I am an Episcopal priest, retired and grateful for the opportunity to host this sacred space - a chapel of sorts. This is a gathering place for all people and traditions to offer prayers of concern and celebration. It is an honor to welcome you.

Saturday Prayers - As night’s darkness moves toward dawn’s first light, you are invited to leave your prayer requests here in the comments.

Pray- with a single word.

Pray- with a single name.

Pray- with explanation or none.

No format, just an invitation to share

I will pray with you, and I know others who will join us in doing the same. As you read each prayer, please support one another by using the ‘like’ option so all may know we are praying with them.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting ~ a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The beauty of moments – is that you never know when you're making a cherished memory.

Moments with Millie (Millie Mestril)

These words have become a mantra for me. It is an ancient truth spoken again by a creative and ever-wise friend – many moments pass while we hurry to move through the hours and days of life. More often than not, the moments that become most cherished are discovered as we look back.

To be aware of ‘the now’ is not an easy task! It takes a discipline that requires a certain way of living when time is set apart to practice this type of awareness.

Most of us struggle to find enough hours in a day. The world spins at a speed at which we can barely balance. Even so, each moment remains unto itself.

Could there be time this day for you to practice awareness?

No time like the present…

I am an Episcopal priest, retired and grateful for the opportunity to host this sacred space - a chapel of sorts. This is a gathering place for all people and traditions to offer prayers of concern and celebration. It is an honor to welcome you.

Saturday Prayers - As night’s darkness moves toward dawn’s first light, you are invited to leave your prayer requests here in the comments.

Pray- with a single word.

Pray- with a single name.

Pray- with explanation or none.

No format, just an invitation to share

I will pray with you, and I know others who will join us in doing the same. As you read each prayer, please support one another by using the ‘like’ option so all may know we are praying with them.

“Somewhere in a garden at the half-light of day, someone spoke a name, and the world began again.”

(the Rev. Phillip Craig, St. James Episcopal, Wilmington, NC)

These were the last words in my brother’s sermon Easter morning.

They stayed with me all day. As he said them I could sense their importance. It was as if they held a kernel of Hope that my heart was ready to receive and plant deep within.

Easter is a whole day focused on Hope. Hope for something better. Hope for life. Hope for health. Hope for a safe place to belong.

These are things we long for each and every day. To wake up and realize that all of life has begun again may feel a little extreme. We always awaken to the facts from the day before. The burdens and concerns that we may carry don’t magically go away.

But in reality, there is truth to the idea of a new start to each day..

The sun rises on a new day giving us an opportunity to capture a moment of Hope. It may be seen as the crystal in your window begins to fill your room with colors of the rainbow. It may be heard as the first notes of your favorite song begins to play.

It can be a simple act, no need for many words. A second to take in the fresh air and new life given at sunrise.

A moment to imagine what it means for the world to begin again.

To have lived through the day of silent waiting. No way to care for their beloved because there was no work to be done on the Sabbath. The minutes must have felt like hours, the hours like days.

Before the sun’s light crested over the horizon, these women set out to perform the rituals after a loved one had died. They went to cleanse his body with fragrant oils and their tears.

Mary Magdalene arrived ahead of the others…

Quote: St. Paul
Image: J. Kirk Richards

“…And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.”

a day of waiting - silence can feel overwhelming
we are in a holding pattern

we know what to expect as the sun rises tomorrow

but for those who were rocking with grief for the loss of their friend and teacher, they could not imagine a rising Sun.

Night was all around. The words of new life felt far away and maybe forgotten. A whisper would come at the first glimpse of dawn.

For now, we wait together…

Quote: Maya Angelou, ‘When Great Trees Fall’

Photo:

Sometimes the path goes dark and silent,
do we turn and run,

or push ahead seeking light on the other side?

J. Richard Lessor

May we let go, and grow bright as stars in a clear, frosty night, the more we are stripped of what we thought we could not do without.

Quote: Brother David Steindl- Rast

It is an evening to consider exactly what it means to let go, to be stripped of what we thought we could not do without. In the Christian tradition, tonight is filled with painful separation.

