cross myself. It’s usually when I find out about someone who really needs prayer… so I pray for them. 🙂 It is also what I am doing as part of my kneeling prayers during Lent.
[+] Daily Devotions from the Book of Common Prayer: Again, anyone who has spent time with me at the college has seen me do this. I used to do it a lot while sitting in the hallway waiting for my Accounting class to start during my first year there. I had one person freak out because they thought I was in a trance and when I whispered “praying”, they got super apologetic. 🙂 Almost all of my classmates knew I prayed for them, and a number of my students know as well… and it’s actually been something really positive because it has started some interesting conversation and many of them have prayed for me during health crises. I have the BCP app on my phone, so I just use that.
Explaining the title. I sprained my foot and then proceeded to be my peripatetic self for two weeks until it got excruciatingly painful to put weight on it. So… I went to Urgent Care last Friday, got an x-ray done, and they put me in a walking boot. I asked if they couldn’t just show me how to tape it up, and the provider looked at me like I was crazy. (I am, but that’s not the point.)
So… I’ve been in the boot for about a week now and it’s helping me to not make it worse. It has also led to my priest calling me “Stumpy” (no, I didn’t kick him), one of my choir members teasing me about fighting him for the last pancake on Tuesday (I didn’t), and my evil twin commenting that I got “booted” for having unpaid parking tickets. Hmph.
Dress funnies. I woke up at 9:02 on Tuesday and had to be at the clinic for my appointment at 9:20. I hurriedly tossed on a dress and my fitness leggings, put a sock on my booted foot, shoved my foot into the boot, limped downstairs, put a dress shoe on my non-booted foot, and managed to make it out of the house by 9:10. I arrived at the clinic with coffee at 9:17. 😀 (My former mother-in-law used to joke that I could go from “zero to car” in 4 minutes… which is kind of accurate.)
However, I stunned my parents by wearing a dress on a day other than Sunday, and one of my co-tutors barked at me for wearing a dress on a day when I wasn’t on campus. I am now required to provide 24 hours notice to her if I plan to wear a dress so she can witness this. (I did send her a picture.)
Forsythia. My grandmother used to bring forsythia from her garden to church during this time of year before Lent started, so I brought some last Sunday in her memory. Mom picked it and forced it along toward opening. Those who knew Grandma and Grandpa loved it.
Facing my fears. Before worship yesterday, I asked our musician (who normally sings tenor in the choir) if he needed help with music during Communion. He said that he’d be happy to have me sing with him because it meant that I could sing in English and he could sing simultaneously in Spanish… which is how I ended up cantoring “I Am the Bread of Life” with him and inadvertently facing my fear of singing by myself in public. I now have no excuse not to take my own cantoring part in the Great Litany on Sunday… maybe.
Elizabeth Warren. She appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the videos are hysterically funny. It’s so good to see a candidate with a sense of humor. I’m sure she wouldn’t boycott the White House Correspondents Dinner like 45 has.
WTAF?!?!?!? This just infuriates me.
Kelly’s Lent. Girlfriend is crazy. Her Lenten list is here.
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.
Most of my readership is devoutly Catholic, so kneeling in church is normal for y’all. It is, however, not for a lot of Christians, and it can make me a bit self-conscious to be the only one kneeling on occasion.
When I came to faith as a teenager, it was normal in my church, so I honestly didn’t think anything of it. Then, I spent time in a bunch of ELCA and AALC parishes where anything remotely Catholic was weird. (This is not a denomination-wide thing, at least in the ELCA. It’s a matter of congregational culture.) When I was pregnant with Daniel and afterward, I did a lot of sitting due to fatigue and sometimes back pain, so I got out of the habit of kneeling.
