{"id":29884,"date":"2014-04-18T14:19:39","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T19:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=29884"},"modified":"2014-04-18T14:19:39","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T19:19:39","slug":"literary-worship-sacrament-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2014\/04\/literary-worship-sacrament-prayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Literary Worship: Sacrament Prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"broken<\/a>Sometimes I have a hard time concentrating during the Sacrament. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be difficult. My squirmy, distracting babies and toddlers have grown up; in fact, I play the organ, so my husband sits with the children on Sundays. I sit on the stand by myself, and try to keep my thoughts where they belong–focused on the sacred ordinance in which I am participating.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it’s difficult. Especially lately. I’ve been going though something of a spiritual desert. The feeling of comfort and safety and familiarity that I’ve long associated with church has been partially converted into doubts and questions and discomfort. I keep coming, because the Church is my spiritual home, and I still believe, and I have hope that somewhere in the desert there is an elusive oasis of peace. But the static of problematic gender roles, historical discrepancies, and damaging cultural practices sometimes hums so loudly in my ears that I have to strain to hear the gentle, soothing message of grace, redemption and spiritual community. I don’t always want to listen to my own thoughts as the bread and water come my way, and I’m tired of hearing myself pray in my head. I long for something to quiet the chatter of my mind–something that transcends the desperately attempted reverence of my thoughts.<\/p>\n

As I was listening to the Sacrament prayers one week–prayers that are blissfully, restfully identical every time–I remembered that I’d written my own sacrament prayers a few years ago. They’re not a substitute for the usual prayers, just a meditation on them. And they’ve been quietly collecting dust on my hard drive since I wrote them. So instead of trying to think reverent thoughts that Sunday, I stopped thinking, and just said the poem in my head. If I said it slowly, and pictured the images in my mind as I was saying it, it was exactly the right length to keep me occupied during the Sacrament, and give me a feeling of worship and completeness.<\/p>\n

I say my own Sacrament prayers in my mind as the bread and water are being passed every week now. And somehow, that act of celebration and individual creation focuses me, makes the ordinance deeply personal, and reaffirms my sometimes struggling faith.<\/p>\n

Although bread appears many times in the Scriptures and is a well-established metaphor for Christ, before I wrote this poem it had never occurred to me to picture Him actually baking bread. Somehow, though, it just felt right, perhaps because I have kneaded, shaped, and baked bread myself, and know the tenderness that can go into the intimate act of preparing food for someone you love. The poem interweaves the image of Christ as the master bread-baker with images of the unleavened bread of the Israelites during their flight from Egypt, the feeding of the five thousand, and the Sacrament table we set and eat from every week.<\/p>\n

In the spirit of an Easter gift for you, here is the first of my Sacrament prayers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bread of Life<\/p>\n

Not like the bread of our journey by night,
\nFashioned in haste, and then baked for our flight,
\nEaten in Egypt in sight of the sea,
\nSalted with sorrow, before we were free.<\/p>\n

Wheat won from tares, by an enemy sown,
\nGround fine by trial, the chaff sifted and blown,
\nShaped by a master and salted with love,
\nFilled with a leaven from heaven above.<\/p>\n

There where a multitude faints on the hill,
\nFed by his presence, yet hungering still,
\nBread from his hands heals their doubting and fear,
\nFills them with hope, and prepares them to hear.<\/p>\n

Wheat won from tares, by an enemy sown,
\nGround fine by trial, the chaff sifted and blown,
\nShaped by a master and salted with love,
\nFilled with a leaven from heaven above.<\/p>\n

Here as we eat at thy table today
\nBread of his body, left pierced on the tree,
\nStrengthen our hearts, drive our sorrow away,
\nFill us forever, and lift us to thee.<\/p>\n

image credit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I have a hard time concentrating during the Sacrament. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be difficult. My squirmy, distracting babies and toddlers have grown up; in fact, I play the organ, so my husband sits with the children on Sundays. I sit on the stand by myself, and try to keep my thoughts where they belong–focused on the sacred ordinance in which I am participating. Sometimes it’s difficult. Especially lately. I’ve been going though something of a spiritual desert. The feeling of comfort and safety and familiarity that I’ve long associated with church has been partially converted into doubts and questions and discomfort. I keep coming, because the Church is my spiritual home, and I still believe, and I have hope that somewhere in the desert there is an elusive oasis of peace. But the static of problematic gender roles, historical discrepancies, and damaging cultural practices sometimes hums so loudly in my ears that I have to strain to hear the gentle, soothing message of grace, redemption and spiritual community. I don’t always want to listen to my own thoughts as the bread and water come my way, and I’m tired of hearing myself pray in my head. I long for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":29903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2462],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-arts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/broken-bread.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29884"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29911,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29884\/revisions\/29911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}