None of us can imagine what it must feel like. To be separated from those we love. The heart pleads for release and return. We can’t imagine what this would feel like until the moment it’s before us. The disciples watched as their teacher, friend and holy one was dragged away, leaving them in shock, grief and fear.

The following days were filled with horror and deep sadness. and then a turn that shed light on all that was possible.

Alone, without the things we thought were necessary to live, may we seek signs of that light in one another. And wait..

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift,

woven around the heart of wonder.

Anxiety had probably lingered much longer than Jesus ever thought possible.

He received comfort where he could. And as Monday’s gospel reading from John shared, the comfort he found after entering Jerusalem was in the home of dear friends.

Martha, Lazarus, and Mary opened their doors to welcome their friend and his followers.

Food is always considered a balm. And so a table was spread.

It's possible that Mary knew the risk Jesus was taking as he entered the walls of Jerusalem. Was she telling him she knew by washing his feet with heart and soul? That precious oil and her hands were a balm.

The tension in that home eluded no one. The city’s leadership hovered nearby, gathering information here and there. Information they would use when arresting Jesus.

His own disciple, Judas, showed his dissatisfaction with Jesus’ leadership, once again. It would not be long before this disappointment and frustration would lead Judas to betrayal.

This is Wednesday of Holy Week. Today's gospel reading from John tells of a shared supper among Jesus and his disciples.

Once again, food was balm.

Breaking bread and passing a cup would become a sacred act in the years to follow. Today, we hear the words “Do this and remember me” in churches offering communion or the Lord’s Supper, and we are taken back to this shared meal.

Tension was right outside the door. Yet, Jesus knew the importance of teaching his followers how to “celebrate the quiet miracles.”

The time spent around this table together would go by quickly. Soon, the outside tension and noise would surround everyone. Remembering this meal would be understood as a gift, holy and healing.

Quote: John O’Donohue, from For Presence

“There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life. Sometimes we seek out a quiet spot and want to be alone, sometimes we look for a friend and want to be together… Sometimes we want to say it with words, sometimes with a deep silence.

In all these moments, we gradually make our lives more of a prayer and we open our hands to be led by God even to places we would rather not go.” Henri Nouwen

I started this Lenten season with this quote from Henry Nouwen. I reflected on it as a way to begin the 40 days leading up to Easter. It felt like a call to be patient with myself as I journeyed through these days. It felt like an encouragement to find creative ways to pray, which became more creative than I could have ever imagined!

From crayons, different forms of meditation, and great conversations with other people who are disabled, I realized that I have learned a variety of ways to pray over the years. This Lent was a season to experience that variety alone and in community.

In preparation for today, Palm Sunday, I revisited my own reflections during this Lent and found myself sitting with Nouwen's quote once again. It has become the bookend to my Lent 2026.

While reading the passage about Jesus’ preparation and entrance into Jerusalem through the East or Golden Gate, I kept returning to the description of what happened after he crested the hill outside of Jerusalem. He approached the city from the towns of Bethany and Bethphage in the east. Surrounded by his disciples and celebrated by crowds raising palms and singing hosannas, Jesus stops and looks ahead at the city.

As if I had never read it before, the following verses described his emotion as he looked at the city.

He wept.

With a heart filled with compassion and sadness, Jesus anticipated the suffering that was ahead not only for himself but for Jerusalem. (Luke 19:41-44). I felt a tender ache as I read these words.

He had just been crying in front of Lazarus's tomb, again feeling the deep emotion and loss from all who had come to share in the loss. And certainly feeling his own emotion.

I can imagine him sitting on the hillside with Bethany behind him, looking out over the land toward the East Gate into Jerusalem. If the hill was high enough, he could probably get a view of the city itself. His compassion was overwhelming. His next move was daunting.

We hear of anticipated grief. We experience anticipated grief. I remember once when a loved one died, I told a friend, “I just don't want to go down the path I see before me. I can only anticipate the place grief's journey will take me.” There is nothing easy about that journey.

Grateful to have slowed down enough to take in this reading, I have sat on such a hillside today. I have looked out over my own world and taken in its fragile state. I have looked into the eyes of dear friends, making decisions the best they can as they begin their own anticipated grief due to illness and aging. Today's prayer has been a time of focus on what appears to be ahead, with a slight sense of hope and the promise of new life.