In 2014, I went back to the Episcopal Church and it was put on my heart to kneel for the confession of sin. My parish at the time had the choir leading music from the back and we were in chairs, not pews, and our chairs did not give us a place to kneel in front. I would self-consciously take a knee in the style of Colin Kaepernick or I would walk to one of the chairs in the back and kneel there. My self-conscious feelings changed when I was helping with contemporary worship one month when one of the guitarists and his wife also went to one of the chairs in the back and knelt with me.
Another thing that impacted me during this time was watching the fathers of young kids in the congregation (some of whom were my age) go to the kneelers in front of the bank of candles and kneel there with their kids. I’m normally a people watcher, and I will admit that it warmed my heart to see this, especially as I could tell it was having an effect on the kids. It definitely lowered my feelings of self-consciousness.
At my current parish, the people I sit with normally are totally used to it and are totally fine when I tell them that I’m about to drop the kneeler. They’re so used to it, in fact, that they put it down for me. 🙂 I find that it is actually really helpful for my faith to have different prayer positions, and I am really happy to be part of a church who is completely respectful of me doing what works best for me.
Lent starts for those of us in the West next Wednesday at midnight. Here are some things that I will *NOT* give up for Lent this year.
Coffee. My Lenten discipline should be penitential for *ME*, not everyone around me. It’s also a safety risk for those who have to interact with me.
YouTube. I need entertainment, OK?
Yarn. Let’s not deprive me of one of my stress releases, y’all.
My iPod. Again, let’s not make me get rid of one of my stress releases. Singing along to it in traffic keeps me from inflicting my road rage on others.
Sleep. I do this enough already!
Swearing. I’d be broke within the first day of having a swear jar for Lent. (I’m pretty sure my students would have a pool going as to which hour this was going to go down.)
Pens. I have a little bit of a pen addiction…
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.
I need this. Seriously, I need this.
Oh my stinking heck… One of the channels on Comcast has “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” on at night, and I’m watching it right now. Let’s just say that I’m laughing my butt off and waiting for the episode where Ryan breaks the light on Drew Carey’s desk.
Regarding my alien abduction… I got the results of my alien abduction sleep study today. Apparently, I have mild sleep apnea. My doctor sent the request over to my local home health care place today, and I will (God willing) have a CPAP machine in a few weeks.
State of the Union 2019. Because of the government shutdown and lack of adequate security, the State of the Union address might not be happening. (The DHS director says otherwise, but she is grossly underestimating the feces storm that is going to take place with all those security people having to pull this together in twoish weeks while being on furlough. I mean… we’re talking 45’s Secret Service detail and security for every member of Congress, the Supreme Court justices, and all the guests.)
It could be delivered in written form as it was up until ~100 years ago… or maybe Mango Mussolini will do it via Twitter!
Lenten disciplines. I’m pondering the idea of raffling off the chance to choose my Lenten discipline again. Any takers? 🙂
*squees* OHMIGOSH! KELLY POSTED A HOUSE TOUR!!! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Climate change. So, um, let’s talk about the fact that WE HAVE NOT GOTTEN ANY SNOW THIS WINTER AND WE’RE IN THE FREAKING NORTHERN USA!!!!
For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.
For Today… January 15, 2019
Looking out my window… dark. It was not bad today — not warm but sunny.
I am thinking… about the design project for my Publisher class on which I am procrastinating by creating this blog post.
I am thankful… for a good start to tutoring this quarter.
One of my favorite things… this song. (I am spoofing it for my design project.)
I am wearing… jammies. It’s only 5:30 p.m., but I’m fighting a cold and it’s been a long day.
I am creating… this blog post. 😉
I am reading… Nailed It by Anne Kennedy.
I am hoping… that people get all the Jennifer/Jenni puns in my design project.
I am learning… about alignment and proximity.
In my kitchen… salad tonight. My cold is making swallowing painful, so it was a chore to find something I actually wanted to eat.
Post Script… this blog. Because her book was AWESOME.
Shared Quote… “‘NO’ is a complete sentence.” — me on Sunday when asking people to write devotions for me this Lent.
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