Inclusive. Sacred. Authentic.

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Praying the Hours - A Lenten spiritual practice Are you looking to connect with your deeper self and the Holy? Do you seek to deepen your connection with God and others?

1 Praying the Hours - A Lenten spiritual practice Are you looking to connect with your deeper self and the Holy? Do you seek to deepen your connection with God and others? This Lent, we invite you to participate in a four-week daily prayer practice. Our congregation and extended community will engage with a simplified version of the Liturgy of the Hours which dates back to the early Christians and continues to the modern day. Praying the Hours, our spiritual practice for Lent, is a curated collection of prayers, psalms, songs, photos and liturgy designed to help our community pray together wherever we are. Each weekday for four weeks we will share words and images to encourage prayer and contemplation. We will follow the rhythms of the days posting content in the morning, during the day, in the evening and at night. This rich collection takes the best of the old and reinvigorates it with fresh energy for renewal. Special thanks to our contributors: Beth H., Christina W., Linda M., Todd B., Trisha S. and Win K. What. In the weeks leading up to Holy Week, we will examine prayer at Dawn, Day, Dusk and Dark. Our curated and contributed content from the Fairfield United Church community will be shared on our Facebook page and will be available in a booklet at our Sunday gatherings, and as a PDF download on our website. Dawn Hour begins with wonder and rejoicing. This offering is to be recited/viewed upon waking. Day Hour, so full of thanksgiving and rejoicing. This offering is to be said/viewed during the day. Dusk Offering is read/viewed in the early evening and includes beautiful thoughts to end the day. Dark Offering comes right before bed to take you into the night. Why. This practice is intended to nurture connection and ground our community through the ritual of daily, focused prayer during which we open ourselves to the divine presence. Who. Everyone who gathers with us on Sunday or who participates in our community online is encouraged to take part and enrichen this practice. When. From February 26 to March 23, we will post one curated piece of content on Facebook each weekday at 7 am, 1 pm, 6 pm and 8 pm. All are encouraged reflect and engage at these times each weekday during this period. Inclusive. Sacred. Authentic.

2 LECTIO DIVINA: Sacred Reading Steps Silence is the language of God; all else is a poor translation. ~ Rumi Sacred Reading can be used with any sacred text, inspiring poetry, art, or place in nature. All of these can be expressions of the Word. 1. Take a few minutes to come to silence. Allow yourself to feel grounded in the earth, and surrounded by and filled with Divine Light. 2. Read the text twice slowly. 3. Allow a word, phrase or image to land. Trust whatever comes to you. 4. Now with the rhythm of your breath, breathe this word, phrase or image. Allow yourself to chew on the word, to savour it, rolling it over on your tongue. Spend several minutes just breathing the word or phrase. You might start with two or three minutes and then move up to five minutes; and then longer if you wish. 5. When you are ready, let the word/phrase/image go. REST in the silence; rest in the presence of the Divine. No words. No place to go; nothing to do. Take at least one minute or longer. 6. Finally, send out a prayer for whatever you need at this time. This prayer is often inspired by the meditation. Lectio Divina can be very powerful, even transformational. It originated with the Benedictine monks in the 6th century. It is like whole food for the soul. It combines the reading of the passage with meditation: focusing on a particular word/phrase/image. It concludes with contemplation resting in the silence; surrendering to the silence; and then a prayer of thanks or petition. This practice helps us enter into this one moment: the sacrament of the moment. We open ourselves to the Divine Presence however this Presence appears in this one moment. In this pondering, our own emotions or feelings may arise. Stay with these. If we continue to ponder the word/phrase/image throughout the day, the practice continues to work within us. Lectio Divina helps us to gather in our fractured, distracted, noise polluted selves (A Book of Hours, p. 28). It provides us with the opportunity to experience our deep transcendent selves as divine creations. This is the gift of salvation that Jesus promised. Resources: Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, ed. by Kathleen Deignan. Christine Valters Paintner, Lectio Divina Inclusive. Sacred. Authentic.

Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Monday, March 5 DAWN - 7 am I don t want to be the only one here Telling all the secrets Filling up all the bowls at this party, Taking all the

3 Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Monday, March 5 DAWN - 7 am I don t want to be the only one here Telling all the secrets Filling up all the bowls at this party, Taking all the laughs. I would like you To start putting things on the table That can also feed the soul The way I do. That way We can invite A hell of a lot more Friends. ~ Hafiz, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, The Soul Aflame, ed. by Phil Cousineau DUSK - 6 pm DAY - 1 pm GETHSEMANE The grass never sleeps. Or the roses. Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning. Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept. The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet, and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body, and heaven knows if it ever sleeps. Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn t move, maybe the lake far away, where once he walked as on a blue pavement, lay still and waited, wild awake. Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not keep that vigil, how they must have wept, so utterly human, knowing this too must be a part of the story. ~ Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006 DARK - 8 pm For the quiet that surrounds me and your promise of deep peace within, for the stillness of sleep for my body and the hope of healing for my soul, thanks be to you, O God. ~ Celtic Benediction, J. Philip Newell ~ Center for Action and Contemplation

Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Tuesday, March 6 DAwn - 7 am So many people gave me something or were something to me without knowing it.

DAy - 1 pm We find ourselves in a new movment of thought. In a movement where, through science and through the searching of our hearts, everything has become mysterious.

4 Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Tuesday, March 6 DAwn - 7 am So many people gave me something or were something to me without knowing it... I always think that we all live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life. These significant hours do not announce themselves as coming but arrive unexpected. DAy - 1 pm We find ourselves in a new movment of thought. In a movement where, through science and through the searching of our hearts, everything has become mysterious. Science has led us from knowledge to knowledge but also from mystery to mystery. Mystery alone can lead us on to true spirituality, to accept and be filled with the mystery of life in our existence. ~ Albert Schweitzer, The Soul Aflame, ed. by Phil Cousineau DarK - 8 pm Dusk - 6 pm "There is always the temptation in life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for years on end. It is all so self conscience, so apparently moral. But I won't have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous...more extravagant and bright. We are...raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus." ~ Annie Dillard

Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Wednesday, March 7 Dawn - 7 am You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than

5 Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 Wednesday, March 7 Dawn - 7 am You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. ~The Buddha Dusk - 6 pm Sophia You are the whirling wings, circling, encompassing energy of the Divine; you quicken the world in your clasp. One wing soars in heaven. One wing sweeps the earth and the third flies all around us. DAY - 1 pm One day the hero sits down, afraid to take another step, and the old interior angel limps slowly in with her no-nonsense compassion and her old secret and goes ahead. Namaste you say and follow. ~ David Whyte, The Heart Aroused Dark - 8 pm Praise to Sophia! Let all the earth praise her. ~ Hildegard von Bingen

6 Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 thursday, March 8 DAwn - 7 am There is in all thing an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in the wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility, This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator's Thought and Are within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom. ~ Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, ed. by Kathleen Deignan dusk - 6 pm THE ART OF LETTING THINGS HAPPEN The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became for me the key opening the door to the way. We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this actually is an art of which few people know anything. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating, and never leaving the simple growth of the psychic processes in peace. - Carl Jung, quoted in Original Blessing, Matthew Fox day - 1 pm Just sit there right now Don t do a thing Just rest. For your separation from God, From love, Is the hardest work In this World. Let me bring you trays of food And something That you like to Drink. You can use my soft words As a cushion For your Head. ~ Hafiz, trans. by Daniel Ladinsky Dark - 8 pm SLEEPING IN THE FOREST I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars by my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. ~ Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems: Volume One

7 Praying the Hours - Fairfield United Church - Lent 2018 friday, March 9 Dawn - 7 am DAy - 1 pm Today, like any other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Well, I think the soul is certainly a feeling that is transmitted in one way or another. There is a transmitter and there is a receiver. Sometimes the transmitter is the artist, and the receiver is the audience, and sometimes it s vice versa. In those moments of spontaneity, the audience is the transmitter and the artist is the receiver. It s something that s very empathetic and it s deep. Soul is deep. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ~ Aretha Franklin, The Soul Aflame, ed. by Phil Cousineau ~ Rumi Dusk - 6 pm Dark - 8 pm You ask of me nothing else than to be content that I am your Child and your Friend, simply to accept your friendship because it is your friendship. This friendship is Spirit. You have called me to be repeatedly born in the Spirit, repeatedly born in light, in knowledge, in unknowing, in faith, in awareness, in gratitude, in poverty, in presence, and in praise. If you would indeed behold the spirit Of death, open your heart wide Unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the River and the sea are one. ~ Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, ed. by Kathleen Deignan ~ Kahlil Gibran

Inclusive. Sacred. Authentic.

Inclusive. Sacred. Authentic. Praying the Hours - A Lenten spiritual practice Are you looking to connect with your deeper self and the Holy? Do you seek to deepen your connection with God and others? This Lent, we invite you to participate