This day comes to a close. As we move into Holy Week, I will leave this hillside grateful to have found it. I will take Nouwen’s words to heart as the story unfolds this week, as I look for the places I can pray with or without words.

I am an Episcopal priest, retired and grateful for the opportunity to host this sacred space - a chapel of sorts. This is a gathering place for all people and traditions to offer prayers of concern and celebration. It is an honor to welcome you.

Saturday Prayers - As night’s darkness moves toward dawn’s first light, you are invited to leave your prayer requests here in the comments.

Pray- with a single word.

Pray- with a single name.

Pray- with explanation or none.

No format, just an invitation to share

I will pray with you, and I know others who will join us in doing the same. As you read each prayer, please support one another by using the ‘like’ option so all may know we are praying with them.

Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them.

But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.

Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

Hermann Hesse, Trees, Reflections and Poems

I keep yearning for this friendship with life, which is the deeper home I am returned to when I put down all I carry, or when I quiet the noise of my mind and slow the friction of the world, or when I part the veils that keep accumulating between me and life. Our friendship with life is the ever-present sanctuary of being that waits beneath our struggles.

Nepo, Mark. The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life (p. 170). (Function). Kindle Edition.

I am an Episcopal priest, retired and grateful for the opportunity to host this sacred space - a chapel of sorts. This is a gathering place for all people and traditions to offer prayers of concern and celebration. It is an honor to welcome you.

Saturday Prayers - As night’s darkness moves toward dawn’s first light, you are invited to leave your prayer requests here in the comments.

Pray- with a single word.

Pray- with a single name.

Pray- with explanation or none.

No format, just an invitation to share

I will pray with you, and I know others who will join us in doing the same. As you read each prayer, please support one another by using the ‘like’ option so all may know we are praying with them.

Carpet of daffodils –the first day of spring (Roadkill Crossing)

Thank you,

“The day will come when what burdens you now will be lifted from your shoulders, when your pain will be gone, when your sorrow will be no more. It will come to you as surely as the dawn, as a promise kept, as a hope fulfilled. Nothing will stop it. Nothing will hold it back—not your past, not your current circumstances. It will come—a gentle but insistent healing, a redemption, a fresh start, a renewal of the heart—and it will change everything. This is not a prophecy, but a pattern, for mercy and forgiveness always return to find us, love always seeks us out among the crowd, and the Spirit will never relent until all her children are safe once more.”

Steven Charleston. Ladder to the Light

This is one of my favorite days of the year! I am glad to live in a part of the world where nature changes along with the seasons. The transition seasons are particularly inspirational for me, and so I welcome spring.

As winter fades, I anticipate the subtle hints of new life and rebirth. The evening sun is beginning to call me to slow my wheelchair to a quiet roll, and with that reminder comes a sense of peace and calm. The daffodils announce Spring's arrival, leading the return of buds on the trees and flowers in our gardens.

“It will come to you as surely as the dawn, as a promise kept, as a hope fulfilled.”Steven Charleston’s words describe my anticipation as the season moves from winter to spring. I am grateful for this transition.

Welcome spring! May we receive your energy as renewal. May we share this energy with all reaching out for hope and care.

For the last two weeks this country’s news and news from all over the world has drawn our attention to tragic stories of people’s lives being changed forever through senseless, angry and disturbing acts of violence.

Wait… did I not write about this three weeks ago, last month and the month before that?

No need to be flippant.

Everyone is aware of the state of affairs in this country and the dangerous anger rampant in our world. We may not all agree on what to do but many of us are certain that something must be done.

May we look upon our world for all its beauty and its danger and move forward with fearless compassion.

May this movement be like a prayer. Called to repent, instructed to prepare – may we seek to find the points of light streaming through the dark clouds before us. Light that brightens a path to peace and safety.

