Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

This week under both social distancing measures and an 8pm curfew I have made it a point to spend the 7-8pm hour outside. It’s when I take a long run in a loop around downtown and see people, the sunset, and join in the scurry of the last permissible hour out and about.

The thing is, I’m not a very good runner. The hour doesn’t mean I’m running for an hour, it basically just means I’m sweating for an hour, jogging for a little while, hitting a nice speed on a downhill, taking rests and walking when I need to. This time helps to clear my head enough from the day to allow prayers more freely to pop up. Under the pressure cooker of the present moment I find myself with a litany at the end of day.

On these "runs" I have plenty of time to pray for a man known to his friends as Floyd. Plenty of time to pray for my sister who went back to working in a big hospital in Atlanta this week. Plenty of time for Hail Mary’s, Jesus prayers, and what the hells. Plenty of time to wonder, can those helicopters flying over downtown see anything? Plenty of time to remember the nightly police helicopters that circled my house in Baltimore when I lived there, and to wonder if that sound brings up PTSD for anyone who has served in the military or in the police, or who has been tracked by one of those helicopters. Plenty of time to smile at the small clusters of protesters scurrying off to beat the curfew home. Plenty of time to remember the staggering weight of all of the beloved people who have died from the Pandemic and whose families may not be able to bury them.

We all carry worlds of experience with us, in our bodies, minds, and spirits, and we know movement and prayer can help piece these worlds together. The sorrow and anger bound up in this time seems to make this all more important, if all the more difficult. 

A few weeks ago on Rogation Sunday you may remember the Great Litany being prayed. Traditionally prayed on Rogation Days, on Fridays, and useable any time at all, it covers the gambit of the human need we could bring to God. We know the litany is not the only way to pray in times of peril, but it may help to teach us how to pray when there are no words other than "Good Lord, deliver us." Is this moment teaching you to pray in a new way? Perhaps with old familiar words? Perhaps with new images and hopes? May our prayers shape our desires for God's love and justice.

In Christ,
Mtr Taylor