Oh Tender Mercy,

Dawn upon us this morning,
Break into the shadows of death
that seem to be overwhelming
the many worlds in which we live, and those in which we don’t that surround us.
Oh Tender Mercy,
We pray for thosej
who are in mourning,
who grieve,
who are suffering in the desolation of loss,
who are drowning in the pain of the senselessness of violence.
Bring forth the light of hope to hold them as they sit in the shadows.
In silence and word, we offer prayers for those we know who are struggling: (silence)
O Tender Mercy,
Break upon us with your dawning,
Guide our feet with the strength of our prayers,
to walk in the ways of peace with action,
to do what we can do as your people
to pave ways of peace wherever we go.
O Tender Mercy,
Your dawn is new every morning,
and we are grateful the points of light in our lives, in the midst of the shadows around us. Your love prevails.
O Tender Mercy,
Break forth among and within us.
Amen.

(RCL from RevGalBlogs )

This post is inspired by Kelly Mack’s series on responding to pity as a person with a disability. I recommend this series and her Substack blog, Rolling With It!

When you look at another person, what do you see? I believe looking at someone else can be like looking in a mirror.

“You are so amazing!“ (in reference to me holding a sandwich)

“I could not do what you do.“ (in reference to giving directions to put on my shoes)

“Do you have a license to drive that thing?” (in reference to my electric wheelchair)

Throughout my life, I've enjoyed meeting people. I would describe myself as a ‘people person’! Yes, the wheelchair, my wheelchair, draws attention. Most of the time, I don't notice the stare or whisper. But honestly, it is hard to ignore the personal declarations made by strangers when they see me going through a normal day.

There can be obvious discomfort. I know I don't always blend in, who does?! I naturally seek things we have in common when approaching a new gathering, even though I always believe our differences make us more interesting to each other.

I am never truly in control of how I am perceived.This is true for everyone. From a young age, I learned the price I might pay if I focused too much on trying to be in control.

Throughout my life, children have seen me and naturally begun to reach out with curiosity. When I was young, kids would notice me as a peer who looked different, which caught their attention. Of course, it caught their attention! They were children and were not shy to come toward me with questions. But as quickly as their curiosity sparked, they would be gathered up by a protective parent or other adult, told to stay away, and to be quiet.

It was as if I were contagious.

My family had a favorite restaurant. It served amazing seafood, and on special occasions, we would go to enjoy a night of everything fried.

On one of those evenings. I remember driving down the long road past what I now know as a stocked pond and unloading the car with mouthwatering anticipation. The dinner met all of our expectations. When we were done, Daddy went to pay the bill while Mom took my sister to the bathroom. I sat at the more accessible end of a booth where my wheelchair could roll under the table.

With my back to the restaurant, I waited for their return.

Without any introduction, an arm reached around from behind my chair and slipped something into my hand. Before I could figure out what was happening, a man stood beside me, patting me on the head with a look of pity and compassion. There were no words, and just as fast, he was gone. I looked in my hand to find two one-dollar bills.

Immediately, tears began to flow. They were hot tears of frustration and embarrassment. I did not understand. At the young age of seven, I felt the awkwardness of being different. With no interest in my name or anything else about me, this man left me with a powerful sense of helplessness. My parents returned to find a very upset child. I did not want the money.

I felt violated.

I have little memory of what my parents said, but I do remember that they added more money to what had been given, and I came home from that dinner with a new doll.

I have never forgotten that night. What happened in that restaurant taught me a most difficult lesson about what it meant to be different.

This experience would repeat as I moved from childhood to adulthood. Money may not be left in my hand at this stage of life, but people reveal their own discomfort by making awkward comments as we pass one another.

So many people live their lives and are not seen. They make decisions about what they wear, where they go, and how they engage with the world with little input from people around them. For those of us with disabilities, our unique ways of living often make us more visible. We often become a mirror for the world’s own complicated feelings about what it means to be different.

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” Thoreau could not have put it better.

I am an Episcopal priest, retired and grateful for the opportunity to host this sacred space - a chapel of sorts. This is a gathering place for all people and traditions to offer prayers of concern and celebration. It is an honor to welcome you.

Saturday Prayers - As night’s darkness moves toward dawn’s first light, you are invited to leave your prayer requests here in the comments.

Pray- with a single word.

Pray- with a single name.

Pray- with explanation or none.

No format, just an invitation to share

I will pray with you, and I know others who will join us in doing the same. As you read each prayer, please support one another by using the ‘like’ option so all may know we are praying with them.

At any time, you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter?

What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it?

A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms, and atmospheres.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us